Our Story: The Bell Family

Mark passed his oral exam this week!! He has been studying for weeks but was still nervous about it. On April 1, he met with his committee members over Zoom and they each asked him questions. He felt it went very well. After the exam he left the Zoom meeting so the professors could decide if he passed. He went to Dr. Conover’s office and he and the other professors (still on Zoom) told Mark he passed! Mark asked if it was an April fool’s joke which everyone chuckled about. Now that he has passed he can apply to be a PhD candidate. He’s been doing all this studying on top of his other class work and research so it will be a relief to have one less thing on his plate.

Mark and I decided we wanted to celebrate Holy Week this year. We used the book “The Holy Week for Latter-Day Saint Families” by Wendee Wilcox Rosborough. Each day we read about the events the week before Christ died, looked at the artwork, read scriptures, and chose an activity to complete.

On Palm Sunday we wrote blessings on a “palm” leaf.

On cleansing the temple Monday we walked around the temple block. It was really nice to be near the temple even though we couldn’t go on the grounds.

On parable Tuesday we talked about the example of the Good Samaritan and dropped off a treat and uplifting quote to a ward member. We did our Passover meal on Wednesday because we didn’t know how long Mark’s exam was going to take on Thursday (it ended up taking two hours). Our Passover meal really wasn’t traditional, but it was our first attempt and it was neat to learn about the different foods and what they represent. I had to run all over town to find lamb to buy and finally ended up with ground lamb from Walmart. So we sort of had lamb burgers on flat bread with horse radish sauce haha.

On Thursday we read about betrayal Wednesday and looked for opportunities to serve each other. We celebrated Good Friday with a fish dinner (ok it was actually shrimp… A for effort, right?). We also dyed Easter eggs!

Saturday was Salvation Saturday. We decided to write letters to AJ and Tanya, our nephew and niece serving full time missions. We also enjoyed watching general conference all day!

Just for fun on Saturday morning we hiked the Bonneville Shoreline trail. This is my favorite hike because the view is beautiful and it’s flat-which is my kind of hiking.

Between sessions of conference on Saturday we went to my parents’ for a little picnic. My sister Marisa was visiting them for a couple days so it was fun to see her as well.

The Easter Bunny made a stop at our house on Saturday too! Mark got a new shirt (he needs new clothes now that he has achieved his weight loss goal!), Home Improvement on DVD, a shooting handbook, and a gift card to Jamba Juice. I got the first three illustrated Harry Potter books (they’re soooo pretty. I looked at every picture!), a pastry mat, a can opener, and a Denman brush (a brush I just learned about for curly hair). In attempts to be healthier, we asked the Easter bunny to use nuts for our bunny trails with just a little candy rather than doing the trail 100% candy like usual.

Flynn got a trail of treats and a new toy!

The first exciting news of the week is that we got the first dose of the COVID vaccine on Wednesday!! We signed up through the Bear River Health Department but our clinic was at the Logan fire station. The fire fighters gave us our vaccines and then we got to sit by the fire trucks for fifteen minutes to make sure we didn’t have any negative reactions. My arm always gets sore from flu shots and my sister, who never gets sore from flu shots, could barely move her arm after the COVID vaccine so I was a little nervous about how sore I might be. We barely felt the needles go in. After coming home, we both felt a little foggy and our arms were a bit sore for a day but it wasn’t bad at all! I’m grateful it went well and hope we have minimal side effects with the second dose too. We’re one step closer to going back to “normal!”

The next exciting news of the week was Mark’s brother, Steven‘s, wedding! We went to Tiffany’s house Thursday evening and left Flynn there to play with her children during the wedding Friday morning. Due to COVID limitations only Mark went inside the temple. It was the first time all his siblings were in the temple together which made it extra special for him. Tiffany drove me over later for family pictures. It was fun to see everyone and to be on the temple grounds after the temple being closed for so long. I can’t believe I forgot to snap a picture of us while we were there! We weren’t able to stay for the other celebrations, but were so happy to be there for the most important part. We’re excited for Steven and Makenzie to begin their life together and look forward to getting to know Makenzie better!

Flynn had so much fun playing with our nieces and nephew. In the past he hasn’t done tricks for children before-I think it’s harder for kids to get the hand signals and commands right. But our nieces who are 6 and 10 figured it out and had him doing all sorts of fun tricks. I was very impressed by their dog training abilities!

Flynn loved their rabbit too! Luckily he has almost no hunting instinct! He wanted to sniff her and then would run back and forth to play with her. We wish we could get him to do that with other dogs!

Flynn slept the whole drive home, worn out from his play time.

On Saturday, Mark and I went to the church to put together General Conference activity packets for the primary kids (with a little Easter treat). My presidency and I will deliver them next week. I hope everyone likes them!

On Sunday our ward had teacher Council. I taught the primary teachers over Zoom about loving those you teach and Mark joined the teacher council for youth teachers. We have such an incredible ward. I can’t wait to be able to interact with the ward members a little more.

Speaking of which, this week we received the exciting news that on March 24 all Utahns over 16 will be able to get the vaccine! I bookmarked the websites for several locations providing the vaccine and began checking for available appointments a couple times every day. On Saturday evening a friend posted on Facebook that she had just booked her appointment so I checked the websites again and found one location with openings next week! It really is an answer to prayers as we hoped to have the vaccine before summer so we can safely travel and be with family.

Mark has kept busy with classes this week. He taught a lecture about mating systems to one of the classes he TA’s for. He had a take-home exam which took him most of the day on Saturday. Saturday was also the first state-wide food drive. The primary was responsible for delivering food drive flyers. We had a lot of primary families willing to help pass those out!

This week was the birthday of one of my favorite vipkid students, Elsa. I’ve taught her for three and a half years and am so impressed by her. She excels at everything she does (school, English, piano, violin, dance, rhythmic gymnastics, training her dog…) I had some nail polish sent to her as a gift. I happened to be teaching her on her birthday so I decorated my classroom, lit a candle in a muffin and sang happy birthday to her. She loved it!

We’ve had more warm and sunny days this week! I love seeing the spring flowers and getting out of the house more. We’ve also been enjoying using Aggie Village’s fancy grill!

Flynn and I met with my friend and her puppy to go on a couple walks together. On one of these walks we saw a wild turkey on a telephone line!

The warmth also brings out new insects and I got stung by a wasp right in the middle of my neck! I’ve only been stung once before so I didn’t know how swollen it would get. Luckily my brother is always talking about the many things you can do with honey so I decided to try it out and put honey on the string right away. It made it feel so much better! Then I used ice on and off the rest of the day and by bed time you could barely see the mark. Thank goodness!

Mark took his last two comprehensive exams on Monday and Wednesday. Mark’s major professor had positive feedback on them. Now Mark gets to wait while each professor on his committee grades the exam they wrote. It’s a relief to have these exams behind us!

Our primary activities girls’ group had a pet show on Zoom for their activity this week. Flynn and I joined and had so much fun seeing everyone’s pets and Flynn even got to show a trick!

Speaking of Flynn, we’ve been working a lot lately on his fear of other dogs. He gets easily overwhelmed by excited dogs. There’s a group of people in Aggie Village who meet by the pavilion with their dogs during lunch time each day so we’ve started joining them occasionally. Flynn likes to stay on the outside of the group but enjoys greeting the dogs one at a time. This week Flynn also got to meet my friend’s new mini Aussie puppy. He’s pretty calm and will be about the same size as Flynn when he’s full grown so we hope they’ll be good friends! He’s such a cute puppy!

This weekend is pie day so it was a perfect excuse to try out a new recipe. I have been missing the Oreo pie our temple cafeteria sells and this one turned out just as good! I made it a few days early so I could share it with a friend and my parents throughout the weekend (because I do not need to eat a whole pie myself).

On Saturday, Mark and I both got to see high school friends! Mark went to help his friend, Chase, cut down some trees at his house. My friend, Kierra, was in town for her mom’s birthday. She is so talented at making cakes and brought me a piece of her mom’s chocolate malt birthday cake. I gave her a piece of my Oreo pie. We sat on the grass and visited while our dogs got to know each other. Flynn loved her dog! He wasn’t quite brave enough to play yet, but he followed her around wagging his tail the whole time.

Mark took two more comprehensive exams this week. The first one took seven and a half hours, and the second one took eight hours. His professor had some suggestions for Mark after the first exam and seemed much happier with Mark’s performance on the second one. They’ve kept Mark extra busy to say the least. He has two more written exams next week, then it will be time to prepare for the oral exam!

Saturday morning we went on a little date. We haven’t gotten out of the house much in the last year so it was a lot of fun even though it was simple. We went to DI to look for some books but didn’t find anything we wanted. Then we used a coupon for a free car wash at a fancy, new drive-through car wash in town. We also went into the store Locals which sells things from local vendors. It was really fun to look at everything and Mark came home with two lego men (Captain America and Thor). Finally, we swung by a cupcake shop to use a coupon for free cupcakes from my young women’s leader who is now a real estate agent. They send us all sorts of fun coupons throughout the year and usually give us cupcake coupons for our birthdays! Mark is still going strong with his health program so I got the cupcakes all to myself. Yum!

We’ve really been enjoying the warmer weather! We reached 54 degrees on Saturday and everyone was outside on walks and at the play ground. We found the first flower of spring on Saturday too!

This week was pretty uneventful. I guess we need to start doing things so we have something to write about in this blog! Mark continued to spend a lot of time studying for his compressive exams! It’s a lot of work to do on top of his class work and research.

He took his first compressive exam on Friday. This exam was written by his major professor, Dr. Conover. Dr. Conover allowed him to view the questions before the test but Mark couldn’t use any notes or books during the exam. There were four questions on the exam and it took Mark four and a half hours to answer them all. He ended with six, single-spaced pages as his submission. He has four more of these exams to complete in the next two weeks-one exam from each professor on his committee. Then in April he will meet with his committee for an oral exam.

I had a meeting with my primary presidency over Zoom this week. I love the women I get to work with and am grateful we work together so well. We’ve had a lot of our primary workers move out of the ward or get new callings so we’re constantly filling in open spots. Even though we’re not meeting for primary we want every class to have two teachers and we’ve encouraged the teachers to reach out to their class often.

It’s been pretty cold this week, but the snowy mountains were beautiful!

My favorite new recipe this week was Turkey mozzarella meatballs. Yum!

Flynn got a new toy this week! Every time he plays with it I think of the scene from Lady and the Tramp where Lady gets a donut and coffee for breakfast! He’s so cute carrying a donut in his mouth!

Valentine’s Day landed on a Sunday this year so we did our dinner date the Friday before. We did exchange inexpensive gifts on Sunday! I got Mark a tie and he got me some earrings. I was very impressed he picked out these earrings without my help!

After sacrament meeting over Zoom I met my presidency at the church to divide valentines the primary kids had made. We each took some and delivered them to older, single adults in our ward. Our stake President had requested we do this. Everyone was so excited to receive their valentines!

Wednesday, Mark’s flight over Great Salt Lake and a class field trip were cancelled because of snow. We were able to use the day to take our car to the mechanic. That morning we drove through the snow, dropped off our car, and walked the mile home in a snow storm. We got a good workout walking through 10 inches of snow! It was pretty exciting. We saw several cars stuck trying to get up the big hill by Aggie Village. Luckily the snow had stopped and the roads were dry when it was time to pick up our car that afternoon. The snow storm got us up to 84% snow pack which is great news!

Mark is still studying a lot for his comprehensive exams. He has a lot of books to read before next week. We’ve been having reading parties every night where he reads textbooks and I read a fun book. Lately he spends most Saturday nights doing homework so he won’t have to do any work on Sunday. I know he’d rather be watching a movie with me so I’m proud of him for his commitment and dedication.

Saturday morning our primary had a baptism. In our stake, baptisms are happening on an individual level and only 20 people are allowed to attend. Additional family members can watch over Zoom. As soon as I walked in the girl being baptized ran over and said, “I’m so excited!” It was so fun to see her excitement to make sacred covenants with Heavenly Father. The girl’s four year old brother decided to be my buddy and sat by me the whole time! He is so sweet and we had a great time chatting before the baptism started.

Saturday morning was also the very first Friend to Friend broadcast for primary children. It was adorable and spiritual. I think all church meetings should be like that. 😉

This week was pretty uneventful but we did get to do a few fun things for Valentine’s Day. We made sugar cookies with my parents. I tried making royal icing but didn’t get the consistency quite right. It was still fun, but I’ll have to practice some more for them to turn out really good.

On Friday, Mark and I got an Olive Garden gift card with points from our credit card. There are only a couple low-carb options there so we both got the Margarita chicken. It was yummy and nice to have a break from making dinner.

My favorite meal I made this week was crock pot balsamic vinegar chicken and roasted tomatoes! I’ll definitely be making this again!

Mark finally finished his big research paper! His professor is reading it and will likely have edits for Mark to make, but it’s so close to being publish-ready. Being a TA for two classes keeps Mark on his toes. This week he gave a lecture on ducks using Great Salt Lake to one of the classes. Mark helped his brother and dad load up a car from his Grandpa’s house in Richmond. As projects like this tend to go, they ran into some hiccups along the way. They finally were able to jack the car and move it with roller dollys onto the trailer.

Our relief society had a cookie decorating activity this week. I picked up a kit from a sister in our ward and that evening we all got on Zoom for a decorating lesson from a cookier! I had never used royal icing before and I had so much fun. My lettering leaves much to be desired but if you hold the picture far away it isn’t too bad haha!

Flynn has been chewing on his feet and stomach on and off for some time now, so we decided to go to the vet. Our vet was able to tell us Flynn has an allergy, but we don’t yet know what he’s allergic to (though is most likely something environmental not food). It’s kind of ironic that our hypoallergenic dog has an allergy! The vet gave us some medicine and tips to help Flynn feel better and later we’ll do some testing to try and figure out what allergens are bothering him. He already seems to be feeling much better which makes us all happy!

I met with my BYUI students in their study groups this week. On Tuesday BYUI’s entire system went down so one group got excused from their meeting with me. I really enjoy getting to know my students. This semester I have a lot of students who are coming back to school after many years of work or raising children. It’s inspiring to see the value they place on getting an education.

The highlight of this week was Mark’s birthday! Birthdays are a big deal to me and I wanted Mark to have a special day even though our gathering and traveling are limited now. He knew I was planning something fun, but I kept the details a surprise. On Friday he came home from school to a “camp” party!

This sign says “Warning: do not feed the bears.”

Luckily my parents had this amazing lantern and made me some log slices to decorate with. They even had some branches left from their Christmas tree! It was perfect!

I hung lights above our bed so we could pretend we were sleeping under the stars. I had hoped to hang more up, but our cinder block walls get condensation from the cold in the winter. No matter what I did I just couldn’t get the command strips to hook to the outer walls. It was still fun though.

I even had campground signs around the apartment.

I also created a forest of trees with a little note for Mark on each one.

Mark was very surprised and happy. It couldn’t have been more perfect- the day before the party my aunt, Tammy, said she had a bunch of free pajamas from her job at the lazy one pajama outlet! We got a bunch and happened to get some matching Buffalo plaid ones which were just perfect for the party!

I tried to plan camping-type activities for us to do over the weekend. We watched Follow Me Boys! We made fire starter and Mark did some leatherwork. He also had to go on a scavenger hunt to find his birthday presents.

Mark has been doing so well with his health program this month. I’m very proud of him! He decided to have a healthy birthday dinner and dessert. We had hamburger bites and zucchini fries for dinner. Then I made a frozen Greek yogurt dessert.