Spring Break this week

Hola Hermana Nielsen,
 
This week is Spring Break for the kids.  Mom signed them up for swimming lessons, so Carly and Addie are excited, but Summer feels a little old for swimming lessons.  Last week was our spring break here at the college.  Our weather has been in the low 70's and if feels like sping has sprung.  We really never did have a winter.
 
One Monday night we had Cody's basketball banquet.  He was honorable mention all league team I believe.  He also made all-state academic.  I think he has a 4.0 this year.  So we will take that vs. the athletic awards. Nate won the MVP of the region and team.  Marshall was most inspirational, Eric Klekas got the 6th man award.  Brandon Jenkins got defensive player of the year and Benton got the Duce award.  It was nice, but I think Cody is glad to have that all behind him.  The fab five got a lot of attention this year and did very well there entire career.  Now on to baseball.
 
On Tuesday, Elko played Spring Creek here.  We won in the bottom of the 7th inning 6 to 5.  It was a very close game that we were trailing most of the game.  But it had all the dynamics of a rivalry game.  Coaches were going at it, players were jawing at each other.  IT was great and even better that we won.  Cody got a key hit in the 6th or 7th inning that helped with the victory.
 
The Choraliers left for San Franciso on Thursday.  So Cody will not be back until tomorrow.  Elko played Sparks over the weekend at sparks and we won 2 out of 3 games.  I think they missed Jacob and Cody.  Benton was back playing after his illness.  They think he has arthiritis for children of something, but he was desinated hitter and went .500 for the weekend.
 
On Wednesday night we had our PAL girls bball team over for our team dinner.  All of them came but 1 girl.  The 2 twins showed up about 1.5 hours late, they had softball practice.  But it was good.  Mom made bread sticks and home made spaghetti with my favorite sauce and they girls loved it.  They asked mom, if we ate like this every night and she said, no, mostly on Sundays.  And they said, we will come back over on Sunday and I said they have to go to church with us first for 3 hours and then they can come eat with us.  about 4 or 5 of them were in agreement, but they said, we will be out of town this weekend, but in 2 weeks come by our home and pick us up.  We got their phone number and address, etc.  But in 2 weeks, it will be easter and general conference.  So I wonder if we should invite them over for easter dinner and to watch general conference??  They saw our stack of BOM's and asked why do you have all these BOM's.  And I explained that we read it together every night as a family.  They asked if they needed to wear dresses to church and we explained that most of the women would be wearing dresses, etc.  They said, does that mean I will be converting to mormonism if we go to church.  I said, no, you can go to church without any obligations.  One girl said, she was baptist, and would go to the baptist church and then come over for dinner.  But the twins and their sister got there late and still stayed for another 1.5 hours while their mom was waiting in the car.  So we fed them and made up a plate for their mother.  I think that most of these girls have never tasted a home cooked meal.  But the girls did not want to leave.  One girls mom called and she said, no I want to stay longer.  Anyway, mom had been praying that we would get girls on our team that needed our influence, and I know Hevenly Father answered that prayer.  We did not win as many games as I would have liked, but about 5 of those girls (native americans) needed to see what real families are like and I think they really liked it.  Mom and I discussed it but she said she was praying for that after the fact that we had drafted our team, but HF knew what she was going to pray for before hand and blessed us with the girls we got.  One girl in particular that really has no family life, her dad is in prison, I don't know where her mom is, but mom drafted her by "misstake", she thought she was drafting another girl.  Not is coincidental with the LORD.  That is the same girl who is staying with Renee Jim and Renee asked Dorinda Friez is we wanted that girl to come live with us as they are tired of her.  They were also asking about Cody, and we said he was on a date, and they asked who with?   The older sister who came and ate with the twins is a 9th graded and she asked if Cody was taking her to prom.  I said no he is taking Rebecca Eardley to prom and they all said, ohhh, a player huh?  I explained that we don't want our kids steady dating 1 person, but to date lots of girls and find the qualities of the girl they like to look for in a wife later on in life when they are ready to get married.  I beleive they understood.  But it was a very enjoyable evening.
 
We had testimony meeting yesterday at church, since general conference is this next weekend.  I can't wait, I love general conference. 
 
March madness update, final four are: Kentucky, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Duke.  I had Kentucky winning it all as they are undefeated.  I was doing good in the brakets, now I am ranked over 1000.  I was 13th at one time.
 
Have a super week.  WE Love you and are glad you are a mission.  I don't know if Cody will get his mission call this week, as I am not sure President Lewis sent them in yet.  And this week Pres. Lewis is on vacation.  We will just wait and see.
 
Love DAD

Cody's Mission papers should be going in this week

Hola Hermana Nielsen,
 
How was you week?  We had another busy week full of activities.  March madness began last week and that is one of my favorite times of the year.  I love watching all those upsets.  This year there have not been too many only a few upsets.  I had a good birthday.  We did not do much, but it was good.  The ladies that work with me in the office took me out to the Star on Wed. for lunch.  That was good.

 

We won on PAL playoff game on Monday.  Our best player was not there and we still managed to win.  But then on Wednesday we play the #1 team who is undefeated and they beat us badly.  Summer says that that team was the same team that played for spring creek middle school. So I think there was some scamming going on to get all those girls on the same team.  But our girls played well.  I was getting frustrated as our girls would not hussle back on defense after they got beat.

 

But I am glad PAL is over that was taking up way too much time.  Suzzie the PAL director asked us if we were going to do it again next year.  We will see.

 

I took the day off on Friday and worked on taxes and then went to Winnemucca to watch Cody play with the conklin's.  We got beat 5-3, but Lowry had some lucky bounces.  Then we all went to Lowry on Sat. to watch the double hitter.  We beat them both times.  Cody pitched a couple of innings in the 2nd game.  We got back about 6, and then we had to clean the church, so we went down there about 9:30 pm. to get that done.  I was really tired on Sunday.

 

On Thursday, mom and I went to the play Les Misierables.  It was long, and I could not understand any of the singing and was not familiar with the play, so I was lost.  But the singing was good.

 

Well have a great week. PUt in your prediction for where Cody will go on his mission.  WE love you and are happy you are a missionary.

 

Love,

 

DAD

Happy Birthday to Dad! Another year older

Hola mi querida hermana Nielsen,
 
Well I am another year older today.  I have a busy day today, teaching my class tonight, and we have our 1st PAL playoff game tonight at 5:30 pm.  So Mom made me a cake and they sang happy birthday to me yesterday.  This morning, when Addie woke up, she came out into the kitchen and I said, Addie, guess what today is?  And she said, Friday?  I said, no, it is my birthday.  And she said, "AGAIN???  No more, you are not going to have more birthdays."  I guess she thought yesterday was good enough.
 
This was another busy week.  On Monday evening, Daniel Sills, Greg Sills' brother took his own life.  And Brother Sills is really having a hard time with it.  He does not want to come back to church and questions the eternal plan of happiness, as he said if you believe in the Bible, Danny is going to heck. His testimony is rocked pretty good. I am very grateful for the testimony of the plan of salvation that we have been blessed with.  Life would be very difficult if we did not have that.
 
Cody played South Tahoe on Friday and Sat.  Elko won all 3 games, but Cody only was the designated hitter, so he did not play any defense.  He was surprised by that, he thought it was only for 1 or 2 games.  He hit the ball pretty well, I think he went 3 for 8.
 
We lost 2 more Pal games last week, we are 2 and 8.  On Thursday's game, we played the number 2 team in the league and only lost by 3 points.  We were right there and had a few opportunities to win.  Summer played really well.  She had 4 points all in the 4th quarter and was 2 for 2 from the line.  We are getting better if I could just get these girls to play hard all the time.
 
3 months today is all you have left.  Have you decided about extending or not.  Cody wants to put in his papers this week or some time soon and we are going to put July 1st as his availability date.  Let us know.
 
We love you and pray for you daily.  Keep working hard.  It will all be over so quickly.
 
Love
 
Dad

We met the Bott Family

Hola Hermana Nielsen,
 
Last week was kind of a blur.  Cody started baseball on Monday, (the others had been practicing for 3 weeks) and he left on Thursday for Reno.  They had 5 games.  They won 3 and lost 2.  Cody said he did okay for not having practiced any more than that.
 
I taught my class on Monday night.
 
We had PAL basketball practice every night this week.  I will be glad when this is done, there are way too many practices for PAL.  On Tuesday I drove down to Ely to visit the seniors at White Pine High School.  I did not get back until 11:30 pm.  I worked for 7 hours before I left and I left at 2:30 pm.  That was a long day. 
 
On Friday, we had the Elders over for dinner at 5 pm and then they came back at 7:30 and we taught a new member lesson to Amber Gibson and her family.  They got baptized back in Oct. 2014.
 
On Saturday, Summer had 2 Adobe volleyball games.  We went to the first one, and she did pretty well.  She bumps the ball very well.  Then we drove out to Spring Creek for our PAL game without 3 of our best players who were playing volleyball and we got beat by Owyhee 46-11.  It was an old fashion spanking.  Saturday evening, the Harris family had extra tickets to the Elko High School crab feed and Mom and I went to that.  The crab was good, but it was too loud and too long.  We got home at 9:30 pm. 
 
We sprang forward our clocks for daylight savings and went to  bed about 11:30 pm.  Cody got home from his baseball trip at 12:30 and we had to get up at 3 am to drive to Utah to hear Joseph Nielsen's farewell address.  I did not sleep after Cody came home as I was afraid I would over sleep.  But we got up, none of us showered and we left and made it at 8:55 am Utah time for his sacret meeting.  Then we all went over to Darhls and had a bite to eat and I tried to sleep for a few hours, but it was too noisy.  We picked up Cody's glasses at Costco, WE bought them 2 months ago, and had never made it back. 
 
We then drove up to Kaysville, Ut to visit the Bott family and pick up your package.  They are a very nice family and it was good to see them.  Thank you for all the goodies in your box.  We headed back to Elko and got home around 9 pm.  Another very long day.
 
Keep working hard, a little over 3 months left. Sprint to the finish line.  We love you and always pray for you.
 
Love,
 
Dad

No Luck at state

Hola Hermana Nielsen,

Well as mom told you, Elko boys lost to Desert Pines by 3 points in O.T.  Cody played a great game.  But we already knew he would play great.  He always steps up in the big games when the pressure is on.  He had about 5-8 people tell him that that was the best game they have seen him play.  Ryan Klekas was one of them.  But what bothered me, was they kept taking Cody out and putting Eric Klekas in for offense, and you could see in his eyes, he did not want the ball and did not want to shot the ball.  He always falls under the pressure, where as Cody always steps up.  But I attribute the lose to getting out coached.  We have not been able to make free throws all year, and Cody said they only shot 5 free throws this week.  Don't you know that big games will come down to free throws.  Desert pines made  6-8 in OT and Elko shot 13 for 24 the entire game.  Oh well, there is more to life than basketball.  Actually, we sent 25 teams from the North to Vegas, and all but 1 girls team got beat in the semi finals.  It was not a good year for the North.  Elko girls team lost as well to a team that had two freshman players that were amazing.  They were better than Johnna Ward and sierra Dunbar.  They were great players, and played like boys.  Cody said one of them had 30 points in a quarter in 1 game.

We had to get another rental car, but it did not have the dvd player.  The kids were disappointed.  It was raining and snowing on the way down and on the way back on Saturday.  I wanted to hurry back as to not get caught in the storms.  We were fasting as a stake for moisture as we are really dry.  The last time we fasted, it flooded our basement.  We played a makeup PAL bball game on Thursday and we won.  Summer is doing alot better.  There is still alot we have to work on with her, but she has the ability.  Out team is improving, and I thought all teams went to the tournament, but I guess not. 

I am getting tired of it as we practice every night is seems like.  I have to go to Ely on Tuesday for FAFSA night.

Now we move on to baseball.  Elko beat Reid in baseball over the weekend.  They have already started the the games.  Cody will put in his mission papers sometime soon.  We need to get his physical and dental work done.  Next weekend, we will be going to Utah for Joe Nielsen's farewell.  We will pick up Cody's glasses then and meet hermana Bott's family.

Well we hope you have a great week.  We love you and are so happy you are on a mission.  Only 3.5 months left, work as hard as you can.  Sprint to the finish line.

Love,

Dad