Vacation! We were very blessed to be able to take 3 weeks (yes, 3 whole weeks!) off this summer to go visit our families. It was so nice to relax and enjoy each other’s company. We are so grateful to Grandma and Grandpa Kotter for making this trip possible by helping with the cost of our tickets. We spent the first half of our trip in Idaho. Grandma and Grandpa picked us up from the airport in Salt Lake and drove us back to Idaho. Kara joined us from Utah later that evening and Alvin visited for a few days in between flights, so we had all of the family together. It was awesome!

Alvin convinced us to go and see an air show in Rexburg one Saturday. It was the first air show I had ever seen, and it was great! We had front row seats right on the runway and we had a perfect view of the stunt planes. It was crazy to see what those pilots could do.

Cute Cousins!

We had such a great time in Idaho. The kids loved playing with their cousins, Lucas, McKinley, and Nigel. We had fun building Legos (Kendal helped Oliver build an alien Lego set that he still talks about!), playing outside (Grandma helped Oliver find a “fort” by the field and they spent a lot of time fighting bad guys and poison – aka the sprinklers from the field), and eating wonderful food (Mom did an amazing job at feeding all of us!).

She loves Grandpa’s swing!

Abby loves to read stories with Grandma

Grandpa showed the grand kids how to use his tools

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Kotter/Fielding Party without a water fight.

One day we went to visit the Greenbelt to feed the ducks and geese and to see the temple.

Oliver, Kaitlin, and Kendal in front of the Idaho Falls Temple

Oliver and Lucas at the Greenbelt

There’s nothing like a walk with Grandma.

Yogurt! Yum!

Another day we drove to Mesa Falls. We enjoyed feeding the fish and then had a wonderful picnic lunch. On our hike to the old railroad tunnel, Oliver fell down and scraped his knee. It was bleeding pretty good, so Kay and I took him back to the car to wash it off and patch it up. He recovered quickly, though, and we were soon back at the railroad tunnel and climbing the rock slide. Oliver loved climbing the big rocks; he assured us that he didn’t need any help (and though it made me very nervous, I let him climb by himself). He was very proud of how high he could climb and he made sure that Grandma saw him.

Watching Great Grandpa feed the fish

Our trip was full of lots of other fun things as well. We went to Rexburg to try out a new family pool; the kids loved it. Abby especially loved the lazy river and wanted to go around it again and again. Kay actually made multiple trips to Rexburg to attend an art class with Kendal. She loved the opportunity to get away and draw for a few hours. We explored my Grandma Kotter’s barn and took pictures with the kids on Grandma’s old trikes, we had fun visiting Darin and Kryssi’s home and playing there, and Dad and I had some friendly games of “horse” (I won handily on the first couple of nights, but he warmed up and I mostly lost after that. He still has the basketball touch!) Somehow I didn’t get as many pictures as I would have liked, but I’ll have to get copies at some point from my mom. I love being with family!

My siblings!

Our new family photo – it’s great to have everyone together!

This was one of the best Easter Sunday’s that I have ever had. We wanted to help the kids feel of the beauty and power of the resurrection. To help us prepare, we followed along in the scriptures for the week before Easter. We started with Palm Sunday and followed the events of the last week in Christ’s life each day. It was fun to read the scriptures each night, watch the beautiful new videos about Christ’s life, sing Easter hymns and primary songs together (Oliver even taught us a new song or two that he learned at his Lutheran pre-school), and eat special Easter treats out of our Easter eggs. It was like having a little devotional with our family each night, and it really helped me focus on Christ. Kay made a beautiful Easter “creche” that the kids used to follow along in the stories that we told. On Friday, Oliver and Abby put Christ on the cross, then put him into the tomb. On Sunday morning, they found that the tomb was empty and the resurrected Christ appeared.

I love the message of hope and peace that Easter brings. I am so grateful that I could spend this week sharing my love of Jesus Christ with my wife and kids.

I love General Conference. Conference brings me a flood of wonderful feelings. I am reminded of the love, comfort, and security that I felt watching Conference together with my family for so many years. I fondly think back to the many times that I sat in the Conference Center with my parents and siblings and felt the Spirit testify to me that Gordon B. Hinckley was a prophet of God. I met Kay at General Conference and I will be forever grateful that our relationship began with both of us seeking the Lord’s direction to us through our living prophet. Consequently, I look forward every six months to the opportunity to participate in General Conference.

Still, I confess that for the past several years Conference has not been quite the same for me. Wrestling two toddlers makes it difficult, at best, to engage with each speaker’s message. Between breaking up fights, dealing with tantrums, and becoming a human jungle gym, there isn’t much energy left to ponder and seek inspiration during Conference itself. Sometimes, I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to enjoy Conference in the same way again.

But things changed this year. For the first time, my kids actually paid attention during parts of Conference. I’m sure that they didn’t get anything specific out of the talks, but I believe that they did feel how important (to Mom and Dad, anyway) it is to pay attention to our prophets. On Sunday morning, I had printed out Conference coloring pages. This kept them busy for a while.

When they finished coloring, I started “Conference Bingo”. I printed off these bingo cards from The Friend‘s website.

I was amazed at how captivated the kids were. Oliver would listen intently to each talk and say things like, “Dad, I heard him say faith. I’m going to mark off faith,” or “He was talking about the priesthood. Do I have a square for the priesthood?” At one point Kay leaned over to make a comment to me about one of the talks and Oliver turned to her and said, “Shhhh! Mom, I’m trying to listen to the talks. You’re interrupting me!” Priceless, I say.

After each bingo, I let them have a couple of jelly beans. It kept them busy for the entire Sunday morning session. Not only that, but my kids were at least listening for the “buzz words” associated with the gospel. Conference was good this year.

We got a new car! Well, new to us, anyway. We have been looking for something a little bigger than our 1998 Ford Taurus for awhile, but we hadn’t really found anything in our price range. Then I noticed this 2002 Honda Odyssey posted on Craigslist for $4,500. I called and set up an appointment to go look at the car in Canton, MI. It was definitely a well-used vehicle, but it had been well taken care off. The sellers were the original owners and even had all of their maintenance receipts/records (including every oil change they had ever done). It has a lot of miles (130,000), but much of the maintenance that you expect to need around that mileage has already been taken care of (new water pump, timing belt, brakes, tires, tie rods). After Kay and I both took it for a test ride, we took the kids to IKEA so that we could have a few minutes to chat and pray over our decision. We both felt really good about the car; in fact, we felt like it was an answer to our prayers. It helped that the seller seemed like a person that we could really trust; he was really forthcoming about the condition and history of the vehicle and he even offered to let us talk to his mechanic. (I also noticed that he kept a large bible on his office desk, and we had a good conversation about camping in Utah.) We would have preferred to take the vehicle to an independent mechanic to get an outside opinion of the condition of the vehicle, but he had several more people scheduled to see the car that day and we were pretty sure it would be sold by the end of the weekend. We decided to go ahead and offer him $4,000. He accepted and we are the proud owners of a Honda Odyssey! As soon as we got home, the kids played all over the car.

Their verdict? “Much better than our red car!” I think I have to agree.