Kaitlin's End of the Year Play

On Thursday Kaitlin's drama class put on their end of the year play. Kaitlin played a frankenstein monster who was pretending to be a school guidance counselor. The play itself was a little odd, but Kaitlin did a great job with her part.

Two Field Trips

Ruth and Jared both had field trips at the same time on the same day and they both wanted mom to go on their field trip. Chuck saved the day by taking a day off of work and going with Jared to a place called Farm Country. I went with Ruth to a museum.

Wrapping up the School Year

Kaitlin and Chaz both have just a few days of school next week. Most of their assignments and tests are done, and now they are just watching movies and that sort of thing. Chaz is planning his first event as a Senior Class officer - a sunrise breakfast.

Kaitlin received the "Overall Best Female Student" award for her pod classes at the end of the year assembly. She also got "Most Improved" from her computer graphics teacher, and "Best Citizenship" from her history teacher. She got straight A's this year. Chaz also did really well on his grades this year.

Ruth and Jared are "off track" for two weeks, which means that I'll have all the kids home for one week before Ruth and Jared go back for three more weeks.

Blue Belts

Jared, Ruth and I finished our family karate class. We had our belt trials this past week, and we all did really well. Jared earned his level 9 blue belt, and Ruth and I earned our level 8 blue belts. Before you get really impressed, you have to know that in Wado Ryu, blue is the first belt, so what a yellow belt is in other martial arts.

We really enjoyed the class, unfortunately, because of cuts in our school district budget, they are discontinuing the family education classes, so this looks like the end of our martial arts careers. Neither Ruth, nor Jared, enjoyed it enough to pay the outlandish fees at the local dojos.

Of the three of us, I enjoyed it the most. I loved the focusing on the forms, and rhythms of the exercises. It was a great mental relief to just think about breathing and where your hands and feet are for an hour and let all other cares just melt away. Ruth and Jared found the endless repetition somewhat boring.

We were tested on all our blocks and kicks, and then on three basic forms. This is Ruth testing on her basic form #2.

Chaz's Last Choir Performance

The school year is winding up for Kaitlin and Chaz. Chaz had his last choir performance this last week. His school choir is excellent, and it brought back a lot of memories for me watching the seniors leave and all the sadness that comes with that.

Next school year Chaz will be focusing on Student Government at the new High School. This will be the first time in 8 years that we haven't attended a band or chorus concert of his. Kaitlin isn't in choir or band next year either, as she is focusing on drama, so Ruth will be my only music concerts for the next school year.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had the best birthday! It started the day before when Chuck brought home a bag of decorations and decorated the house with signs and streamers.

That night my niece and nephew Mary and Oliver came to stay with us for a sleep over, and we had my favorite Papa Murphy's Veggie pizza. We played games and watched movies.

The next morning Chaz and I went to Hello, Dolly! practice. We are in an outdoor theater, but the day was sunny and warm. It's the first warm rehearsal we've had.

In the afternoon I enjoyed some Chocolate Revel bars (my favorite!!!) made by Kaitlin and then played outside with the kids. That evening Chuck and I went on a date for dinner and then we tried out new mattresses. Finally, we ended the night with a quiet movie at home after putting the kids to bed.

It was an awesome birthday! Thanks to all of you for your cards, calls, emails and gifts! I feel very loved.

The cousins had a great time sleeping over.

Ruth Sings!

Ruth's elementary school choir performance was this week. Ruth sang a solo called "Are you from Dixie". That's me muddling along on the guitar. She was really nervouse but I think she did great.




Pinky Power

Let's play a game! I want you to hold up your left (or non dominant) hand fingers straight, palm facing towards you. Now, curl your pinky down into a little ball while keeping the other three fingers absolutely straight. Now extend your pinky forward at a 90 degree angle. Do so with enough force to say, click a mouse button, or to make a firm tapping sound on the table. Keep the other three fingers still.

This is the task I've been trying to accomplish in my guitar playing for the past month. Chuck says it's like I'm doing some sort of physical therapy, moving my pinky over and over. In guitar speak, I'm trying to hammer on the high e string while holding the low E with my ring finger.

In a month I've gone from not being anywhere close, to now being able to do it a little bit. Hey! progress is progress! Because I skipped practice the day before, and only did twenty minutes yesterday, today rather than pinky power, I have pinky paralysis.

Kaitlin's Photography

Kaitlin really enjoys taking pictures and then editing them a bit on the computer. Here are some she took this weekend. You can click on them to see them a bit better or if you want a large copy you can email me.

Chaz Wins School Election

Chaz will be one of four Senior Class officers next year at the new high school. We don't know what position he will hold yet. He has to interview with the teacher sponsor first, who will decide that.

For those of you who wondered what Chaz's posters said (see last week's blog), Kaitlin posted them in the comments section.


Women's Conference

I had a great time at BYU Women's Conference this past week. Every year my friends Lisa, Amy and I (and sometimes Annette) go together to Women's Conference. It's a two day conference at Brigham Young University, where we go to different workshops for two days and then do a huge service project one of the nights (can you see me in the picture?). The highlight for me was Julie B. Beck's keynote address and working on the service project. And of course, the best part was being able to spend time with friends.


The Good the Bad and the Ugly

One of the workshops I attended was about "Digital Distractions". The woman said that one of the problems about many blogs is that they are a weekly "christmas letter", giving only the most positive and ideal information. She suggested that reading blogs like this can give women unrealistic expectations and the false impression that other families are perfect.

So in an effort to help all my readers will their self esteem I'm going to list some less than perfect things that happened this week:

1) On Wednesday Chuck had to get two wisdom teeth pulled and one tooth crowned. :o(
2)Along with Chaz's wonderful win comes a $375 bill. $200 for "leadership camp" and $175 for a "Student Officer Sweater".
3) Starting on Wednesday we have had miserable snow, rain and cold. We had a freakish night of wind that blew over our BBQ breaking some of the plastic parts.
4) One of my Walls-o'-Water covering a Roma tomato that I've been nurturing got blown over in the wind and my tomato was frozen.
5) I went to a mother daughter night with Kaitlin at church were we got to smear oatmeal over each other's faces. I guess that isn't bad, it's funny. What's bad is the cute little facial woman that was explaining to all us old ladies how we needed to exfoliate more, and what creams would help us with our dark circles and aging spots.
6) The little camera I took to Women's Conference was a bust. I lost all the pictures from the first day, and all the pictures from the second day are blurry.