Shark Attack

Old Beach Photo

I found an old beach photo today and was amused to see it. I thought you too might enjoy this photo. This is Zach and Tyler at the beach flying kites in Ocean City, Maryland.

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a great holiday season! We will be back to blogging in the new year, until then have a Happy New Year!

Love
The Hook's

Trek Homecoming 2009

So this is "the park" where the torture took place. As you can see it is not raining for the actual pick-up of the pioneer trekers.This is one of the carts that was constructed and pulled for the pioneer trek.
This was the wagon train as they came off the trail and down the road. As tired as they all were by this time, they were all excited to go home. They were ahead of schedule and HAD to stop and take a break so they did not arrive at the pick-up location too early.

Zach was behind his handcart as they came off the trail. So it was hard to get an actual picture of him, he was also very focused on getting to the end. This is just before they broke down the handcarts. He is wearing the hat that he really did not want for this activity. Go ahead and ask him about his "new favorite hat". He hates it when Mom was right...

Zach did not take any pictures during his pioneer trek experience, much to his parents unhappiness. He protested going to pioneer trek right until he got home. He says he did not have fun, he would not want to do it again, he knows why they had the pioneer trek, and it should be discontinued. So he was asked, "would you send your own kids to trek?" Funny answer... "Yes."

During trek they pushed and pulled their handcarts. They also had the pleasure of an all natural shower each day minus the privacy, soap, and a dry towel afterwards. Ask Zach about his experience some time, maybe his opinion will change.

Scenic Drive

" Is it this way? or This way? FirePower!" Already 1/2 way up the cliff. I am a good climber
Can you all say "Hi" to Sarah. She is in the pink shirt. Zach randomly gave this victim a flower that he made. OK, he said that she was the lucky lady at the rest area...

Here is the true lucky lady at the rest area. She got to ride in the BIG White TRUCK!!

But, I do love this one!! I will keep her.

BIC

MR. BIC

Yes, this is MR. BIC living in Connecticut at the BIC Worldwide Headquarters. Do not ask me how we found such a man but we did and then it was all about the photo Opportunity.

http://www.bicworld.com/index_en.asp

Mr. Bic side that he did not what to show me his pen. It was a secret! Michael with the BIC Guy...Anna is sharing some fashion tips that PURPLE is a better color!
Now, why Zachary jumped up behind him to give him a scare I do not know. But you can see that he was scared! His eye is wide open!!! ha ha ha!

Yes that is a flag in the back ground.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=one%20bic&rls=com.microsoft:*:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7TSHB&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

Just in case you want to map where Mr. BIC lives.... You still have to go to Walmart to get your pens though.

Good Buy! we will see you later!

Date Night or Camp-Out or Both!

In spite of scheduling himself for a camp-out, Zach double booked himself for a date night too. Friday we attended Medieval Times for dinner and the tournament (show). It was a great time! Dinner was served somewhat late, well past 8 PM. Zach was pretty hungry when dinner was finally served, he even drank the tomato bisque soup! We had a jolly good feast of tomato bisque soup, chicken, spare rib, potato, garlic bread, and for dessert it was apple pastry. The best part, utensils were not used in the 11th century so we got to eat with our hands. Eating with your hands will prevent you from burning your mouth on food that is too hot. Simple solution if you have had this problem in the past.

I know this is where I input pictures from the show. Well the pictures from the show are pretty blury. OK, they are a blurr. Someone forgot to use the sports mode on the camera, or it is possible that it did not help. The arena seemed to be pretty small for a tournament with jousting and horses. Yes, the horses made my allergies flare up. It is not like I was sitting in the sand with them! We were on the yellow team, so we had the Yellow Knight to cheer for. Again, sadly he was the first to be elimated from the tournament.

Instead of enjoying pictures from the show, here are some pictures of Zach and his date Emily.

Just in case you are wondering, yes Zach did make it to his camp-out. He finally arrived at 1:30 AM to the camp site. (That of course put his parents home at 3 AM!) They camped Friday night in the rain. Zach got to sleep on a picnic table, the tents were already wet on the inside when he got to camp. So he opted to sleep on the picnic table for the night. We are happy to report that the police did not show up for this camp-out and wake them in the middle of the night or shake down their tents in riot gear. On Saturday they went shooting for the day.

Completely Random Pictures

I was browsing through some old pictures and thought I would post a few here on the blog. We have a lot of scenery pictures but I decided to go with pictures of people instead. Hope you enjoy them....

Ocean City, MD 2006

Jason Jr, Tyler, Zach

Gabriella, Courtney

Ocean City, MD 2004
Michael, Zach, Anna
I had to include this one, just to show that at one time Zach was not taller than both of us!

Catonsville, MD 2008

Zach, Grandpa Hook (Karl), Michael


Catonsville, MD 2008

Zach is ecstatic here! This is right after getting his book signed by Christopher Paolini. He of course had already read the book by this time, maybe that added to the happiness?

More random pictures later......

One Vote?

Election day has come and gone. The media is still focusing on the politics of course; you would think other things were not happening anywhere?

In history class Zach has been learning some really interesting things this year. One of the things that was discussed was the difference that ONE VOTE can make. So often we hear that our votes don't count, it sure does feel that way sometimes. So does One Vote count? Here are some examples:

• 1776- It was determined we would speak English instead of German by ONE VOTE.
• 1895- ONE VOTE determined we would admit Texas into the Union.
• 1923- It was ONE VOTE that gave Hitler control over the Nazi party.
• 1958- Eight members of the House of Representatives were re-elected by less than ONE VOTE per precinct.
• 1960- John F Kennedy beat Richard Nixon by ONE half VOTE per precinct in the Presidential Election.

Just a little food for thought.

Here are some pictures of Zach from his Youth Conference (YC). Zach loves to go to YC and doesn't mind sitting and listening to speakers for hours on end. During his recent YC they had 13 hours of speakers, that is the equivalent of sitting thru 13 Sacrament Meetings! They of course did this over 5 days time.

Whey they are not listening to speakers they do have other activities or sometimes special guests. One such guest was very much enjoyed by Zach this year. It was the group Noteworthy from BYU; you can tell from the picture why Zach liked them so much. They are an all girl A Cappella group. So here is Zach with the group:




We found a video of the ladies on You Tube that you can check out, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72I6vp5x9YQ



Also at YC was another speaker that Zach enjoyed. It was Brother Smith, Zach can't remember his first name. Brother Smith was the EFY President the first year Zach went in 2007 at SVU. According to Zach Brother Smith is an amazing speaker and he remembers peoples names with a key word of phrase. Zach's key phrase is, "Why are you wearing Kelly's shirt?" No that was not a problem! It was just the phrase that was picked, or so I am told.

Here is a quote that Zach loves:

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization. It expects what never was and what never will be. Thomas Jefferson

Liahona Academy

As many of you know Zach participates in a distance education program for school. He has 3 of his primary classes via video school through Liahona Academy- History, Science, and English. Each year the academy holds an annual Youth Conference at Aspen Grove, which is the neighbor of the Sundance Ski Resort.

This year Liahona Academy completed construction on their new school building. When Zach went to attend the Youth Conference we stopped and toured the new school building.

Here are pictures of Zach outside of Liahona Academy in Pleasant Grove, Utah.



Outside of the school, as you can see they are still working on finishing touches.

This is the library at the school. Brother DeGraff, the history teacher and one of the founders of the school, gave us a tour of the school when we arrived. He told us that the library was a bit larger than they had actually planned. That sounded like a familiar problem...

This is just a walkway outside.

This is the English class that Zach's teacher films from each day.

Here is the history class. I think this is Zach's favorite class from Liahona Academy. This class has cool propts, but they are not seen in the videos each day.

Zach with his history teacher Brother DeGraff. He is pointing out the backdrop that is used for class each day, it will match the cover of the history book (that we will actually get in November). Brother DeGraff writes his own curriculum, his books are well worth adding to any library!

That is the actual Liahona Academy; if you want to check out their website just click on Liahona Academy. All of the classes are online this year, so if you would like to check out a class- ask Zach the next time he is at your house to log on and show you one.

We will need to extract some photos from Zach of the actual Youth Conference. So we will post some of those next time.