28 May 2023
VOLUME 11 – NUMBER 505
Annual boys retreat
There’s probably going to be a lot of articles about this, but this week we had the annual boy’s trip retreat. For those of you who don’t know, back in 2016 I started a tradition where I would take the brothers on a trip to a hotel to play video games.
The one we started with was Lego Star Wars. The goal of the trip was to start at 0% and completely beat the game before it was time to go home a couple days later. Almost every year since there has been some version of the trip that has happened. Ashton took the torch and organized the trips since my move to North Carolina.
Lego Lord of the Rings was such a blast. In typical boy’s trip fashion, there was very little sleeping, although I was not able to stay up as much as I have in previous trips. We made lots of great memories and had a lot of laughs throughout.
Isaac crashed at the boys retreat
Since the boys all had their dudes trip, I decided to do something fun with the girls at home. Since Quinn was too young to go on the boys trip, he and Veidi had fun dressing him up as "Quincy,” which was his girl name so he could join the girls.
It was a pretty chill night, but I always enjoy spending time with my younger siblings. Sometimes it's just crazy to think about their whole childhood being separate from mine, and I wonder what it would be like to have adult siblings.
The small moments when we get to do fun things together bring me a lot of joy!
London giving Joanna a facial
For our activity this week, Veidi and I got to plant some tomatoes in some plastic cups. I brought two home, and so did Veidi. We also have been going to the temple on Wednesday mornings.
The boys left on their trip, except for Quinn and Dad. They were here with us. London, Endia, Brooke, Elle, and Charlie all came over since the boys are gone.
We had an amazing dinner that London made. We talked, played Spot It, watched a movie, and did facials.
I also hung out with Riley. We played Uno, and watched Rio.
Gloria and Joanna
I am officially a licensed Driver! I was so nervous when I took my final drivers test, but overall I did good, because I passed! It is such a weird feeling driving by myself, or with anybody other than Mom in the passenger seat.
I had my first drive without Mom in the car. I went to Walmart with Isaac and Kai. It was super fun, except the fact that Kai was freaking out about everything!
Also this weekend was our annual boys retreat. I loved the place that we stayed at. It was super cozy, and had all of the things that we needed for a fun relaxing trip.
Lego Lord of the Rings is an amazing Lego game. We did 100% the game, and with the combined efforts of everybody, Cougar and I finished it off at 5:30am on Saturday.
Thank you Ashton and Braden for instigating this trip, and I can't wait till the next one!
Late night at the boys retreat
This was my first boys trip since joining the family and it did not disappoint! I missed the first couple days, so when I got there Isaac and Troy were zonked from pulling an all-nighter.
We had set out to beat Lego Lord of the Rings, and I am proud to say that Monte and I stayed up the next night and finished the game around 5:00am!
This was my first time since joining the family to spend some time with the Hill boys. You all are a great group, I feel very welcomed and loved to be part of the family. I'll be looking forward to the boys trip each year!
Annual boys retreat
This week I had an actual in person interview at the MTC. If I did well here, there is still one more interview to go through before I find out if I got the position or not.
After having done many interviews for many different positions at the MTC, I actually knew everyone pretty well that was interviewing me for this one. This is the third full time position I've applied for and the eighth position overall, so I am pretty familiar with the process by this point, and that makes preparing for them much easier.
Ashton sleeping at the boys retreat
However, the highlight of the week was the boys trip! Braden and Cougar got to join us this year and it was great. We got Lego Lord of the Rings and we finished it all! Last year we finished the game we played just a little bit early, and so we tried looking for a game that would push us a little, bit but still be possible to finish.
We're still waiting for Caleb to get home to try and crack the new Lego Star Wars, which has a predicted 84 hours of gameplay needed to beat the whole thing, so we may need to extend our boys trip a little bit!
Since there are more of us coming now, it seems like we all get better sleep, which is good, but it also makes for less delirious and comical quotes that take place when everyone is just so sleep deprived—ha ha! We really loved the place we were at, and we will definitely be returning there if it is available.
One notable quote was by Troy after he and Isaac pulled an all nighter. He was really proud of the fact that he stayed up the whole night and at about 9:30am he was like, "I'm not actually that tired surprisingly." However, before 10:00am he was asleep pretty much in the upright position on the couch both his hand resting on the side of his head!
Troy “not tired at at!”
We just got Mondo for training. We also have Ted and Moose. They are all so cute. Mondo is a massive dog, and his face was just the biggest cutest face ever.
Ted was a pretty small dog, a little bigger than Max, but was a black dog and was a very cute. You can't see his eyes because of his hair.
Moose basically looks like Remi (Yarima’s dog). He is cute but a pretty hard dog to walk. When Mom’s client came over for training, we had to walk all the dogs while there were at our house.
Isaac at the boys retreat
This week Kai, and I went to Yarima's and we did a type of crochet. It is were you make little stuffed animals. Yarima did a very good job on all of hers, and she taught me and Kai how to make them.
I chose to make a Penguin, and Kai chose to make a turtle. It was really fun. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, and I had to redo it multiple times, but then I sort of got the hang of it, and it was really fun.
Kai and Yarmia did a really good job on their's and I think I did an okay job for my first one, but I still need to add the mouth, wings, and feet, and I think it will make it look better. Thank you Rima for teaching Kai and I how to do this! It was really fun.
Family snuggling on the couch
I'm still out here seeing huge miracles! I have such a love for Los Sauces and everyone here especially those in the branch. There were a few days where it was just pure fire, then a couple grind out days walking around in the cold, but then we had Sunday and it was another pretty miraculous day.
Real quick update, Julian, a 16-year-old kid's gonna get baptized in a couple weeks! He came to church for the first time and we made a calendar with him, with all of our teaching appointments until the baptism. He was excited. He's such a good kid, and he has great questions.
I'm going to the temple next week, and in two weeks as well. Next week’s temple visit is for a recent convert from one of my past areas, and the second trip is with Mirtha and Casandra! I'm excited.
Mirta and Cassandra
I learned a little more about the Christ's atonement with my companion. We were thinking about how you can ask for strength from the atonement. And it's true, but we were thinking then why are we still so tired sometimes?
And Elder Angilau said that the atonement will secure that we don't fall through. It will hold us up. Maybe we'll go to our limit, or we'll feel like we may always be at our limit, but it will hold us up and we won't break.
It made me think of something that Mom had said to me which is this, “Life isn't supposed to be easy. It's a test.” We are here to learn and to grow, but when we turn to the atonement all the struggle we face will make us stronger! It's Christ's grace.
If you want to study something, study opposition, atonement, humility, patience, and I promise you'll get more motivated to face whatever you got against you, or whatever goal you want to meet.
Trust in God before all things and put him in first place. That's what I want you guys to do.
Caleb with other missionaries
I panted a bird house and hung it up in our tree in the backyard. So far, no birds have visited it, because I need bird food, but there is a bird building a nest by our lights. I am making the birdhouse to get birds.
Mom drove Isaac and I in Aunt Amy's Tesla to Rima's house so we could hang out. While we were there, Rima taught us how to do amigurumi. She gave us an option on what we wanted to crochet. I chose a turtle.
While we were crocheting/amigurumi-ing, we watched The Rookie. It's a TV show about a 40-year-old rookie cop who joins the force.
For lunch, Rima bought us Panda. We probably crocheted for about six hours or more. My hands were tired from crocheting for so long, but the final results were beautiful, at least for a beginner like me.
Thanks Yarima and Selvin for having us!
Making chicken croissants for dinner
Here’s a funny story. About two years ago, our family video about Stormtrooper Halloween went viral, and now has 1.2 millions views. After moving our family videos to the SwirlyCone website, I started to wonder if we could take advantage of that, and make additional stormtrooper videos to see if we can get more views.
So Monte, Isaac, and I did a little work. We changed the name of our old SwirlyCone Family YouTube channel to Stormtrooper Family, and even wrote out storyboards for our first video. Of course, I have a bunch of MyPack dog training videos that I need to shoot first, but after that, it might be a fun hobby with the children.
This weekend, we took our old piano, which the Brinton family has been “piano sitting” for eight years, down to London’t apartment. She is going to surprise one of her roommates with a piano in their apartment for her birthday.
Dad playing piano at London’s