I play the Banjo!

For our YM/YW activity we got to be graced with the presence of Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband. Their guitar player is in our ward, so we lucked out I guess. The banjo player is someone who grew up in Sean's ward, so we knew 2 of the 4 band members. They gave great talks and put on a great show. My favorite song is "Dream Big" which you have probably heard on the radio. They also sang a Christmas song by request of one of the audience members which was a beautiful song called "The Gift". Travis actually was so excited because he went to their concert a couple of years ago at Christmas time and got a "I Play The Banjo" T shirt which is one of his favorites. I'm attaching a picture he took with his cell phone (not very good quality) and the Youtube video of "Dream Big".

Spelling B-E-E

Trevin took 2nd place in the 3rd grade spelling bee. The boy that won was his friend Matthew from across the street who is also in his class. Matthew actually has gone on and won the district spelling bee also. Trevin was kind of sad when he missed his word, but I thought he did great even though he didn't study the word list at all and Matthew studied every day after school.

Trevin's words were

L-e-a-f
H-a-l-f
B-r-a-g
G-r-i-p
L-i-l-a-c (I thought for sure he would miss this one, what 8 year old boy even knows what a lilac is?)
W-h-i-t-e
W-r-i-t-e (he had them use this one in a sentence so that he spelled the right write)
B-a-l-d
S-m-a-l-l
A-r-t-i-s-t
P-e-r-f-e-c-t
P-e-r-s-o-n

J-e-r-k-y (I though he missed this one as I was typing them on the laptop as he spelled, I spelled it j-e-r-k-e-y, I guess he is a better speller than I am)
Q-u-e-e-r
C-o-r-r-e-c-t-l-y
S-a-f-e-l-y
H-o-u-r-l-y
S-e-n-s-e-b-l-y (This is the word he got out with. Should have been s-e-n-s-i-b-l-y)

The last picture is of the medal that he got for finishing in the top two.

Work is still crazy. I used to think 45 loans was bad, now I'm up to 130, but I have hired some help so we are managing. One thing about the lending business, you have to make hay while the sun shines, as the saying goes, because it can be a very up and down industry. We are in full swing with Basketball season right now, so our Saturday mornings are consumed with basketball games. The boys are having fun and doing great this year.