Jared, Soccer Wizard

I posted last week about Jared's soccer goal. Well, he had another great week at soccer. No goal, but still he was right in there. Last year he was always played the "tail of the comet" position (that is the kids just trailing behind the mob around the ball). Big improvement!




Outside the Window

What can you see outside Ruth's basement window? A squash of course.

Five Out of Six

On Saturday I went to my sister's house for a family gathering. My oldest brother and his wife had flown in from KY. We had 5 out of my 6 siblings in attendance. I also got to meet my new great-niece, Lydia.

Primary Program Coming

Every year our church's children's classes are in charge of doing to church service for a Sunday. This is called the annual Primary Program. We've been working on it all year and now it is only 3 weeks away! Yesterday I had 15 minutes to practice fitting 150 children onto the stage of our chapel for the first time. To put this in perspective, our chapel has 30 choir seats. Now where do the other 120 children and their 32 teachers sit? That is a good question! Needless to say my stress levels are a bit higher right now. I'll let you know how it goes.

This week Kaitlin has once again agreed to join me as co-writer of the blog.

Becky: Hi Kaitlin

Kaitlin: Hi Mom


Goal!!!!

Becky: Soccer was one of our family's highlights this week. Jared made his first goal of the season. It wasn't just any goal, it was a dribble the ball down the field, dodge around a defender and kick it into the goal, goal!

Kaitlin: Maybe it helps that he can see the ball.

Becky: Ruth made a shot on goal this week as well. She dribbled the ball down the field, dodged around a defender and kicked it...right into the goalie's hands. But it was still exciting!

Kaitlin: Great job guys!

Pizza

Kaitlin: A silly thing happened when we were making a pizza. Its not really important, but I'm gonna add it in anyway. So, we pulled the pizza out of the oven, and it had a huge bubble in it like a volcano! Too bad it soon deflated into a big hole in the pizza.

Becky: I thought the pizza looked pregnant when I pulled it out. I was disappointed that we didn't get a baby pizza out of it.

Canning Peaches

Becky: Here in Utah canning is a big topic of conversation. "Have you done any canning?" "Have you tried canning applesauce?" "I have a great salsa recipe." So I'm happy that I can say that I too have taken part in the annual canning. I canned 40 lbs of peaches. In the end I got 18 quarts and 2 batches of jam. Ruth was my biggest (and only) canning helper. She got really fast at peeling those peaches.

Kaitlin: Hey, I would have helped if I was there. You decided to do it without me. All the same, they will taste good in times to come.

Exclusive Photos

Becky: It seems that one of Chuck's sisters doesn't believe that Chuck could actually be doing all that recreational reading. I agree that it is somewhat out of character. She asked for a candid photo of Chuck in the act. This photo is not posed.

Kaitlin: What was he reading so much anyways?

Becky: This is the book "Five People you Meet in Heaven." Now he's reading the Tennis Shoes among the Nephites books. He just started book 3.

Kaitlin: Never read either of those. I wonder if they are entertaining. And its true, so I will restate, this photo is not posed.

We Have Talent!

This week for Family Home Evening (the one night we set aside to spend a few hours as a family doing fun stuff) Kaitlin organized a family talent show. We all had two weeks notice to put our talents together. We had such a great time at our talent show. Here are the highlights!

Note: Sorry to those of you (grandmas particularly) that can't see our videos :o(. I'll try to do some commentary as well.

Chuck impressed us all with is coin catching skill. This impressed the children very much and I've been picking pennies up off my carpet ever since.

Chaz played a song for us on the piano that he had only just learned 5 minutes before. He did this to show off his sight reading skills and so that we would hear something new (not something we hear him practice all the time). When he has time to practice a song, Chaz can play much more complicated pieces then this.

This is Ruth juggling. She must get this from my side of the family.

What I love about this video is Ruth's dancing in the background. This should have been Ruth's talent. The song I'm playing is "Leave the Pieces" by the Wreckers.

Jared invented this talent all by himself. He is swinging around a volleyball in a cardboard box. The trick is that the volleyball doesn't fall out.

Kaitlin showed us the dance that she learned this week for the musical that she is in at school.

Soccer Season

So soccer season has started again. Jared is playing on the same team this year. His uniform is grey and green. He is playing much better this year now that he can see. Last year when he started soccer we didn't know of his eyesight problems, and then throughout the season he was getting tested and all that. It really helps to actually be able to see the ball in soccer evidently. Ruth is on an all girls team this year, the "Pink Panthers." So far at the two games they have played they have been decimated (much like what BYU did you UCLA this weekend). We keep cheering things like "good effort!" and "you're doing great!"


All is Well

There isn't much more to say about our family this week. We are all fine.


Answers to Last Week's Game

Thanks to those of you that played our game last week. Here are the answers: The David Archuleta lover is Kaitlin (anyone surprised?), Our reader is Chuck (which is really amazing because in 10 years of marriage he has only read the Harry Potter books up until this summer), Bionicles is Jared's latest fascination (He asked me to make him a bionicle costume for Halloween - that should be interesting), The Guitar player is Becky (or me, I feel like Bob Dole when I talk in the 3rd person), Ruth is our Bunny lover (she obtained yet another stuffed bunny from a yard sale yesterday, that should bring her total up to.. well I don't know.. 123?), Facebook is Chaz's thing (he has like 100 facebook friends but he never talks to any on the phone or even talks about them at all - it makes me wonder if they actually exist or not).

Matching Game!

We haven't played any games on this blog yet and since it was a slow week I thought it was time for one. This game is called...

The What-We-Are-Into-Right-Now Game

I'm going to list six things that the different members of our family are really interested in right now, then in the comments, you list who you think is interested in which thing. (This won't be that hard)


1. David Archuleta
Since the release of the new single "Crush" one member of our family has been very excited about David Archuleta. This family member has even used David's Idol journey as inspiration to face challenges.

2. Reading
One member of our family has had their nose in a book. In the last month they have read The City of Ember, The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, and they are now reading Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites and a book on improving communication.

3. Bionicles
This person is so excited about Bionicles that they set up a soda stand to make money to buy another bionicle. In addition to playing with the toys, they are also reading the book Tales of the Toa, and playing the online games as well.

4. Playing the Guitar
Even with the door shut to their room, this person's guitar playing can be heard throughout the house. This month they have learned "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield, "Bubbly" by Colbie Caillat and "Leave the Peices" by the Wreckers. (The Wreckers are affectionately known in our house as 'Rock Bra' which is how their album is labeled at the library).

5. Bunnies!
Someone in our house is obsessed with bunnies. They have already planed out their Halloween costume, and are seen often drawing bunnies. You may also spy this person playing and sleeping with any one of many plush bunnies that they own.

6. Facebook
If you haven't joined facebook yet, it may be the very best way to talk to one particular member of our family (or perhaps, more then one, but this one especially). This person can be heard bragging about how well their flair are doing (they have one that has over 300 users and counting). They also are making new friends almost daily.

***************************

Dear Edwina

I want to congratulate Kaitlin who made the chorus of Dear Edwina, her Jr. High musical. The competition here is fierce, and it is great for her to have made it into the show when 20 other kids were turned away. She starts practices this week. Her show will be November 13th-15th and all of you are welcome to come up and attend. Kaitlin is also starting voice lessons this week, which she is excited about.


My New Favorite Website: http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com/

This is an awesome site that keeps track of your local grocery store adds, comparing them for the best prices and alerting you of sales and coupons. Each state has their own section and Utah's is the most active. I guess we really like to pinch our pennies here - or we have to because we have so many mouths to feed. If you live in Utah, then you can get a weekly email that lists out all the grocery store sales that week, as well as other box stores like ShopKo and Kmart. You should try it. It's awesome!

Who's Birthday is it?

Chuck and the kids had fun today with our webcam. Jared and Ruth wanted to look just like their dad for his birthday picture. We celebrated by opening presents, eating cake and homemade ice cream and playing Chuck's favorite game.

You know you are getting old when your favorite game is: "take a nap." (really, that's what he wanted to play - so we figured it was his birthday, so we left him alone - evidently this is a one player game).






Dinos!

The kids and I visited our local Dino museum, which also happens to be the largest dino museum in the USA (or so they say). It is a very nice museum and is usually $10.00 a person, but this month they were having $2 Tuesdays, and so we went. It was very crowded but we had a great time.


Back to School for Chaz and Kaitlin

The older kids went back to school this week.

Chaz now rides a school bus for the first time in his life. His bus comes and some unearthly early hour and lets him off at school 40 minutes early. The bright side is that Chaz has extra time to work on forgotten homework in the a.m. Chaz has already take his first test (on a summer reading book) and has his new (old) french horn to start practicing on again. On Friday Chaz went to his first ever football game with some friends. He had a great time and his team won.

We are amazed at how much money high school is costing! It cost us 75$ to get him registered, another $40 to rent his instrument, and a payment to his lunch account. Those fees we expected. What we didn't expect is that every day he came home to inform us of a new fee that he had to pay. $10 for Chemistry, $12 for a workbook, $20 for "band participation" and then another $5 for I don't know what. That isn't considering the optional fees - yearbook, PTA, etc... Wow! Forget collage, we will have to start a savings fund just to get our kids through high school.

Kaitlin stressed a little this week getting the hang of 7 classes and her first locker. She said that all her friends "freaked out" over the summer. I told her that it was that puberty thing, it wreaks havoc with everyone at this age.

I don't have first day pictures of the older kids because they go to school way to early for my mind to think of taking pictures. So you'll just have to imagine seeing pictures of them smiling, backpacks and school books in hand, in front of their new schools.

Skype

We've been on Skype a long time but I haven't used it much. A while ago I talked to my brother in TX using my webcam. Now that I know that I can do that I'm going to try logging onto Skype a lot more often. If you have a webcam you can sign up for Skype for free and then we can talk with you.

Camping at Rock Cliff

This week Ruth and Jared were off-track from school and Kaitlin and Chaz hadn't started yet so we decided it was our last chance of the summer to go on a family camping trip.


We went to a place called Rock Cliff State Park on the Jordanelle Reservoir. We chose that place because we wanted to go somewhere close, with hot showers, swimming and trees (hard to come by around here).


We had the whole camp ground and river to ourselves.





Here are the kids swimming in the Jordanelle Reservoir





I added this picture to show you the "beach" at the Jordanelle. We pulled into a place called Hailstone, where we had heard there was a public swimming area. We asked the man at the booth if there was a beach and he said that they had a really nice beach there. Here is the "beach." I guess that is nice to Utah standards, but to this Florida gal, well, that's not really a beach at all, is it.







The Provo River was running through the middle of our camp ground. We enjoyed swimming a boating with our little rubber raft. There were plenty of little fish and snails that Ruth enjoyed catching. For awhile Chuck dragged the boat up the river so the kids could float down the "rapids." At the deepest it was about 4 feet.



Lagoon

On Saturday we went to the best (the only) theme park in Utah, Lagoon. It was eBay day at Lagoon so we got in for only $10 each and that included and all you can eat dinner. Not bad.

We had a great time riding the rides. Chaz went on all the thrilling rides, sometimes by himself because no one would go with him. Chuck did go with Chaz on the new ride "Wicked." You can see a video of Wicked on YouTube.


Ruth enjoyed the kid rides with Jared. However, she did get frustrated with the slowness of the loading and unloading of some of the rides. She saw that the "key" that the attendants used to unbuckle the kids seat belts after rides was really just a metal rod that you shove in a hole on top of the belts. So Ruth found a stick, broke it down to the right size and carried it in her fanny pack. Whenever a ride stopped, she would take out her stick and release herself and Jared. Pretty clever I thought (and so like Ruth).


Kaitlin discovered that she loved the Tilt-a-whirl, an old ride from the 50's, which is my favorite as well. Jared just liked going on anything that wasn't too frightening.

We have a family rule that as long as the children stay in good spirits, and don't fight and whine, we can stay at any theme park until it closes. We made it until 10:15 at Lagoon, when all the children, exhausted, decided it was time to go. Today we are all moving slowly. Luckily we have one day to recover before Kaitlin and Chaz start school tomorrow.