April 2024

April Fool's jokes were plentiful this year. Hayden drew a half mustache on Verity while she was asleep!

WHAT! Sister Chatelain just happened to "bump into" the Chatelain family at the Institute Building in Colorado Springs. How fun is that!!

Averly, Sister Tolk, Sister Ashton

Sister Tolk and Averly

The one-day-before-her-11th-birthday dinner for Verity at Texas Roadhouse!

Good morning sleeping birthday girl! Happy 11th birthday!

Kneader's Cinnamon French Toast for Birthday Breakfast!

Headed to school on a special day!

We all got to have lunch to celebrate Verity's and Jan's April birthdays!

Sister Ashton, Chatelain, Tolk at the Air Force Base museum.

Playing at the park with Evie Malcolm after school on her birthday

Averly arranged for the Barnum's to get a couple of Verity's favorites for her birthday - fruit pies and fries from McDonald's! What a surprise! 

Nicest sister and neighbors ever! This is a letter Averly sent to Tina Barnum to give to Verity on her birthday. Tina made it super cute!

Verity got a little emotional and said, "Why am I so loved?"

Verity's request - Pizza and a movie party for her birthday night!

Kaleb in heaven with his Firefighter Rick pizza (Jalapeno and Buffalo sauce!)

Verity's cake = Strawberry short cake. So delicious!

No idea what's going on with Kaleb?

Presents time!

Verity's dress she'll wear as the flower girl for Given and Grace's wedding

One of Verity's beautiful 5th grade creations

Nicole Winder came over the next night to celebrate Verity's birthday with Dino nuggets and Tangled!

Nicest mom ever - checked him out of school to have a surprise lunch date with Hayden

One of Verity's birthday toys attacking her!

This is a Super sweet note Averly's trainer, Sister Ashton, sent us.

Welcome to General Conference! As always, Melanie outdid herself, creating epic meals and bags of activities and treats for EVERY Apostle's talk! So so fun! Sweet rolls too, of course!

A little conference dog pile on Given!

Melanie and Alex headed in for foot surgery #6 on Alex (last one, we pray!)

Coming out of the anesthesia after surgery

So much blood - seeping through the bandages already when we got home

Sleepy man! 

No need for words...Yikes!

3 pins inserted in 3 toes

A little "Good-night Averly" picture from dad and Verity reading together the night of his surgery

Given's Bachelor party with his college roommates and siblings. They had a BBQ, played night games, then did hot tubbing at Triven's house.

Talking to Averly as she had discovered that her trainer and other companion are getting transferred, and she gets to help train a brand new missionary in a new 3-some. She'll be leading out the area! She'll do awesome! (2 months in her mission is all)

Hayden track meet in Rigby - running the 4x100 relay.

March 2024

Sister Chatelain has left the Provo MTC. This is her in the Vegas airport

Colorado Springs airport

Kaleb performing at the ward fundraiser dinner

Melanie and Jan Pabst Easter shopping!

Melanie and Given hunting for engagement picture sites in a cold, snowy, Idaho Falls!

 

Some kitchen-floor frolicking for the boys!

Mom and Verity do some sledding at the park while the boys take a trip to Utah

Engagement pictures (Verity is a good stand-in for Grace!)

Alex, Kaleb, Hayden took an impromptu trip to Utah to catch the very last BYU basketball home game.

Made a little lunchtime stop first at Alisa and Jake's house

Then to the Walmart in Orem...

...to buy new WHITE BYU shirts

Of course we had to stop by Krispy Kreme

And Trader Joe's

Then a quick visit to love on the Iverson's and drop off some "feel better" flowers to Marcie

Provo always = J Dawgs

Mom and Verity partying with Sam's club pizza while the boys are gone

BYU vs. Oklahoma State

BYU won - super fun game. Great great show BYU puts on!

Down at the court after the game

Church with Gma & Gpa Dutson and then lunch at their house after before heading home to IF

Sister Chatelain in her area in Colorado Springs

Averly with her two first companions (Sister Tolk, Averly, and Sister Ashton)

Here we go! This is where Given took Grace to propose marriage to her! Melanie got special access after the deed was done to take their engagement pictures.

She did indeed say "Yes!" Congratulations to Given and Grace!

Then the rest of us got to come and congratulate them

A very happy day indeed :)

A picture of the Iverson's as Alton reads his mission call. (Marcie going through chemo :( )

All the boys skipped out of school/work for a long lunch to watch BYU play UCF in the Big-12 tournament. BYU won

Mom's special scripture lesson about not being "puffed up" 

I think Kaleb won?

Loved a visit from Gma and Gpa on their way up to care for the Whitney kids while Dan/Kerri went to pick up Abby from her mission in Australia!

Spring Break Day 1: Forrester concert in SLC. 

The concert was literally in this garage!

Super cool concert experience with the boys

After the concert with Forrester lead singer, Xander _____ ?

Melanie and Verity visited the Allison's while the boys were at the concert. They are well, even Spencer with his new liver!

Spring Break Day 2: Beautiful girls after church with gma/gpa Dutson. Lunch and games at Jayson and Chris's house

Spring Break Day 3: Mom, Verity, and Hayden hanging out at Wheeler Farm

Break for Averly being silly with her companions! Nice picture!

That night we went to downtown SLC to hike up Ensign Peak. Awesome hike (except for Given) and incredible view from the top!

Averly and her companions getting "parked" because of a freak March snow storm!

Then dinner at Crown Burger in downtown SLC

The the Jazz game versus the Minnesota Timberwolves (Jazz lost : ( )

Spring Break Day 4: We got up early and went to the Mount Timpanogas temple, to fulfill our commission from Averly to take our family there and share with the kids the significance of our family beginning in this place 23 1/2 years ago. Melanie and Verity enjoyed the beautiful day and surroundings, while the boys went and did baptisms (Melanie joined for confirmations)

Then we stopped for a short visit to Grant and Clarissa in Payson (see the temple in the back?)

We started driving the scenic Nebo loop on our way to Manti, but the road was closed because of still too much snow. At least we got a nice picture :)

Yep - This is what we do to our kids on road trips!

Then we got to go through the open house for the newly remodeled Manti temple! It was SO gorgeous! We only had to wait in line about 30 minutes (compared to 4 hours 2 days earlier), and we got to spend as much time as we wanted in the temple - more of a self-guided tour. We were in the temple for over an hour. SO cool to take our kids through this historic temple built by our pioneer ancestors!

Then we toured Ephraim on a little trip through memory lane for Melanie's time at Snow college. So fun! This was her favorite pizza place (used to be called Fat Jack's). So cool to see the new temple being built in Ephraim now, too!

Spring Break Day 5: We ended up staying in a hotel in Nephi for fun. We had a blast swimming for a long time, watching shows, staying up too late, then enjoying the breakfast the next day.

Then a quick visit to the Iverson's to help pull some weeds and clean a little to help Marcie. Hayden wrapping up siblings/cousins in the hammocks.

And then night skiing at Brighton! The weather was sunny and warm, the snow conditions were awesome, and it was SO fun to ski with everyone doing so well. Verity had NO trouble at all keeping up with the boys! What a blast!!!

From the top of Brighton, looking over the Heber valley with the sunset. Gorgeous!

Spring Break Day 6: 2 March Madness Round 1 games at the Delta Center in SLC. We saw Arizona beat up on Long Beach State, then an awesome comeback win for Dayton over Nevada. We also saw BYU lose its game vs. Duquesne on the big screen :(

Very top row, as usual :)

The boys snuck down to lower seats for about half of a game until the owner of those tickets came and kicked us out. Oops.

Spring Break Day 7: Back to the Iversons to hang out with them so Brian and Marcie could get away for a night. Glad to help out a little during this very difficult time for Brian and Marcie!

Enjoying a phone call with Sister Chatelain with the WHOLE family! (even Grace!)

Averly's sweet friend, Nicole, came over to do nails with Verity. Love her!

The weather finally cleared enough for Kaleb to get on the tennis courts!

And for Hayden to start track for the first time for our family

A little BK visit after Hayden's track meet

Gma and Gpa Hatch came to Hayden's track meet on their way back through from Montana

Melanie took them to breakfast at Neider's for Gpa's 75th birthday!

Our annual excursion to go to see The Lamb of God concern in Blackfoot. We drove all they way to Pocatello first to pick up Kaleb from his tennis match, then to the Blackfoot DQ for dinner, then we loved the production!

Gorgeous girls having another fun day together!

Last Ski trip of the season with Dad and Hayden at Kelly canyon. Icy, then slushy sticky snow, but so fun!

Happy Easter Sunday morning with delicious resurrection rolls! Thanks, mom!

Nicole came to our ward to support Verity playing her first ever piano solo in sacrament meeting. She played "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" without ANY mistakes! Absolutely killed it!

Missing Averly in our annual front-porch Easter picture

Ah. A typical exhausting Sabbath Day - a wonderful Easter Sunday!