Pinocchio 

Ruth has been practicing hard for our community's children's production of  "The Adventures of Pinocchio".  It is an original script and music written by local people designed with large groups of children in mind.  Ruth is is one of three choruses that perform during the show.  It's this Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 and I think it costs a couple of bucks for a ticket.  I, personally, haven't seen the show yet so I'm excited to see it.

A Stressful Audition

Kaitlin auditioned this week for her high school musical "Once Upon a Mattress".  There were a lot of kids that auditioned and the process was long and stressful.  The day the list was posted, Kaitlin's name wasn't on the list and she was heart broken, but she had the inspiration to ask the drama teacher to double check and sure enough, she was chosen for the ensemble and her name was accidentally left off the list.   Her rehearsals start next week.



International Coastal Clean-Up Day 

Jared and Kaitlin with their shovels.

The prophet of our church asked that each church plan a day of service to provide the members an opportunity to serve in their communities this year.  Our Stake President (the President of all the churches in our area) asked us all to work with a local conservation group to participate in International Coastal Clean-Up Day.  What? You haven't heard of International Coastal Clean-Up Day?  Neither had we.  And I guess the fact that we don't have any coast here in the desert does not exempt us from participation.   Our family drove out with other families from our church to a conservation area that is specifically set aside for migrating birds.

Holding open the bag (Ruth) was one of the more dangerous jobs.

We were broken into teams and our group was assigned to walk down the side of the river and remove noxious non-native invasive plants, also known as: thistle.  These were nasty plants with poky leaves the punctured through gloves and clothes.  We had several hundred volunteers and we were able to fill many bags full of these weeds.  We also saw a heron, a rare sight in our area - which was cool.

The dry ones were super poky.

Phase One

Phase One of our home improvement project is nearing completion. Chuck was able to get the last of the hardwood laid in the hallway this weekend.  Our next step is to add the trim and then move the furniture back in.

Although our floor is nailed, in front of doorways we had to  temporarily fasten  the boards together and cut them all at once.  This was very tricky and time consuming.