Be Afraid....Be Very Afraid

We just thought we should warn everyone that Erin has started practice driving.
She has not hit anything yet...........

Another Exciting Week

Katie is playing softball this summer with Cache Valley Crush. The team is made up of girls from Mountain Crest and Skyview highschool. Their first tournament was down in Cedar City Utah where the played in the Utah Summer Games. Their first two games were against U18 teams. They were very competive but they lost both games. Then they went to the U16 bracket and they started winning. They all played pretty good and they started to gel as a team. Katie played 3rd base.

She also was in a place in the batting line up where she got to bunt a lot. She is getting very good at getting the bunt down to move the runners around the bases. She is also pretty fast so a lot of times she will get base hits off her bunts too. Any way they won there first bracket game and went into the next game pretty excited. They played hard and ended up winning the game after 1 extra inning. Katie made an out at the end of regulation that kept the other team from scoring and sending the game to extra innings. It was very exciting.

Anyway, after winning that game it was on to the campionship game where we were the undefeated team that the other team had to beat twice to win. We were a little nervious but the girls played great. The were tough under pressure and won the GOLD in the bottom of the 9th inning. That is 2 extra innings in fastpitch softball for their age group. It was sooooo much fun.

Katie got the gold medal placed around her neck by her Coach.




Way to go Cache Valley Crush 2008 Gold Medal Winners

We Love Our Dad

We are so lucky in the Bowen family, to have a wonderful Husband and Father at our head. He works so hard for us to have the life we enjoy and we want to take just a few lines to say thank you and we love you. Thank you for building us a beautiful house to live in. Thank you for showing us how to work hard. Thank you for supporting all of our activities and telling us you love us. Thank you for putting up with and supporting all your wifes crazy projects. Thank you for your soft heart and strong testimony of the Gospel. Thank you for putting your arms around us and giving us "scratchy face kisses." We hope you had a good Father's day and we love you, no matter what anybody else says.

Brandon at the Barn

Brandon has become a regular at the Old Barn Community Theater. He just got finished doing Cinderella. He was the really funny minister that married Cinderella and the prince so they could live happily ever after. But not only that, he was a dancer with some killer moves. He had to let is hair grow for a very long time. We got to see his curls for the first time since he was about 8 years old. He has made a lot of friends and now is getting ready to preform in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

So Much to Blog...So Little Time

We have had so much happen in the last little while, and we haven't been home to blog about it. So this is our mega update.

We will start with the Mountain Crest Highschool softball season. It was cold and kinda of long, but it was a lot of fun.

Katie played and Heidi coached. We were not sure how that was going to play out when it first started but it ended up being a very positive experience. The varsity team only won 2 region games all year. Katie was a pinch runner for the varsity team. Mostly she played third base for the JV team. The JV team won most all of their games. So it was much more fun. Heidi was the head coach for the JV. By the time the season ended all her girls had new nick names that I think are going to follow them even when they are not playing softball. So if your ever walking down the halls a MC and here people being called worm and mouth, you will know you have found some softball girls.

I think the thing that made Heidi the most nervious about coaching was learning to give signs to the batters and runners. She was a little tentative at first but by the end of the season she was pretty good at it. We thought you might want to see. So here is a video.

Katie learned how to play 3rd base this year. She did a great job. She also learned how to bunt and to slap. That part was a little frustrating to her but she is getting really good at it. She also played enough varsity innings to get her letter. Now she just has to earn the money to buy the jacket.

All in all it was a fun season. Katie learned a lot and made a lot of friends. Now we just have to "wait for next year!"

Happy Birthday Brandon Dee!!!

Happy Birthday Brandon Dee Bowen!!!

Born in Logan, Cache, Utah, USA on May 31, 1982 at 5:55 pm...

Yep, that makes him 26 years old.

Here he is with his birthday cake and a smile...

His day was busy and he was treated to a new digital camera and a family dinner at the Bluebird~~~

So wish him a happy birthday when you get a chance...

AND>>>

Not to distract from great event... check out the latest edition to June's Journey if you want really see something cool...

Click on Gramma June's Journey under the "Families n' Friends Blogs" Link on the left side!!!

Oh by the way....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDON!!!

Honoring the Vets... Bowen Style

Happy Memorial Day... This is a neat holiday for me and my family because it gives a chance to reflect upon those who went before us...

I am the sexton of the Mendon Cemetery and what a great job (uncompensated) this has been for me... To look at the history and care for both the living and the dead is a humbling responsibility. It is even more important to get it done right for the sake of the family and my sanity.

One of my responsibilities as a sexton is to make sure that the flags are placed on the veterans graves for Memorial Day. In the past, I have had the local Girl Scouts help me out with this but that didn't materialize and so I decided to make it a family affair.

I informed the kids that we were going to get up early Saturday morning and put flags on the 108 veterans in the Mendon Cemetery.

Upon receiving this announcement, there was a combined groan that resembled a pre-historic dinosaur gasping for its last breath, but it turned out to be a great experience because they talked about it a lot after about the things and people they didn't know before.

So we all (Eric, Terri, Brandon, Heidi, Katie, and Erin) loaded up in the the van with clipboards and flags in hand and took to the cemetery... The Bowen Brood insisted that they ride in the back of the van with the door up and that was hilarious to say the least.

After we got out, the assignments were given out and Heidi and Brandon paired up... and Katie and Erin paired up and then Terri and I took the rest. Everybody went straight to work and it was pretty cool to see how their demeanor changed as they respected the dead they were honoring.

Above is Erin placing a flag on a vets grave... Katie was right close by... but didn't show up in the picture. The noted that there was some neat inscriptions on the headstones and that there were some cool things.

Brandon and Heidi had the longest list and I gave it to them on purpose because I knew that they would recognize a lot of the people we were honoring and they had a lot of responses to that... They ran into Dean Maurer and Pete Joe Sanchez... two of our neighbors and they commented on how neat it was to see a vet (Fred Walker) that actually wasn't buried there but only memorialized because he was lost at sea during WW II. There are four vets that are in that same situation in the cemetery. They even mentioned that they didn't know that Melva Kidman was a veteran...

The kids did give me crap about being the last one done... we, by far had the shortest list but again it was important for me to get it done right. We (Terri and I) were in the old part of the cemetery and it was mostly Pioneer Veterans who served their country, Spanish American War Veterans, and even one from the Texas Republic Army... James Jack.

Then I ran into a few people that meant a lot to me growing up... Ned J. Bodily... a WW II vet that was my principal at Mendon Elementary school... and even Joseph B. Richards... the biggest, boastinest, potlicker I ever knew... he was a character.

Terri, not to be outdone and our photographer to boot, evidently snapped a close up of the bottom of the flag sticks or.... well, we just leave it at that... Ha ha...

When all was said and done and we had completed the task, (although this picture only shows one flag), the sight was impressive and it was neat to know that there was that many people in a small town cemetery had served their country with honor... and some gave their all.

This morning, after bishopric meeting, I made my way up to the cemetery with camera in hand and notice that the city had set a row of flags up the road leading to the cemetery and it was a cool site... Don't you think???

This is looking down the road...



Happy Memorial Day to All... and spend some time this weekend about YOUR heritage and the people in you lives that have made a difference in you live... whether dead or alive... because when it comes right down to it... Family is where it is at...



I think our family learned something about that today... I appreciate their efforts and love them a ton.

Tommorrow, I am excited to participate in another one of my sexton duties... getting the colors posted... Memorial Day Style...

Matt Shelton had a great Eagle Project where the Flagpole was replace and it looks wonderful... To ice the cake, I have asked him to lead a flag raising ceremony at dawn tommorrow... 5:58 am.

I mentioned a minute ago about posting the colors Memorial Day Style.... Prior to becoming a sexton, i didn't know that there was a protocol for a flag service on that day... Here it is...

Displaying the flag at half staff on MEMORIAL DAY

On Memorial Day the flag is flown at half-staff only until NOON. The proper sequence for displaying the flag on this holiday we have set aside to remember the more than one million men and women who have died in defense of our Nation is:

1. In the morning the flag should be attached to the halyard and raised briskly to the top of the flag pole, then slowly lowered to the mid-way point of the pole.



2. At noon the flag should be raised to the top of the flag pole.



3. At the end of the day the flag should be slowly and ceremoniously lowered and removed.
   
   So think of me at noon tommorrow when I will be raising the flag from half mast to full mast...
   
   
   Hope we all learned something today...
   God Bless!!!
   
   Here's a couple of pictures from this mornings "half mast" raising...