Spilling the Boston Baked Beans

This month has been a fun month for all the Boston Boltons.

Siovhan has been working at Tyco Healthcare since the end of April. She is doing data entry. She loves being on the computer. She sits at a desk from 7:30 until 4:30, Monday thru Friday. Then, when she arrives home, she eats and sits back down to the computer. You would think that she would be tired of being at the computer, but Siovhan says the computer is her way of connecting with all of her friends, who are at this time, scattered throughout the world. Siovhan has been called as the Faith In God For Girls leader. There are about fourteen young ladies, and two adult women that she is in charge of. She has a plan for activities that was given to her when she was called, so she basically just has to pull the ideas together and get the girls and women to help her out. She has had plenty of practice, she was the Youth Camp Leader of all the YCL's and Fourth years at Girl's Camp two years ago, plus she has been the class president of the Mia Maids and the Laurels. She has had to come up with plenty of activities, and carry out her duties. She is good at delegating--much better than her mother. One of Siovhan’s roommates, Heather, will be coming and staying a week with us at the end of May and into June. Siovhan is taking a vacation from work while Heather is here. Siovhan will be taking her into Boston to do some site seeing. Siovhan can’t wait for Heather to get here. It should be exciting. Heather has a little brother that is named Braden—so it’s like fate to have them friends.

Braden is currently in Washington, D.C. The eighth grade took a history tour there. They will be gone for a week. Braden wasn't too sure that he was excited about going. He tends to love to be at home. He has been studying US History all this year, and this tour is to help the students relate to the material they have been learning about. His Mom is very envious that he gets to take this tour. The tour will include many wonderful sights: Kennedy Memorials, the Tomb

of the Unknown Soldier, the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Old Post Office Pavilion, Reagan Building, Embassy Row, National Cathedral, the Vietnam, Korean and World War II Memorials, Lincoln Memorial, Union Station,

Jefferson, FDR and two Iwo Jima Memorials. That is all on Wednesday. On Thursday they will be going to Ford's Theater, the Spy Museum, lunch at the Smithsonian and tours at the Smithsonian, then off for dinner at a dinner theater where they will watch “The Pajama Game.” On the last day they will go to the White House and Lafayette Park, after which they will go the National Zoo, then leave to come back to Massachusetts. It is usually a nine-hour drive

from Washington, D.C. Braden has been sustained and set apart as the Secretary for the Teachers Quorum. He likes the Presidency and has worked with them one time before, when he was in the Deacon's Presidency. He is excited for some of the new activities that he will be experiencing. In June he will get to attend his first Youth Conference. This is the first year that they won't be doing three full days. Because of all the snow this year, the Stake had to cut back a day as a lot of the schools will still be in session.

Ben is our forever pessimistic-optimist. (Yes, I can guarantee that you can be both—I’ve seen it first hand.) He is working on the biking merit badge. This requires a lot of bike riding, something that my boys haven’t done a lot of. They have to ride on the highways and I don’t trust other drivers. They need to have two ten miles rides, a fifteen-mile, 25 mile and 50 mile ride. Being the pessimist, he knows that is going to require a lot of work, but the optimist in him says that he is sure that he can work up to it. He and Braden have been earning money for Scout camps by doing yard mulching. This past weekend, they spread thirteen yards of mulch. That is a LOT of mulch. It took them pretty much most of seven hours to do all the work. They had help from one of the Bishopric members and one of the owners of the house that they were mulching. Ben surmised that yard work is a lot of hard work. It is much easier to pay others to do the work. He does want to mow our yard—it takes forever to mow the lawn, but he still wants to learn how, because Mom pays well. Ben will be marching in the Memorial Day Parade on Monday. He isn’t too excited about marching. Braden gets the year off as the eighth grade band isn’t a marching band, but next year and the year after, it is mandatory marching. Siovhan doesn’t empathize with them very much; they deserve to march, because she

had to. Ben says the hardest part of playing the saxophone is the carrying of the case to and from school. His mom isn’t very sympathetic. She says that the hardest part is the paying for him to carry it to and from school. Very unsympathetic family. Poor Ben.

Mikaela is doing very well in school still. She isn’t as involved in extra curricular activities. She is still struggling with her Asthma, but we feel like we are doing the best for the area that we live in, but wish that life could be easier for her. Spring and Fall are really tough on her. She loves being outside, and especially on warm days. We have to give her baths at night, and she doesn’t always appreciate this, but she has come to realize that it is part of her life. Mikaela is a very special girl. She loves to be around a lot of people (so different from the shy child that she used to be!) She has a few friends in the neighborhood and would love to have all the friends in her class have her over to play. One girl’s mom told her that her daughter had enough friends, so Mikaela would just have

to play with her daughter at school. She loves people and doesn’t understand why people can’t seem to like her—after all, she such a wonderful girl, why wouldn’t anyone like her? I mentioned that Mikaela’s reading had really changed over the past few months. She is constantly reading and writing stories. She has

evolved into a regular lover of reading. With experience comes good news. Mikaela is very excited for Memorial Day. She was elected by her teacher to be a participant in the Memorial Day celebration at Brookside Elementary. Memorial Day here in Massachusetts is a very big thing. The Soldiers from all the past wars get to march in their units and they get cheers, the bands play, there are boy scouts and girl scouts honoring the Veterans. Then there are cookouts and all kinds of activities, so for Mikaela to get nominated to be a reader at the celebration is a fantastic thing. All of the schools do their own Memorial Celebration, and Mikaela’s will be out in front of the building, which will have a flag raising ceremony and songs from the three grades that attend that school, then they will have a short reading and some short speeches on Patriotism. Mikaela will be a part of the reading. We plan on taping it and taking pictures. Siovhan says that Mikaela takes after her.

Howard told me that I am not allowed to mention his golf game anymore. It is frustrating for him to have to relive it on paper, as well as having everyone else know that he isn’t doing as well as he has done in the past. He told me last week that he wasn’t going to inform me of his score, but just that he and his partner won the round. He does have a new golf club, and for those who don’t golf, it is like unto having a new child in the family. It takes time to get used to, it can keep you awake at nights with wonder, and when it is a good day, all hear the wonders of its qualities. Howard did hire a new worker. She will be taking over some of his travel responsibilities. I have met her and she seems like a wonderful person. Howard will be training her during the next month and showing her all the areas that they need to travel to. They have a couple of trips planned. The first one starts out with Howard going to Canada to see one of his nephews, Stephen, married in the temple. Stephen is Joy’s son. Then he will be off to South America. What a change in climates, in just a manner of hours. He will be in South America for while, come back to Massachusetts, and then off to the other side of the world. He informed me that he has to get some major trips in, just to keep up his Platinum status with American Airlines. It has been fun having him home, though. It has been nice to not have to worry how I am going to get all the children to all of their destinations and then pick them all up. Howard and I just returned from a weekend in New Hampshire. We had Siovhan be the parent for the weekend. We went to the White Mountains. It is so beautiful there. We went driving around, climbing some of the smaller trails, and just loving the nature. It was interesting to see that the trees that far north still didn’t have leaves. There was still snow on some of the peaks. The highest peak, Mount Washington, was socked in fog, but we were still able to drive to the 4,200-foot level and then we walked a ways up the side of the mountain, just to see what we could see. It was cold! It has a tundra like look, which was interesting to see. There was moss and short, scrubby pines on the sides of the mountains. On the way out of the canyon, I saw a car from Ohio driving erratically. I commented on it to Howard. Then I noticed the driver was driving with a camera out of the window, I looked to see what he was trying to get a picture of—it was a huge moose! The first one I had ever seen in the wild. It was HUGE! It was a mother, no antlers and it was eating the grass on the side of the road, next to a river. Howard managed to swing the car around a take a few pictures. Then we tried to hunt it down (at a distance) but it had gone up stream. It sure drew a lot of attention, there were cars stopping all up and down the highway to get a view. It was great to get away. Siovhan wasn’t so sure that it was great. She had to get the boys to Karate, to the service project and make sure that they had their baths, and then she took them to Stake Conference. Dinners were interesting, Mikaela informs me. I didn’t care, they were healthy and were glad to see me when I got home, and those were the important things. I think it made them appreciate all that their parents do on a typical weekend.

That’s all for now. The summer is shaping up to be a busy one.