Sunny days, spring awakenings, long weekend wrestling tournaments and late Easters

It has been beautiful this spring.  I love it every spring as the sun comes out because that means I get to take my bike out and see the beautiful country God has given us.  I took a selfie of myself getting ready for my bike ride earlier last week.  Yes, I wear bike speedos and gear...something I swore I never would do when I first moved here and saw all the bike riding junkies in their bike gear.  Go ahead, make fun of me.  I deserve it. 

It looks like I got a haircut in this picture, but I didn't.  Just a funny angle with my hair all tucked up in my shirt. 

With the warmth and the sunshine out come other critters that have been sleeping for the winter.  Yes, our local friendly bears have awoken recently.  The first trash can raid happened a few weeks ago.

Every year during winter we get lazy bear proofing our garbage and every spring we have these kind of messes to greet us.

Wrestling has officially ended for me this past weekend.  The weekend prior to this past weekend (Easter weekend) was the last peewee tournament for the year.  Thank Goodness!  However, this past weekend was a local national wrestling tournament that I enrolled all four boys in to wrestle. 

Jordan and me waiting for the next bout.

Riley warming up before a match.

Early in the day I tried to catch a picture of what warms my heart about a tournament like this where all four are present.

 It's not the best picture because I had to take it from so far away, but here Riley is in the hole for his first match of the day (standing right behind the score board with head gear on).  Jordan is standing to his left waiting to coach him and Ben to his right helping him warm-up.  These boys really take care of each other and I love the brotherhood bond that wrestling has created between them.  Wrestler of the day went to Ben who placed fourth in the folkstyle tournament on Saturday.  He lost his first match and had to rise up to the top through the consolation bracket.  This made it a long painful process but Ben hung in there. 

His final match, for the third/fourth place, he lost by a mere three points.  It was his competitor's fourth match and Ben's seventh.  I was so proud of him and so proud of all my boys who supported him throughout the day.  A special nod to Jordan who coached every one of his last six matches.  His victory, while definitely coming from his hard work and commitment (The picture above is one Brad caught of him updating his wrestling journal.  A journal he has fastidiously kept for the past two years where he notes what he did right and what he did wrong every match.)was a victory for all and no jealousy was felt as we celebrated all the way home.  It's the first time anyone has placed at a tournament this large.  

Today the oldest three boys returned to the tournament to wrestle freestyle and Greco.  Again, the boys wrestled well.  Jordan took fourth in freestyle in his division, beating the two wrestlers who took him out the day before.  Ben took 2nd in freestyle.  Finally, in Greco, Riley (I didn't sign him up for freestyle) took fifth, Jordan and Ben both took third.  Brad took a picture of the medals won.  Ben got three, Jordan one, but only had one on at the time of the picture.

Brad wanted us all to know that it's really him that's the champion so he took a selfie with all the medals on himself this evening.

Love these boys of mine.  And while I don't love the long days spent at tournaments, wrestling has really provided a good medium to teach my boys work ethic, persistence and responsibility.

Due to the long days spent at tournaments, Easter snuck up on me this year.  It snuck up on me so unexpectedly, I admitted failure as a Mom and decided not to decorate at all.  However, my ever so positive son, Jake, pulled out the Easter decorations to access the baskets and started decorating for me.  His determinedness (I think I just made up that word) to get the Easter decorations out broke my resolve to not decorate and I finally had everything up late Easter Eve.

I figure since I put them up so late and they are so cute I'll have to leave them out at least one more week.

I love Easter and celebrating the resurrection.  The hope that the atonement and resurrection offer us all is truly life motivating and changing.  Today I taught a lesson in Relief Society on coming to know the Savior.  The title of the talk the lesson was based on was "If ye had known me" and was given by Elder Bednar in the fall of 2016.  To end my blog I'm going to include my favorite quote from the lesson.

"Believing Him is trusting that His bounteous blessings are available and applicable in our individual lives and families. Believing Him with our whole soul³⁸ comes as we press forward along the covenant pathway, surrender our will to His, and submit to His priorities and timing for us. Believing Him—accepting as true His power and promises—invites perspective, peace, and joy into our lives."