The Interview.

Kendall at 10 years old.

1. What is your favorite color? Grey

2. What is your favorite toy? Gel Pens

3. What is your favorite fruit? Pears

4. What is your favorite tv show or movie? Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Chicken and Waffles

6. What is your favorite game? Clue

7. What is your favorite snack? Cheerios

8. What is your favorite animal? Chili Bean

9. What is your favorite song? 24 Karat Magic (Bruno Mars)

10. What is your favorite book? Sting (Judy Watson)

11. Who is your best friend? Kaitlyn and Hayden

12. What is your favorite cereal? Lucky Charms

13. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Tetherball

14. What is your favorite drink? A&W Root Beer

15. What is your favorite holiday? Valentines Day

16. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Lamby

17. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Pancakes

18. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Pizza

19. What do you want to be when you grow up? Engineer

20. Imagine that you can become invisible whenever you wanted to. What are some of the things you would do? Steal all the cookies, eat all the fruit out of the fruitbowl and do a bunch of kartwheels in the house.

21. I am very proud because… of my good grades.

22. If I were President I would… let Chili Bean have his own gigantic room.

23. I am afraid to …walk on a tight rope 2,500 feet above a waterfall.

24. Name one thing you do really well? school work

25. Describe what it means to be a good friend: kind, compassionate, thoughtful, nice.

26. What is your favorite time of day? lunch time

27. Describe your best day ever? Going to the Meghan Trainor concert.

28. Describe your favorite hobby: gymnastics

29. Climbing trees is… very fun but scrapes my toes.

30. I wish there were a law that said…..dogs could go to school with you.

31. What makes you feel sad? Daddy has cancer.

32. What makes you feel happy? My family.

33. Pretend that you can fly whenever you wanted. Where would you go? Florida

34. If I could choose a different name, I would choose…Arriana

35. Where do you want to go on vacation? Florida

36. What is your favorite thing to do with Mom? Cuddle

37. What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Play chess

Double Digits - Here We Come.

I cannot believe how fast the last decade has went. Yes, decade!  Kendall turned 10 years old this month.  She is such an incredible young lady.  She is smart, funny, compassionate and always keeping us on our toes.  We are so blessed!  Early in the month, we had a family dinner party.  She made the cake.  I always wish I knew what was going on in her head during these very intense birthday wishes.

 

 

Grandma Terrell came to celebrate her birthday with us.

 

 Kendall has a great group of friends. 

She wanted to invite the "girls" to an overnight stay at a hotel.  Yes we are crazy, but we did it anyways.  It was truly a blast.  We had nine girls overnight in a hotel and managed to not get kicked out.  Kevin and I laid out a few ground rules at the beginning of the evening.  These fabulous young ladies listened and obliged.  They had a fun filled night.  They stayed up until 3 am.  UGH!  Then, they were up for breakfast at 8 am followed by another round in the pool.

AshLee, sent us this picture of Speaker Ryan after she saw the dabbing picture.  Yes, the girls do it better:)

 

Kendall had cookies & cream pie and pizza for the big shindig. 

This girl...I love her so much!

A Trip Through Alligator Alley.

While everyone was freezing in Boise, Kevin and I HAD to go to Florida.  It was just terrible.  The sun was shining and it was warm and beautiful.  We flew in to Ft. Lauderdale and drove through the Everglades to get to Naples, Florida.  It was such an awesome trip.  They call that road "alligator alley".  One of my co-workers told us that he has yet to see an alligator.  It must have been our lucky day.  We saw them everywhere.  It had rained the day before and they were all up on the banks sunning themselves.  Kevin wanted to get a few more pics, but his irrational (hee hee) fear of snakes held him back.

After my first afternoon meeting, we headed to the beach.  The park was closing down, but the ranger let us park our car near her gate and walk down to the beach to watch the sunset.  We were thrilled to get to enjoy the beautiful evening.

We stayed at the fancy Ritz Carlton Resort.  Outside of the hotel, there was a McLaren.  What a cool car!  The gentlemen that owns this car was sitting with me at lunch the next day.  Apparently this is one of his many fabulous cars.  I cannot even imagine!

 

The conference was great.  During the Friday closing meeting, I had the privilege of talking at the investor meeting.  Yes, it was a bit terrifying.  There were 300-400 investors all in one room.  It was quite the experience, but I survived.

 



Friday afternoon, Kevin and I went going deep sea fishing.  The weather could not have been better.  On our way out to the fishing spot, there were several dolphins playing behind the boat.  It was overwhelmingly breathtaking.  There was another couple with us.  The lady, Carolyn, was brought to tears at the beauty.

We even managed to catch a few fish.  Actually, they were biting as fast as we could drop the line in.  I think I got quite a workout reeling them in.

Here is our crew, heading back to shore.

That evening, we closed the week out with a lobster dinner and plenty of dancing.

Here are the ladies of RedBuilt!

Celebrating Sidney's Baptism!

Sidney has been expressing an interest in baptism.  She indicated as much on her comment card about a month ago.  Pastor Brian called to see if she would like to sit down and talk with him.  Kevin, I and Sidney met with him last Monday.  She always astonishes me with how much she absorbs.  She is quiet...a thinker.  I often underestimate what is going on in that head of hers.  She had come prepared with questions and thoughts of her own.  A couple days after the meeting, she made the decision to get baptized yesterday.

 

She insisted on decorating her own cake.  It turned out pretty great.

 

When Pastor Brian asked who she wanted to baptize her, she said "Daddy" without hesitation. 

We had an awesome day celebrating with family (gah, no pictures).  Grandma and Papa Workman came down for the day (8 hours each way)!  The Nelsons, The Easons, Valerie, Bridget, Terrell and Christine also came to celebrate the day with us.  It was an amazing day filled with lots of love!

Cleaning House at the Awana Grand Prix.

Not that I am competitive or anything, but between the Nelson and the Strong households, we cleared the medal board this year!  As always there were some AMAZING cars.  I love that there is an adult division as well, so the Dads will let the kiddos do their own thing while they go crazy entering their own design.  Here are just a few of the cars.  Altogether, there were about 4 or 5 times this many. 

Rebecca and I got to catch up during the race.  It was not until I was preparing pictures for the blog that I realized where the girls get their "sign flashing" from.

David helped run the race this year.  He was closely monitored...I promise.  Sid's car is in the yellow lane on the left - ready for takeoff.

 Eli took home a design medal for his "Meals on Wheels" car.

Hannah also took home a design award for her "Ladies First" car.  I love it!!!

Kendall did her first race last year.  She is also very competitive and asked for a few pointers from her friend Jacob.  He won last year, and she was definitely after some speed.  His insight worked, and her work paid off.  She took home a speed medal.

 

Sidney modeled her design after her big sis and also took home a speed medal.  Everyone was talking about the Strong ladies and their super fast wedge shaped cars:)

 The three musketeers!

Asher got an honorable mention in both speed and design with his "banana slug" car.  He came in fourth on speed.  Pretty awesome!

It was another fun year at the pine car derby.  I cannot believe how creative some of these kids get.

Oh, the snow days!

This has been a winter for the record books.  One of the lures to Boise was the relatively mild winters.  In fact, when buying our current home, we looked for a south facing driveway.  Why?  If you have a south facing driveway, there is rarely a need to shovel snow.  It might snow in the morning and melt off by evening.  That has simply not been the case this year.  It has been beautiful, and it has been plentiful.  Below are a couple of pictures that do not even capture the full extent.

 

 

The girls typically have no snow days or one at the most.  I believe they have had six or seven so far this January.  They have enjoyed the snow, but were ready to get back to school after about day two.  Sidney asked Kevin, "What is cabin fever?  Grandma thinks I have it."  She believed she had a true illness:)  Hilarious those girls.