"You are an Ironman" and other good times of late

Last week was a good one full of good times. On Wednesday I got to attend Tasia's Dixie College pre-school graduation. She was pretty proud of graduating and was very enthusiastic as they performed songs in a little program for their parents and others attending the big event. She even got to wear a mini cap and gown and walk through the "D" to receive her diploma. Way to go Tasia!

The next good time was attending the Kurt Bestor "Night at the Movies" concert with the Utah Symphony-a journey through the last 85 years of movie music. Using a giant screen, guest vocalists, and his usual concert repartee with the audience, Bestor traced the art of film scoring from its silent piano roots to today's exciting scores. I found a coupon for tickets and it was a very enjoyable evening.

We kept trying to think of a hike to take on Saturday, but decided to stay local to be sure and be here in the evening to attend the best time of the week...Kaebri's baptism and the birthday get together afterwards. It was a very nice baptism and made even nicer by Lenae giving one of the talks and also bearing her testimony. We are so proud of Kaebri! (It was also nice to be able to see Lou and kids for a few hours and so nice of them to make the drive down for the baptism.)

Since we didn't go for a hike on Saturday,we got lots of errands done and still had time left over to head to the Jim Jones exhibit at the St. George Art Museum. We love his paintings of the Grand Canyon and Zion Park and thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit. (Didn't much care for the downstairs watercolor exhibit.)

Then we headed down to watch the first bikers coming in at the Ironman. I wasn't that excited about the whole thing, but hearing Moss talk about all he was doing to take care of the swim part got me excited and then seeing the bikers coming in and just being at the site was really inspiring. One guy had gotten in a bike wreck and I heard that he broke his collar bone. Paul saw him get off his bike and start the running part of the race with his arm all wrapped up with ice and tape. He looked pretty bad. We went down about 10:00 that night to see some of the runners coming in. We didn't see that guy, but did hear that he finished. It was so cool seeing people coming across that finish line knowing how much work they had done to get to that point. I know how tired I feel just doing a 100 mile bike ride that takes me quite a bit of the day. I'm glad we didn't miss it. We need to volunteer to help with it next year. (Every time someone finished the guy on the loudspeaker would announce, "You are an Ironman" along with their time, name and age. We could hear this going on clear up at our house.)

Sunday evening was another good time as Paul,Grandma Kurtz and I headed out to Ferf and Ryan's to see their 4 new little goats. They are adorable. It was fun to see the all the kids at the house interacting together. Koen was so funny trying to catch the little goats wagging tails.

Today we had the bittersweet experience of attending the funeral of Bro. Jay Blake. I didn't know Bro. Blake well, but have watched the great example that he, his wife, and family have set for many years in our ward. He and his wife have raised 9 amazing kids, weathered hard times, kept a wonderful attitude and just endured the race well. They are just plain good people living the gospel. The thing he was most proud of was having had all 6 of his boys receive their Eagle Scout rank and fill missions and that all of his children have been married in the temple. It was a sweet, and inspiring funeral. I hope that when it's all said and done I can do as well as he did.