Fond Memories of High School

The following is an article that appeared in the final issue of the high school newspaper. Keep in mind that Brittany was 3rd in the class and her friend Hank, mentioned in the article, was 2nd in the class. Interesting to see what their favorite memories of high school are.

Senior Reflections
By: Audrey Adkins
The year of 2010 has been amaz­ing! But one thing that has made it amazing was our awesome seniors. We took a little bit of time to ask seniors about their experiences in high school, and this is what they said:

When asked what her favorite high school memory was, Brittany Berry said, "State track my fresh­man year! We all went to the pool when we weren't supposed to and Mr. Thomas was pissed! I called Mr. Vaughan at midnight instead of the boys, and some of us went streak­ing!" What are you going to miss about American Falls high school when you graduate? "The glori­ous slick hallways and spinning in circles in the middle of them!" she said. Who was your favorite teach­er? "Mr. Johnson!" What was your favorite class? "Ms. Lenz's calculus class last year- oh my!" I don't re­ally think I want to know what went on in that class ...

Then I asked her if she had any funny or crazy stories from her high school experience. She said "Sure I do! I got stuck in a trash can twice in one day and it wasn’t my fault. In tenth grade we made 'chocolate cheese' by leaving a carton of milk in a locker for three months in attempt to curdle it. My skirt flew above my head in front of everyone. Tayce was my physical therapist when my ankles were all jacked up and I tried to sneak him to Boise with me (for State Track). In Mrs. Hazah's class when we were doing skits, Derek did a George Bush impersonation all in Spanish. Derek, Braden, Hank, and Tayce stood in a line (and danced to Venga Boys 'Boom! Boom! Boom!' and Stewart Stewart taught our whole statistics class how to ride a unicycle!" said Brit­tany. Wow, well I don't think anyone will ever be bored when they are with Brittany, that's for sure.
When I asked Hank Fitch what his favorite high school memory was, he said, "getting Derek kicked out of Mrs. Chapman's class!" Then I asked Hank and Tayce McIntier if either of them had any funny stories from their time in high school and, SURPRISE, it was inappropriate ... typical of them.

The Month in Review

And yet another post about how busy we are… it seems I am always playing catch up. So, here is a flash back to what we have been doing the last few weeks.

~~*~~

Brittany graduated from Seminary. Yes, this is a big deal! We didn’t think she would. Taking all the dual enrollment classes created scheduling conflicts. Then this year she was on student council and had to miss several classes. She barely got her makeup work in and squeaked by with just enough credit to pass.

Brittany & Tia

Brittany & Suzie

Brittany & Jessica

Brittany & Justin aka Brother

Happy Seminary Graduates


Morgan had lots of fun field trips. (I think they played the entire last month of school.) I didn’t get to go on all of them but Zane and I did walk with the kids to the library, museum, and park. It was a long walk but the kids had so much fun! Morgan’s teacher grew up here and knows all the history of the town. I learned that some of my friends live in homes that were moved from the original town site before the dam was built in 1925.

The museum was super cool but I think the park was their favorite stop.


Last weekend Brittany graduated from high school. My brothers, my sister, my parents, Scott’s sister and all their families were able to come spend the day with us. Our little house was full but it was so great to be all together. A big THANK YOU to them for making the sacrifices to be here and for making the long drive!

Brittany graduated number three in her class. She received several scholarships and is ready to move to Logan to start school. (She is also taking 23 college credits with her.)

Check out all that GOLD!


And in between all the fun we have been finishing our remodel, cleaning our house, and showing it to potential buyers. Scott is anxious to start his new job and anxious for our house to sell. I wish we could just load up the house on a trailer and take it with us.

Packing is not very fun!

Window Garden

It has been too cold to plant anything outside! And with the upcoming move, we decided not to plant a garden this year. So, our garden is growing in the kitchen.

Morgan planted a bean plant at school. It has done very good growing in a plastic cup in the kitchen window. (See the green beans!)

I received a tomato plant for Mother’s day. It too has enjoyed the warmth of the kitchen window.

For Brittany

"Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them."

~Anne of Green Gables~

My mind was flooded with memories, and my eyes flooded with tears, as I looked through the scrapbook for pictures. We have been through so much together in our short 18 years. We have been a lot of places and seen a lot of things.

Our journey has not always been smooth but overall,

we have enjoyed the ride.

When you graduated from kindergarten at the top of your class, I had hopes that someday it would be high school graduation. I didn’t think the time would go by so quickly but here we are.

Over the years you have been my rock…

And you always will be my sunshine!


My hope for you is that you will continue to enjoy the ride as your journey takes off in a new direction.
Great things await you!

We love you!

Random Thought

I had an interesting thought when a little killdeer woke me up at 2:30 this morning. She was very upset that the neighbor’s cat was near her nest. As she chirped, very loudly, for more than 20 minutes (which didn’t seem to bother the cat) I wondered if she would ever realize that all of her complaining was getting her no where.

The thought came to me that we can be like this little bird and whine and complain when we don’t like what is happening around us. Or, we can be like my husband and get up and do something to make a difference. It was the throwing of rocks that made the cat leave, not the protesting of the bird. Just complaining about problems doesn’t fix them. We need to be willing to stand up and make a difference. Throwing rocks won’t always be the answer. However, if we see something that needs to be done then we need to do it.

One person can make a difference.

{Time 4 A Change}

At first I was excited. You only live once so why not get out and experience life – see the world. Then fear started to overcome me as I began to worry about all that would change. I stressed about all that I have to do to make this work. I stressed about how my children would handle the change. I stressed about how much money it will cost!

Then we went to stake conference yesterday and listened to our prophet speak. I don’t know what others heard but I heard him say we should not fear when we are on the Lord’s side. So I am trying to let go of my fears and put my faith in the Lord. If this is what we are supposed to do, then I know it will all work out. Will it be a piece of cake? Probably not. Will there be difficulties? For sure. But a friend of mine once said that nothing easy is ever worth it. We work through the difficulties and learn and grow from our experiences.

So, we are now making preparations to move to Nebraska. While we really don’t want to leave our home here, we have to go to where the job is. The feedlot said they will wait for Scott because they really want him to work there. We have to sell our house first though. Our new family room is almost done and I am trying to get caught up on the spring cleaning.

If you know of anyone wanting to live just outside of American Falls in a great little neighborhood let me know. (Sarah, you could buy our house and not have to build a garage. There is room for a tree house too.)

Where have you been?

I just realized it has been a while since I posted anything. Either we live a very boring life or man have we been busy.

A lot of my time has been consumed with helping Brit get ready for graduation and college beyond. Because of all the crazy events at the beginning of the year, she was a little behind on getting things done. She had her heart set on going to Utah State but paying full out-of-state tuition was going to make it impossible. I told her to start making a Plan B and she informed me that Utah State was the answer she got when she prayed about where to go and she was determined to make it happen.

A few weeks later she got the letter telling her she had the Deans Scholarship for Utah State. (It covers tuition for 2 years.) She has been applying for other scholarships as well so hopefully we won’t have to borrow very much her first year. Since we were back to Plan A, we had to get her signed up for orientation and housing and meal plans and start looking at classes for the Fall.

Dad watched the little ones so Brit and I could make a trip to Logan. We toured the campus and figured out the housing options. It is a pretty amazing school! (We located the local mall as well.)

I have also been helping Brit get ready for the National BPA competition in California this week. (A big THANKS to all of you who helped make this trip possible for her!) We managed to get all of her stuff packed into one bag to check and one bag to carry on. That was tough! She flew out today and returns on Sunday.

In my spare time I’ve been organizing Primary activities, helping out at a local preschool and daycare, trying to keep Morgan and Zane out of trouble, and trying to keep up with the mess in my house. (I’ve given up on the weeds outside, it’s too cold!) We are also frantically trying to get our family room finished before all the family shows up for graduation.

To make a long story short – we have been busy!