Happy, happy birthday, daughter dear!

Hello Sister Nielsen,
 
Well first ofall I would like to wish you a happy birthday tomorrow.  I hope you have a great day.  We had a good fun week with Chelsea last week.  We had something going on every night so it was busy.  Monday night after we got home  from Utah the Cubillos showed up from Chile.  I believe I told you about that last week.
 
Tuesday we had the senior solos.  Chelsea played for Erin and she did really well.  Especially as she could not breathe as she had a sinus infection.  But she did not get to the Dr until Wednesday.  She is still coughing and congested even though she has been on antibiotics.
 
We talked to one of the senior girls (the Andreaossi girl) on Sat. and she said, Erin did really well, I did not know she could sing like that.  Wednesday, Summer had a 4-H activity in the park for the family with rubber ducks.  We ate sub sandwiches which was nice.  It was worth it for us to feed the entire family.
 
Thursday, we had the senior awards ceremony and I had to give out all the scholarships from Great Basin College.  Erin got a $500 scholarship from GBC for 1 semester or $1000 for 2 semesters.  With that and her Millenium scholarship and my huge discount on tuition she will make good money and not have to pay anything for tuition and books.  She should be getting alot of $$s back.  She also got the Marine award or something with looks at Athletics, Academics and musical abilities, but there was not money attached to that.
 
Then she got word that she was voted for the 3-Es award.  I'm not sure what it is, but voted on by staff, students and faculty.  We will go to that ceremony tomorrow night.  Her picture was in the paper for 1 of 9 students who lettered in 3 sports this past year.  Cody should have been in there as well, if he had not hurt his knee in football.  That would have been neat having 2 kids out of 10 from the same family.
 
Friday night, Summer had a soccer game in Spring Creek and Cody had his baseball end of year banquet.  He ended up 3 for 3 on varsity with 4 RBIs and 1000% batting average and 2000% slugging percentage.  So that is good.  He is really enjoying the weight set and putting on alot of muscle.  He benched 235lbs last week in PE.
 
Adelaide is just as crazy as ever.  She goes around singing all the time.  Some of those senior solos were hard on the ears and Summer said, Adelaide can do better than that.
 
Sat. Carly had a soccer game and we won 14 -1 and then mom and I went to the Catholic church for George Lostras funeral.  Aly and David Lostra's dad.  Did you know them?  I had worked with the mom alot with her's and her kids FAFSA and she came in and invited me specifically to the funeral.  Afterwards everyone at the funeral went to Biltokis for lunch.  It was really good and a good way to start our fast.  Mercedes Macpherson from the library, that was her brother who died.  So I told mom it was a good thing for us to be there.  I think we were helping them in their sorrows and planting alot of seeds.  Mercedes, and her family are an awesome family and they would make great members of the Lord's church.
 
Yesterday, the Bishop asked to meet with me and they called me to be a ward missionary.   I believe I have been a ward missionary or ward mission leader for 15 years.  Bishop said I was an example to everyone and they needed my help.  So we are a missionary family.  I told mom, I would do the missionary work whether I was called or not.  It is something that just comes naturally.
 
Then yesterday, we cooked a pork roast in the smoker and had the missionaries over for dinner. It turned out really good.  Vladamir and Carolina Mejia was visiting in church yesterday from Peru.  It was good to see them, but I worry about Carolina as on facebook, all the pictures of her, she is not wearing her garments.  They were suppose to come visit us last night, but never did.  I wanted to talk to them about that and try to re ignite the flame.  Vladamir is still doing really well. Benjamin turned 3 yesterday and he still does not talk.  Carolina said her parents sent their greeting and said that they have never met such kind and loving people.  She said they would never forget us.
 
Any way, that is this past week in a nut shell.  We love you and hope you have a great successful week and a super duper birthday tomorrow.  The big 22.  That is one of my favorite numbers you know.
 
Love Dad

Happy Birthday Sis. Nielsen,

I'm so glad you haven't sent your letter yet, so I hope you will get mine.  I was busy yesterday-- when does it ever stop?  Erin went with me to pick out something for your birthday box.  We went to Down East Outlet here in Elko.  Did you know they came here and set up shop in the old Fashion Bug space?  They are doing a trial on the market here to see if they want to stay permanently.  I hope you like what we got you.  Also, they are building a Costa Vida here, it is supposed to be done in July.  Its right  on the corner of Mnt. City Hwy and Laurel Dr.,(the back way road) across the from Gold Dust West.  Erin may apply there, but she already turned in  applications for Down East and Papa Murphy's.

I read Dad's letter and he pretty much filled you in on all the stuff we did last week.  I had two things to do almost every night and I didn't get any house work done, I've got laundry piled  sky high--clean and dirty.  I had my bookclub last week and I thought that would be fun for Chelsea to go with me.  I had borrowed the book, so she and I were taking turns reading it and we got it done the morning of bookclub, she would pass my spot and then I would catch up and move ahead, it was like a race.  I kept forgetting to put her bookmark back in her spot, so she had to find it again. 

Sr. Solo-- dad covered that.  I will say that we all decided which people should have had the long songs and the ones for their sake and ours were best with cutting it short. 

Carly did a dance for the Northside talent show.  She did the Nielsen classic,"Surfin' USA".  She learned it the morning of the talent show and showed great potential, but the nerves started in and she almost backed out, but I sat in the front and cued her with all the moves and she did it...not perfectly, but she was cute.  She hugged me afterwards and I know she was glad she went through with it.

It was such a fun and crazy week, with having Chelsea here and running all over the place doing end of the school year stuff.  I tried to fit in everything I thought she would enjoy doing--Mrs. West is retiring from being the secretary at Northside and they had a little party at the school for her and so we went to that, and Chels saw a few of her old teachers.  We went to Flagview for something for Summer and she was able to see Kati Ackerman, she is the music teacher there.

This is the last week of soccer and practices.  It's been a longer season this time and I've had fun coaching, but I am ready to be done.  So is the other coach that practices the same time we do.  We have been scrimmaging each other during most of our practice time and it has been great.  Her team is really good and they are the only team we didn't beat, so we have some great fun competing with them.  Carly gets in there and really battles, she is an amazing little player and I say that because she is one of the smaller girls, but she really runs all over the place and isn't afraid of contact.  She can kick really hard too.  We do this little competition at the end of practice to see who can kick it the farthest and she always wins.  We call it, "the biggest boot".

We had a wonderful sunday, I made a pork roast in the smoker.  I have been trying out a lot of pulled pork recipes because I host bookclub in July and we are reading a book that takes place in Hawaii, so I am planning my menu and deciding what pork recipes are best(you can pass along any suggestions for me) It turned out quite well.  The missionaries loved it, then again it was fast sunday.  That night Erin, Cody and I went to a fireside where a lady spoke about drug abuse and how she lost her son(RM, married in temple) to drug addiction.  She had her own battles and she wrote an article about it in the March Ensign titled,"No Empty Chairs".  It was really good.

I hope you have a wonderful birthday, and that it is the sweetest ever.  We love you so much, and are so happy to tell everyone that you are on a mission.  Love, Mom