Yesterday was a fantastic day. It was a balmy 63 degrees and Parker's last football game. I've included a couple pictures below. One is of him diving just before he snagged the flag of his opponent.
The next one is of his QB (also his best friend) giving him a hand off: 
And speaking of Parker, he finally received his Arrow of Light award in scouts. It was a great night, he was really proud. Now it's on to boy scouts, camp outs, and four more years of me enjoying sleeping outside in the cold. Bring it! He also got to go up in a hot air balloon which is a first for anyone in our family.
In Alex news, he was the 3rd person in his entire grade at school to make it into the "Sun" which is a big deal. You have to pass off math fact timed tests on addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, and mixed facts. All the tests are over 100 problems long and you have to get 100%. He is a study in contrasts. On the one hand, he gets straight A's. On the other, he is the class clown. He'd probably get in trouble more except the teacher is laughing as much as the students. He always gets picked to do class reading because he hams it up so much. Definitely a Johnson trait. :)
Josh is almost done with his required merit badges for his eagle and still loving scouts. He is also loving being a big brother and tormenting his little brothers. Let me give you an example: Parker and Alex wanted to make a password for their profile on the computer and Josh kept guessing their passwords. This was quite a feat given that Alex was the one creating them. Here's how it went:
Alex: Okay mom I have my password!
Josh: is it "cheese"?
Alex: Dang it! (type type type type) Ok, I have another one.
Josh: is it "george"?
Alex: Ah! Stop it! (typetypetypetypetype) Ok, you won't guess this one!
Josh: Um, how about "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"
Alex: Josh! Sheesh. (typetypetypetypetypetype) Ok try and guess this one
Josh: Is it "Josh sucks"?
Alex: Yep! You sure do!
All in all I think Alex had the last laugh but boy Josh was making some good guesses.
A couple other Joshisms...
Last week Neish took the young women and young men to St. George, and a bunch of the young women wanted to ride with her. Then Josh decided to ride with someone else. Without another word, three of the girls who were going to ride with Neish amazingly ended up riding in the same car as him. Apparently he didn't notice this strange migration. There have been several other strange changes that come over girls when Josh is around. We are hoping he remains blissfully ignorant. For another 10 years. One other tidbit about Josh. While in St. George he attended a free-running competition and spent some time watching lots of really good people compete. One of the best guys in the world was there putting on demonstrations and clinics all day. He was teaching the kids how to do wall running backflips and how to do all kinds of crazy tricks and flips over boxes and up walls. And when I finally talked to him last night and asked how it went, his reply was "good." That was it. I guess my son is finally a teenager.
And now to explain the remainder of our title. Tonight we were playing "the Manners game" which is a game my wife invented to try and teach our boys some culture. You see, dinner is a strange and sometimes terrifying event at our house. I've decided that boys do not naturally come pre-wired to use utencils, chew with their mouth closed, or even sit in their chair in the normal "human" way. So as I said, Neisha made up this game to try and instill basic table manners. It goes like this: The boys go outside and ring the doorbell. Neisha or I then answer the door and they are supposed to ask politely to come in. We then invite them to eat dinner and they are supposed to graciously accept, sit down, eat the right way, say "please" and "thank you" and "may I?" Well tonight was kind of a flop. For starters it is only 40 degrees outside and blowing. I answered the door and Alex, Parker, and Marcus, all said through chattering teeth, "It's about time man! We're freezing!" Score: 0. On our way to the table, Alex politely asks, "Can I use your bathroom?" This sends Marcus into fits of laughter and he asks (politely) if we can turn the lights off while Alex is in there. Once at the table, Alex asked what we were having and I said, "Green bean casserole."
"My, that's disgusting" replied Alex. Score: -2. Meanwhile Josh is squatting on his chair and using a serving spoon to eat. It was about here that I figured out that my kids were doing all this on purpose and that they were trying to be as non-mannered as possible. And just as I was about to say something about it, Parker, who had been thinking of something polite to say blurted out "Dad, you're hot." That did it. Everyone started laughing and we gave up the manners game. Sigh. At least they all cleaned their plates up and said thanks for dinner.
That's about it from the ranch so until next time remember it's not polite to sing with your mouth full.
Love, the Johnsons
