April 2022

We haven't signed Dx up for soccer because of covid. Once day we drove by a park and there were kids playing soccer and Dax said he wanted to play that again. Well, we finally got him on a team and he had fun running around with all the other kids. Of course it was rec, so not very competitive, but it was fun and he always had a good time.

Here are the boys in their Easter outfits, not anything planned, just what was in the closet. They are sure growing up.

Family get together at Katy's house. It's fun when we can all be there.

Probably the most important thing that happened in April is that I was a candidate to become a National referee. I went down to Arizona for the Girls 18's National tournament and went through the rigorous process of being rated. I was surprisingly calm about the whole thing, but it turned out to have many challenges. Crazy stuff happened in almost every match I had, but in the end I think that helped me a little so they could see that I could handle whatever was thrown at me. I ended up passing and receiving my National rating. On top of that, I was chosen to work a semi final match after receiving my patch. Only six of us were chosen, so that was a great honor. So many of my reffing buddies were there and it was great to have us all supporting each other.

With Spring comes baseball season. Tyson and Oakley are playing again this year, and Wes is on the board so he isn't coaching, but he is helping run all the whole league so he's at the fields every night.

Tucson

We had never been down to visit grandma and grandpa Mcknight in Arizona, so we decided to head down there during spring break. We drove to Kanab and stayed there for a night. Then we stopped at the Glen Canyon dam and checked out the visitor center. The kids loved it.

Then we made our way to Phoenix. April was out of the country, but we met up with Lily and Scott and went swimming at their pool with them. Then we had pizza and took off the rest of the way to Tucson.

We got there late that night, so we just went to bed in a trailer that one of Karl's friends left at the gun club for us to stay in. It was actually really nice and roomy for all of us. The next day Karl had to work, so we went exploring and went to Saguaro National Park. It was pretty cool to see all the different cactus, and the Saguaro's were so cool. We found out it takes ten years just to grow one foot, so some of these were over hundreds of years old. We loved all the different shapes.

The next day we all went to the Pima Air and Space Museum. They had some pretty awesome airplanes there. We spent a few hours walking around and checking out every one.

After the Air museum we went to the Titan II Missile Silo Museum. This was cooler than I thought it would be. It is a decommissioned Missile Silo that you can go down and walk around the actual missile. During the cold war they had this so they could launch it in less than 30 seconds if they had to. It was massive and spectacular how it all worked.

We caught some pretty sweet sunsets from the porch of the gun club.

The next day we went to Tombstone, the old west town where a famous shootout happened. It is pretty touristy, but it was still fun to tour. We walked through the old Birdcage Theater/Brothel and watched a shootout at the O.K.Corral. The boys tried Sarsaparilla for the first time, and we got an old time picture taken of our family. 

On our way back we stopped at Kartchner Caverns, which is alot like Timpanogos Cave. It is protected so we weren't allowed to take photos inside, but it was really cool to see.

We also spent a little time in the trailer resting and playing games. Lots of walking the past three days is tiring.

On our last full day there we finally got to go out shooting with Grandpa. We shot clay pigeons and all of us tried it, even Dax. It hurt him a little more than the rest of us, but it was fun to go to different stations and have the clay shoot from different angles. The boys also really liked riding around in the golf carts and grandma even let them drive a little.

Then we decided we needed to see a little of town and try to find Oakley a Cardinal Jersey, so we headed to the mall. We also ended up driving to the Tucson temple, which was pretty cool to see. I love the dome on the top.

We ended up going to this po-dunk restaurant in the middle of nowhere two different nights for dinner because Dax loved the pizza there so much. It was a fun little place and I think Dax ate half of that huge pizza both times.

We had a really fun time and I'm glad we made it down to see where the McKnights spend half of the year. The last day we woke up early and drove all the way home, only stopping a few times.