John is 8!

John turned 8 years old a few weeks ago.  His birthday came while we were in Washington house hunting so we celebrated a little bit late.  John wanted to have a Legend of Zelda themed birthday, just like last year.  John kept telling me the theme of his birthday needed to be "Link's Awakening" which is a particular Legend of Zelda game.  I didn't know anything about it but I looked up the game and read all about it and made a treasure hunt to go along with this particular game.  When I was almost done Scott told me that John actually knew nothing about the game, other than the name of it, and had never played that particular game before.  So my efforts to make it super authentic were wasted, but by that point I was almost done, so we went ahead with it.

Anna decorated this cake for John.  It looked very nice.

Here is the beginning of his treasure hunt - in the game a mysterious owl gives Link some information (or at least thats' what the internet said) so I am helping this mysterious owl give John some info to find his presents.

John got a sword and shield to help him with his quest

The kids all going on the treasure hunt

John/Link fighting a moblin (bad guy in the game played by Grant).

Finding rupees (money/treasure) in the treasure chest.

At the end of the game John brought the instruments with him to a certain location to finish the game.

Fighting the last boss to get his presents

In the end Link was successful and found his presents.

Good job Link

Blowing out the candles

John got some fun presents and we all had fun!

And a few weeks later, John got baptized!

John's Baptism

John was baptized on our stake baptism day - after we had moved out of our house.  We drove up to Kaysville from Utah county, where we were all staying.  The kids and I were planning to leave town the next day for Washington/Oregon so I got a little nervous when our bishopric member didn't show up right away.  Because of COVID we had a 20 minute window to use the baptismal font and I was trying to figure out what we would do if our ward people didn't show up, but at the last minute the bishop appeared and all was well.  Scott baptized John and no flailing limbs came out of the water, which I was half expecting with this child, so that's good.  Here are some pictures we took afterwards.  John looked very handsome.

The whole family

Kids and grandparents - Guptill grandparents on the left, Keeler grandparents on the right.

John with mom and dad

And John striking a pose on the rocks outside the church.

After the baptism we drove all the way back to Lehi for some lunch.  

It was a nice day.  Hooray John.