Wedding Plans

We are now eight weeks from the wedding and things are coming along pretty well.  We have the venue secured, the announcements ordered, the tablecloths and table decorations purchased, the photographer has been chosen, both Kaitlin's dress and Ruth's dress ordered, and the ties for the groomsmen and shoes for the bridesmaids have all arrived.  The luncheon and the flowers have been assigned.   There are still things to do, but at least things feel as if they are in hand.

Ruth did the primary designing on the wedding announcement. 

Kaitlin and I had a great time buying table decorations.

Sadie Hawkins Dance

Ruth and her friends had a great time at the Sadie Hawkins dance.  At least I think they did. I haven't really talked to Ruth since the dance, but I know their day date was fun.  The theme of the dance was "A Night at the Cinema" and the couples were supposed to dress up as movie characters.  Ruth made a Winter Soldier and Captain America costumes for her and her date, Tanner. In addition to going to a lake and watching movies, the group baked a cake and played paint twister in our back yard.  

Spring Break 2017

It's Spring break here and so we planned a few days of family activities. The first one being a hike to a waterfall that we hiked to a few years ago and really loved. 

We didn't realize that we were too early in the season and the trail we needed to go on was still under snow. Not being dressed for a snow hike we decided to explore new, less snowy, paths. 

Luckily for us, the new trail we chose had three different smaller waterfalls that weren't on any map, probably because of the heavy spring runoff.  We had a great time exploring these new hidden gems. 

We spent another day visiting the new interactive exhibit at the Family History Library.  One of the features was that when you logged in, it would tell you if you were related to any of the other guests at the exhibit. Here it is showing that they matched up Ruth and Kaitlin as sisters. 

We had the best time photoshopping our faces into old time photographs.  There weren't very many people there, and we were laughing and really noisy, but the old people working there just seemed glad that we were having fun. 

One of many activities there was a big screen that would show you what you would look like in the traditional clothing of your ancestors. Since we are mostly English, that meant corsets and parasols for Ruth.

We also spent an hour or two at the Church history library. They have an amazing new exhibit there.  We couldn't leave until we visited the children's section and did some artwork. 

Every Saturday before Easter we have a family Easter gathering.

Even though the cousins are getting older, they still had a fun time dying eggs. 

The weather was lovely and we even had a small easter egg hunt - Kaitlin found a few eggs but only kept the ones with the best candy inside. 

Correction:  It was pointed out to me that I made an error on the blog post a few weeks ago when I identified Ben's first appearance on our blog being in December 2013.   He actually appeared on the blog a year before that on December 2012.    This was Kaitlin and Ben's first date!   Another Ben highlight from the past would be a post from March 2014 when he dressed like Flynn Rider to take Kaitlin to the prom. We are pretty excited to be adding Ben to the family.

Today Debate, Tomorrow the World

Ruth was elected debate president for next year.  She's pretty excited because she has a vision for what she wants to happen with the Debate team next year and now she'll have more control over that. It also means that she will be a TA, assisting and teaching the Debate 1 class.    With some help from a great school counselor, we figured out that Ruth can take a year of math and a year of English in only a semester if she takes dual-enrollment classes from the community college. That opens up her schedule because, in addition to her additional debate responsibilities, she also audition and made it onto the Musical Dance Theater team.  So more fun adventures are in store for Ruth next year.

Washington DC

Last week Ruth spent five days in Washington DC with her AP Government class. She saw the monuments, the president's motorcade, a session of the Senate (including Berni Sanders and Elizabeth Waren).  They spent a day at Mount Vernon, Old Town Alexandria, and some time in the Smithsonian.

Ruth thought it was really fun. She said it was "cool to see all the historical and political stuff, because that's what I'm interested in." It was cool to see "the interworkings of our government."


Wedding Plans

There is a lot that goes into a wedding, or so we've been figuring out.  Our first task was finding a venue, as Kaitlin felt very strongly about not having her reception at a church building.  We secured a local venue on Friday that is close and much less money than we expected.  Now Kaitlin is thinking about invitations, a dress, and a hundred other things that have to be done in the next two months.

Meanwhile, Kaitlin is absolutely loving her job as an aid at the elementary school.  While she had planed to go into secondary education all this time, the little children may have just stolen her heart.

Band Concert.

Jared had his spring band concert this week.  He played the snare drum, timpani and xylophone.  He still loves band and is looking forward to band competition this week.


Speaking Out

I had an adventure this week speaking to my school board about an issue at the high school. A teacher had an LGBT Safe Spaces sign removed from her classroom because a parent complained. The school administration said they didn't want to remove the signs (they removed several from the school) but were instructed to by the district.  I've felt pretty strongly that I should step up and say something. If one complaining voice can get the signs removed, wouldn't a voice in support of the signs help counteract that?  I've never really done anything like that before so it was a little nerve-wracking but I'm glad I did.  It went fine, and maybe I made a few of those board members think on the issue.