Family Float

It was the 150th anniversary of the town where my mom's farm is located and my mom was on the town celebration committee so we decided to enter a float in the town parade.  I've blogged about this parade before, how it goes down the street one way, turns around and comes back (so you get to see it twice) and I've been in it once or twice, but this year we were going all out.  Each family got assignments and my mom and sister did most of the heavy lifting painting the backdrop and sides.

Parade Highlights: To truly appreciate our float you first have to get a taste of the parade.

There is a lot of farm equipment in this parade. Often families are riding on this farm equipment.

There are ATV's in this parade and that guy in the middle is on a ridding lawnmower.

This guy.

I told Ruth that she could never be a princess in this town because she doesn't know how to ride a horse (nor do we own one, or an ATV...or a riding lawnmower).

This year there was a tank in the parade, along with the normal military and emergency vehicles.

Our Float

Our Frozen Float Most everyone dressed in Frozen costumes. We had Elsa and Anna, Rapunzel and Flynn, Olaf and Sven, and a lot of towns people.

In addition to throwing candy, my nieces also threw snowballs.   Our float won an award for best family entry.

Each family was assigned to paint a character from the show. Here is Marshmallow my sister painted.

Elsa, Anna and Rapunzel.

A group picture. Everyone had a good time!

After the parade all the girls in princess dresses stayed in costume and took pictures with some little girls that were there. The Anna dress Ruth is wearing is another dress remodel I did this week.  Kaitlin found the dress at a thrift store and we bought it and remodeled it. It was a lot harder than I expected and we ran into a few snags along the way but I think it turned out really well.

Our House on Tuesday Night

Ruth and I were discussing this week if we were a normal family or not.  I honestly don't know.  This is how my life has always been, so I'm sure we must be on the scale of normal somewhere.  Here is what was going on around our house on Tuesday and you be the judge.

Kaitlin agreed to give a few private drawing lessons to a friend's son, so we had a to clear a spot for them in our new "craft room" formally the "art studio".

The new craft room is full of our costume making projects. On the left is the pattern for a tasset I'm making for my elven armor, on the right is an awesome fur coat I scored for a buck at a garage sale that will become Astrid's hood.

A guitar in every room.  Not every, but at least three or four.  Ruth started guitar with a new teacher who organizes the kids into bands. So Ruth is now part of an all girl rock band.  I'm still teaching a couple of students over the summer.

Minecraft.

Making Olaf for the parade float.

This is what the Anna dress looked like on Tuesday.  I had removed the bodice from the skirt and had purchased the fabric and ribbon we needed.

My favorite jelly roll pan has been a drying rack for these skulls for a week now.  Ruth made them out of salt clay. They are for her Astrid costume.

Kaitlin's friends are all leaving on missions in the next two months.  It's a hard time.

Recovering from Vacation

Ruth spent all day Wednesday at a church youth conference where they did repelling and a ropes course. She said it was okay, and was really sore the next day or two afterwards.

Other than that, we've been doing laundry and working and doing yard work, that kind of stuff.  Ruth and I have continued to work on costumes for fun. Ruth's working on making an Astrid costume.

I also took time this week to hand over my PTA website and facebook page. I've created and maintained that website for seven years now, but with our move to a new school, it's time to turn it over.

I don't have any pictures from this week, so enjoy this picture from our vacation last week.

The Land of Mickey

We had a very fun family vacation, perfect weather, no car problems, great times.

The girls passed the time in the car by taking selfies.  At one point they reenacted the movie frozen, taking pictures of each scene (Ruth would put on the hat when playing the boy parts). On the way home, because our tablet wouldn't play the sound loud enough,  they turned on the closed captioning of the movie The Princess and the Pauper and then dramatized the entire thing, including singing all the songs.

On the first day we visited the tide pools and saw many anemones and crabs.

We had to hike down some cliffs to get to the tide pools. There was a nice little beach there where we enjoyed sitting and watching the waves come in.

 

Waiting for California Adventure to open. 

The new cars land was amazing.  The Radiator Springs ride is one of the best ever.  The technology is incredible.

Waiting to see the Pixar parade.

We spent a day at Huntington beach. It was in the 70's but the wind was cool.

Jared and I had a great times playing in the waves.

A day at Disney! Kaitlin and Ruth were both sunburned from the day before but they suffered through.

This about sums up our families reaction to Splash Mountain. Once was enough for all of us. 

The wait to see Elsa was over 2 hours, so we were glad when Elsa and Anna were in a float at the front of the parade.  We made a game out of counting little girls dressed as Elsa at Disneyland.  By the end of the day we had counted 37 Elsas and 12 Annas.

 

There is no other tired like Disneyland tired. 

During our two days at California Adventure and Disneyland we used the touring plan in the book The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland, and eventhough the parks were very crowded we never waited longer than 30 minutes in a line, usually much less. And we saw and rode everything we wanted to see, and many things twice. This was the first year when all the kids have been big enough (and brave enough) to ride everything and so we could all stick together the whole day. We really had a great time, exhausting, but great.

The kids were excited to see the ocean. Jared and Ruth had no real memory of the beach, so they were particularly amazed to see how big and flat the ocean is.  Jared had a good time in the waves, and we built a sand castle together.  The girls were a little less impressed. Kaitlin, especially,  dislikes all creepy crawly or swimmy things in the ocean. Add the hassle of sand on your body and sunburn, and I'd say we don't have any beachbums in the family. 


Happy Birthday Kaitlin

Olaf Cake.

We celebrated Kaitlin's birthday by driving 12 hours in the car to get home from California.  But before that, Kaitlin got a birthday button to wear at the Disney parks and all the employees and workers said "happy birthday" to her all day long.  We got home late on Friday night, and on Saturday Kaitlin spent all day with friends at our house. We bought pizza and made her an Olaf cake.  It was our town days this weekend, so Kaitlin and her friends were able to end her birthday celebration by watching fireworks. 

Meanwhile the family enjoyed the parade and festivities in our town days.  Chuck and I ended the evening watching Ryan Shupe in concert, which was very good, but also very loud.

Jared's Last Week of School

Jared's in year-round school but he was lucky enough to be on the track that gets out early, so this past week was his last week.  On Monday I went with him on a field trip to BizTown.  A nonprofit agency has built this little town on the top floor of a children's museum. For months in advance the kids learn about money, bank accounts, different kinds of jobs, that sort of thing, then for a whole day they work in this little town. Each kid does their own job, gets a paycheck and then can shop for real things like toys or snacks.  Jared worked the day as a savings agent at the bank.  He wasn't very busy. I guess opening savings accounts isn't a top priority for the 11 year old crowd.  I was the adult adviser for five kids running a construction company. It was stressful but fun.   On Tuesday Jared's class went to eat for lunch at Texas Roadhouse, on Wednesday Jared  had field day, on Thursday they did some math day that required he take a candybar and can of soda.  It's safe to say that Jared's been working very hard at school, and is relieved that it is finally over. 

Happy Father's Day

Today is father's day.  I made muffins for Chuck this morning to celebrate what a great dad is.  He works really hard for us and then comes home and works some more, always without complaint.  When I'm out with other ladies and they complain about their husbands I always sit quietly and smile, because I have nothing to complain about.  Chuck makes our family his top priority and we are very lucky to have him as our dad.


Disneyland or Bust

Several months ago we decided we wanted to go somewhere new this year for vacation. So we had a family meeting, watched some videos and decided together as a family that we would go to San Fransisco on vacation.  A few months went by and no one was excited for the vacation so finally at dinner one night I asked if everyone really wanted to go to Disneyland.   Yes. So off we leave today for the land of the Mickey. It will be a short trip, a couple of days at Disney and a day at the beach and then home.

Graduation

Kaitlin graduated high school on a beautiful spring afternoon. We took pictures in the morning and in then drove downtown for the big event.

We took Kaitlin's senior pictures on the Oquirrh Mountain Temple grounds.

The medal is for getting the Regent's Scholarship,  the green cord is for World Languages, and the brown is for Fine Arts.

One graduation group was coming out as we were going in, and another was coming in as we were going out. It was crazy downtown.

640 graduates! The ceremony was 2 1/2 hours long.

Kaitlin on the jumbotron.  Her choir sang four numbers.

Jared.

Kaitlin struggled with her mortarboard the whole time.  I didn't pin it on very well. Sorry Kaitlin. (Kaitlin thought the hats were ridiculous.)

Proud family!

We were excited to have Grandma and Aunt Kathy come. After graduation we had a yummy dinner at Zupas.

  

Seminary Graduation

 The Sunday before high school graduation  Kaitlin graduated from seminary.  Seminary is a release time religion class.  To graduate Kaitlin had to take a full class each year she was in high school. This included reading the Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants.  It was a sacrifice to fit seminary into her schedule, but Kaitlin loved it.  She really loved taking a break during the school day to learn about and talk about Jesus. 

Happy Anniversary

Vanilla Root Beer. Yum.

In anticipation of our 16th anniversary falling on the same day as graduation, we celebrated early. Chuck took a day off work and we spent it together, walking around the lake and hanging out at home playing games. We went out to lunch to a new place in town that had one of those soda machines that you can choose 100 different flavors.  It brought back good memories of our time in Nauvoo last summer. 

Memorial Day 

We went up to my mom's farm for Memorial day, stopping along the way to get Kaitlin, who had spent most of the weekend with her dad, but got to spend Memorial Day with us. We got to see my dad's headstone which had just been installed the week before. My mother designed it, and it turned out really nice. The Logan temple is on the front (not only were my parents married there, but they also worked there for many years), and their mountain is on the back. Also on the back is a listing of all my siblings. I teased my mother that it was weird to see my name on a headstone, and she teased me back saying "How do you think I feel?"

After visiting the graves (several generations of my family are buried there) we went back to Snow park for a picnic and visiting. My brother in law brought his new ATV and I got to take Jared for a ride in it.

Last Concert 

Thursday was Kaitlin's last concert with her Chamber Singers. They performed for and hour and forty-five minutes, in three different languages, and Kaitlin said there were another 15 songs or so that didn't make it into the program. I'm amazed at the volume of music that they had all learned and memorized. The skill level of the choir was amazing. I'm so glad that Kaitlin has had the opportunity to participate in making music at this level. This year she has struggled with the director, and she's struggled with lots of the kids in the class, but she has loved the music, and she has kept going back just for the love of making music.  I've uploaded their last song to YouTube (the file was too large for the blog) and embedded it below.


States Parade 

 Jared represented the great state of Minnesota in the 5th grade state parade this week. They also put on a very good program about the United States, including singing songs that name all of the states and capitals and all the presidents in order - all memorized. The power of learning through music is truly amazing!  (If you get this via email, there is a clip of him singing on the blog)

  
A New Passion? 

Ruth was very excited this week to be made a lawyer in a class court case. Her science class did a CSI activity and then they had a court case to prosecute who they thought did it. Ruth was assigned to defend, and was discourage at first because from her CSI investigations she thought he was guilty. We sat down and looked at the evidence together (it helps that my emphasis in college degree was forensics) and she started to see the holes in the case and that her client was truly innocent. She went to court and in the end was able to get her client off. This experience has started her thinking about trying out debate in the future. Maybe her acting skills have more applications than just drama.

Approaching the Finish Line

We are on the countdown now to the end of the school year.  Kaitlin graduates on the 5th, Ruth finishes on the 6th and Jared's last day is the 13th.   We still have a couple of things happening.  Jared's end of the year program and state parade is next week. So some time between now and Friday we will be decorating our wagon to represent the great state of Minnesota for the 3rd and last time.  Kaitlin's final Chamber Concert is also this Thursday.  This is a small concert of just their choir, and it should be excellent. Kaitlin's choir is also singing for graduation.

This week both Kaitlin and Ruth had final concerts.  Ruth got to sing her solo and did very well. There is a video posted below. If you get my blog by email you'll have to visit the site to see it.  Kaitlin's big choir concert, and banquet was also this past week. This was the last time singing with A'cappella choir. She was sad, but I think also happy to be finishing this chapter and moving on to the next.

Dressing Up

Hanging out with Matthew and Mary.

This week I went with my friend Julia, to a Downton Abbey (a tv show on BBC) tea sponsored by out local library.  It was pretty fun and free.  Really, public libraries are an amazing thing. Of all the good thing government has done, I would put public libraries in the top 10.

Also, this week I finished up a project I've been working on for a couple of weeks now.  I made an elvish archers vest out of craft foam.   Why, you ask.  Because I saw this blog on the internet where they showed how to make brown craft foam look like leather, and it got my brain turning on the idea.  I learned that you can shape craft foam with heat. Heat and stretch. Repeat. So I thought, "I wonder if I can make a leather like vest with this technique."  And the answer was yes. It's made from 5mm foam and is very sturdy.  All and all it cost me less than $20. I think it turned out pretty cool.

I took more pictures of the process. Maybe I'll make a post about it on my craft blog.