BYUFan

Every year, the PTA of my school and many other schools have Reflections. Reflections give kids a chance to show off their talents.There are 6 categories that kids can sign up in, which are: musical composition, visual arts, 3-D art, photography, choreography, and acting. There is a theme that your piece has to follow. This years’ theme is “WOW…”. This year, I submitted an entry in visual arts. I did many paintings before I could come up with something I liked. My final painting was of a beach scene. I handed it in to the school on the day it was due, October 24th. A few weeks later, I was invited to reflections awards night, the day the PTA recognizes the children who won an award. There are three types of awards you can get. They are honorable mention (work that has been recognized but hasn’t won,) Principal’s choice (work that has been chosen by the principal and is displayed in front of his/her office,) and the Award of Excellence, which goes to the kids that won. I won an Award of Excellence. I am going on to the next round, which is the district. The last round is International, and if you win that, I think you get a money prize.I am not really looking forward to going to see if I won district because I hate thinking that I might not win. I also don’t like how they won’t let me take my artwork home because I won. But the thing that annoyed me most was that while I was at school that day, the PTA called my mom saying that I had won, so she already knew! Thanks a lot, mom.

Tonight was Young Womens in Excellence award night. The theme was “A Night at the Oscars” and included dinner, a movie starring the young women, and a red carpet that they walked down to receive their awards. When I got there they were having technical difficulties with the laptop that was supposed to play the movie (it was a Mac). Fortunately, I happened to have my trusty old Dell laptop with me so I whipped it out it and it worked flawlessly.

The cutest Young Woman in the world (right) with the cutest YW mom in the world (left)

Emily won an award for her “individual worth” project which was playing in a piano recital. Other Young Women won awards for pictures they took or crafts they did or service projects they helped out on. Our ward’s YW leadership does a really great job with all the Young Women and Emily really enjoys going.

Contgratulations Emily - we’re proud of you!

Brian has been bugging me to get Caroline’s hair cut for a while now, because her long hair kept getting in her face. So last week I took her with me and we both got our hair cut. Now we both have nice short hair that doesn’t get in our faces.

Brian is gone yet again on another business trip. He says after this he doesn’t have to go anywhere for three weeks. It will be strange to have to start cooking normal dinners when he gets back. This week is full of things to do. Yesterday I had Presidency meeting for primary and then after school I had to take the girls to piano lessons and then I had to turn around quickly and take Emily to stake standards night. I think she had a lot of fun because she didn’t get home until 9pm. Today after dropping Diana off to preschool I spent two hours at the tire place spending Brian’s hard earned money on new tires for my Toyota. I probably could have gotten away with only replacing two tires, but I thought since I was there I might as well get them all replaced so I wouldn’t have to go back anytime soon. It seems that when you think you have lots of cash to go around things like car repairs takes a big chunk of it away. It will be crunch time soon and I will have to buckle up. This coming Sunday is our primary’s sacrament meeting program so late afternoon on Friday we will be having our final run-through. Only two of my kids have small parts so luckily I don’t have to worry about helping them memorize too much. I did however teach the senior primary how to sing the first verse of I am a Child of God in Japanese, so I will be leading them in that at the beginning of the program. Last Sunday when we practiced it the kids seemed to have memorized the song pretty well. I will have to report how we did next week. Next week there is not much going on so it will be nice to get some work done around the house for a change.

Within the past two weeks Sam has lost two bottom front teeth. He was so happy to have money from the tooth fairy because he wanted to be like his big sisters and buy a soda from the soda machine in front of the grocery store. First he wanted to take all his money and spend it, but I reminded him that he had given the lesson in Family Home Evening on Monday about Tithing and that we needed to put ten percent of his money into tithing. At first he was not happy but then he realized that ten percent didn’t mean all of it. So yesterday while the girls were at piano lessons I took him to the store and he went and bought himself a sprite.

This is a picture of Sam after he lost his first tooth.

Nancy worked with Caroline and Sam for a couple of weeks each morning to help them learn how to ride their bikes. After a much whining and complaining, a few wrecks, and some threats/bribery/cajoling, they finally learned how to do it within a few days of each other. Their reward was a lunch date with Mom or Dad. Yesterday I took the day off work and paid off my lunch debt to Sam. He rejected all the places that I suggested (Training Table, Chilis, Thai food, etc.) and selected McDonalds. Off to McDonalds we went.

Caroline learns to ride the bike

Now that they’ve learned how to ride their bikes we can’t get them to stop. It’s funny how one day they’re whining and moping along with one foot on the curb and one on the pedal and the next day they’re zooming around the neighborhood and doing “jumps” off the curb.

Lori and Bryan invited us to go water skiing on the 4th of July. We left early in the morning for Echo Reservoir and got there before the sun had a chance to get really hot. We were expecting 100 degree weather but it was semi-cloudy and rather pleasant all day. In fact, in the early morning it was downright chilly in the water. Lori and Bryan were already there in order to be the first boat on the water and get the best runs of the day in. They met us at the dock and we all piled into their boat.

They have a bright red boat with all kinds of fancy technology gadgets such as inflatable bladders (for giving the boat different kinds of wakes I presume) and cruise control and high tech ski rope holders. The littlest kids (Diana, Natasha, and Caroline) were content to just sit in the front of the boat and let the wind blow through their hair. The rest of us tried various forms of water sports.

When I first went water-skiing at a ward youth activity 20 years ago there were only two options: one ski or two. Now there are all kinds of things to do like raft riding, wakeboarding, and “surfing”. Bryan made wakeboarding look easy as he jumped over the wake. I tried my hand at wakeboarding but after about three or four attempts the best I could manage was a wobbly one second of barely getting my rump out of the water before crashing. Bryan and Lori cut beautiful rooster tails as they slalom skied around the lake. I had been able to ski on one ski back in high school but I knew that 20 years of weight gain and weak upper-body strength would prevent me from doing that again so I simply went to two skis and was fortunately able to get up a time or two.

Giving up after several unsuccessful wakeboard attempts

Anne was adventurous and decided to try skiing on two skis but wasn’t able to get out of the water after a few attempts. Next we inflated a huge raft with multiple handles on it and had fun pulling the older kids around. Even Nancy gave the raft a try. Eli and Sam were fun to watch as they bounced up and down on the raft. I got on the raft a few times and my ample waistline finally showed some value in sending the raft careening back and forth as I leaned into the turns of the boat. Between Bryan carving big turns with the boat and me leaning back and forth on the raft we were able to really give the kids a fun ride and managed to dump them off the raft several times.

Bouncing along on the raft

After riding the raft we pulled up to a beach and had a picnic lunch on the beach while the kids spent time playing on the raft. At the end of the day we configured the boat for “surfing” by filling the bladders and positioning people in the boat such that we created a huge wake. Bryan then got a very short rope and a mini-surfboard and started skiing on the massive wake. Eventually the wake is so big that you can “surf” down it’s face continually and thus let go of the rope while still able to stay behind the boat. I gave it a try once or twice but there was no chance of me being able to get up on a surfboard if I couldn’t even get up on a wakeboard. I managed to snap a picture of Bryan surfing with my cell phone camera but unfortunately I cut off his head.

Bryan “surfing” behind the boat

After a fun day on the water Lori expertly backed up her truck and Bryan loaded the boat on the trailer while Nancy and I watched the kids and had snacks at the car. We then met up at Grandma Wilma’s for a short visit before heading home for an evening barbeque and fireworks. The only problem was that a day of waterskiing and bouncing around on the raft left both Nancy and I exhausted so that we were ready to do fireworks and put the kids to bed before it was even dark. We held out until dusk and then lit fireworks in the South Jordan wind.

Fireworks in the wind

I would have to rank this 4th of July as one of the most fun days we’ve ever had. Thanks to Lori and Bryan and their family for inviting us and for being gracious and patient with us novices as we swarmed around their fancy boat. We really had a great time. As Nancy put it, “It sure beat the heck out of sitting around in the hot sun waiting for the parade!”

Anne had a family party this year for her birthday. She got to choose the place she wanted to go out to dinner to and then when she got home her new present was waiting for her. A brand new bike!!! We didn’t eat cake and ice cream on her birthday because for one, Emily was at girls camp and secondly we went out to eat at Leatherby’s and had nice big ice cream treats after dinner. So after Emily got home from camp, we got out the cake with eleven candles on it and sang the happy birthday song to her. Next year she will be able to have a friend party and if she wants to she can get her ears pierced.

I have been meaning to help Sam learn how to ride his bike without training wheels for a few months now, but only recently have I really put in some time with him. He is improving but not quite there yet. He will peddle for about two seconds until he thinks he’s going to fall and then he puts his foot down.

When I run with him down the sidewalk and hold his back he does better, but as soon as I let go, down goes the foot. I think he just needs to learn to have the confidence to ride without help and without fear of falling. I think this will happen with practice-practice-practice.

South Jordan is putting in streetlights in for the street behind our house so they had to dig a hole under the back fence to put wiring through. I couldn’t quite explain to Brian what they did so I took a couple of pictures. When they finally put in landscaping on the other side of the fence who knows what else they will have to do in our yard.

A couple of months ago it was Diana’s birthday and I forgot to post some pictures. Even though she didn’t have a friend party like Sam she still had fun opening presents and eating cake and ice cream with her family.