I made this sign.  Those are cupcakes in the shape of the olympic rings. To the right you see our "torch". It had a fan and light in it,  so the Eagle scout could "light" it. 

Blue and Gold

Team Lime getting ready to start a relay.

Our big annual cub scout dinner was this week. We did an Olympic theme and we went all out on decorations and activities. Each family was a "team" and they competed in different events.  Jared named our team "The Lime" (we are not sure why) and we had a flag an everything. We got the gold medal in the tricycle race.   I was in charge of the rubber band gun shoot, and also all the Olympic music that we played loudly throughout the evening.  It turned out really cute. I've blogged more about it on my craft/scout blog. 

Rehearsals

Ruth has started rehearsals for You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, and Kaitlin had another dance clinic for Footloose. Kaitlin was less sore after this one, so her endurance is increasing.

Happy Valentines

Valentines is one bright light in an otherwise dull, long winter.  Jared made this cool valentines box, and came home with a box full of candy.  Chuck and I went out to dinner and then to a community theater show. The girls reported uneventful holidays, other than reporting frustration with all the smoochy couples at school.

Relatively Speaking

Kaitlin and I both spoke in church today.  Kaitlin spoke about conversion and I spoke about spiritual spinach.   While we spoke, Ruth and Jared drew pictures of us.  This is the picture Jared drew.  I guess he was sitting behind a tall man.


Ruth is a Hipster 

Yeah.

Singing and Dancing

Kaitlin's Choir

Kaitlin has been busy this week singing and dancing.  Kaitlin's choir put on a fundraiser concert, and she had another dance rehearsal for Footloose.  The Dance rehearsal has left her stiff and slow moving today, but she had a great time.

Ruth put in a lot of practice this week for her audition for You're a Good Man Charlie Brown.  Unfortunately, she didn't get a lead part, but she is still excited to start rehearsals on Tuesday.

Forever Lazy

We found a good deal on some Forever Lazy's and bought one for each member of the family. Kaitlin and Jared have worn them every day since.  Ruth, so far, refuses to wear hers.




 

Discovering Harry

Can you see the numbers on his hand?

This week I noticed numbers written across the back of Jared's hand.  When I asked him about it, he explained that he was reading Harry Potter at school, and then he would write the page number on his hand so he could keep reading when he got home.  I'm a bit jealous watching him discover the wonderful world of Harry Potter for the first time.


All the World's a Stage

The girls and I drove to see my nephew, Benjamin, perform in the Shakespearean play As You Like It.  The production was very good and we had a good time.  I love that my girls are learning to enjoy Shakespeare as much as I do.

I didn't take any pictures so that will have to do.

Three Dates

I mentioned a few posts back that Kaitlin has had her ups and downs with dating. A few months ago, after some frustrating experiences, Kaitlin swore off dating.  She even passed on a couple of girls choice dances, declaring them not worth the work. So imagine my surprise when Kaitlin came home last week to report that she had been asked out three times in one day, and then a couple of days later she was asked a fourth time.  So this weekend she went on 3 dates, one on Friday and two on Saturday.  She reported to me later that going on three dates in 30 hours was fun, but she never wanted to do it again because it was exhausting. 


End of the Road

On Monday we went with Ruth to the regional Reflections, but Ruth didn't win. It's the end of the road for all our Reflections this year.


Thawing

After six weeks in below freezing temperatures we enjoyed our first day in the forties.  The sun came out and the snow started to melt.  All day I could hear the water trickling down the roof, and the house cracking; it was as if the whole house was sighing and stretching from a long sleep.


Scout Shirts

I started working on some scout shirts a couple months ago, but because of our never ending freezing temperatures I couldn't make any more.  So when it got warmer this week I started making shirts again.  I blogged about my process here.

I made this logo for my Webelos. Cool, hu?

Ticket to Ride

So happy to be on an adventure!

There were fish in the middle of the mall.

Long winters do crazy things to the psyche. On Saturday we knew we had to get out of the house. Jared was shut up in his room singing gibberish at the top of his lungs, and Ruth was on her third or fourth hour of screen time.  It was another cold day and we were packed into fog that left only about fifty yards of visibility in every direction.  So we bundled up and headed for the new Trax line that is only ten minutes from our house.  The kids were not too thrilled about the adventure at first but they warmed up to it as we went.  We rode downtown and visited the new City Creek mall, that literally has a creek running down the middle of it, complete with fish, and a dancing fountain.  

Our Icicles Have Icicles

It's been hard for Jared to be off-track  all these weeks and it's been too cold to go outside.  His old mom doesn't have much tolerance for snow and cold, so we've spent most of our time hanging out together watching TV and playing video games. We brought Summer, our rabbit, inside the house back in December, when the temperature dropped.  She has been even more stir crazy than we have, so one day Jared decided to build a 'bunny run' for her that more than doubled her living area. We unattach it at night or whenever it gets in the way, so it's worked out really well.

Jared also finished another round of swim lessons where he passed another two levels.  He learned both the front crawl and the back stroke.  I've pushed him on swimming lessons this year to get him ready for the Boy Scout swim test he will have to take next year when he starts going to scout camps.  With this last class he has now has the skills to reach that goal.  It took quite a bit of prodding to  go out into single digit weather for swim lessons but he did it and I'm proud of him.


Half Way There

The girls have come to the end of the semester which means the half way point for the school year.  They both had test and projects due, so this three day weekend is a welcomed respite.  Kaitlin made a mouse trap car that (with a little help from mom and a late night run for a new mousetrap) won 2nd place in her class. It went something like 50 feet.  Ruth is all signed up for auditions for her school musical, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, and has been practicing her audition piece.  Kaitlin too, is signed up for a community production of Footloose, but practices won't start for a couple more months.  (Kaitlin's high school was big news a few weeks ago because the musical they were doing was found to be not appropriate by the school board.  Back when they held auditions, Kaitlin decided not to do the show, partly because she did not feel comfortable with the theme and sexual content, and we agreed that she could do this community production instead).

Dance Showcase

The semester is almost at an end and Kaitlin has been very busy.  This week she performed in the Dance Showcase, the culminating event of her Ballroom Dance class.  Her class performed a swing number to 50's music.  She said it went really well and she had a great time.   I wish I had a video or something to show you but unfortunately I missed it.  That same night was our big Blue and Gold District training dinner for Cub Scouts that I was helping with.  Kaitlin was a good sport about me missing her show and she put on a private dance concert for me right in the kitchen.  I was amazed to see what a good dancer Kaitlin had become in just a few months.