The Week In Review

Veronica turned sixteen years old this week. She was given birthday money to go to a nice restaurant, so she took the family and her best friend to Cheesecake Factory. Everyone enjoyed a delicious meal and then we shared a few desserts. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday evening we had a birthday party. I made six dozen cupcakes, we had all the fixings for s'mores and roasted starbursts, Travis built a big fire, the kids hit golf balls into the lake, sang songs (a couple of them played guitar), visited, watched part of the Jazz game, played games and had a great time. There were about twenty kids that came.

During the middle of the party, Travis held down the fort while I took Joe to Urgent Care. A reckless dunk on the neighbor's basketball hoop, off a trailer, resulted in a broken wrist for Joe. It was very painful. (This picture was taken the next day)
We enjoyed visiting Grandma Higginson and Grandma Rindlisbacher on Mother's Day. We love them both! I had a wonderful day with cards and a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble.

Bruce's friend (and future college roommate) Skyler came to visit over the weekend. We loved having him come and look forward to seeing more of him this fall.

Our Young Women had a fund-raiser for girls camp. For a $40.00 donation, we'd get a ten-minute family photo session and a disk with the two prints of our choice. These are the two we chose.

Joe Builds A Beauty!

It is pinewood derby time in cub scouts and we were very proud of Joe for his fine entry. He built the car himself with VERY little help from us. He did the carving, the sanding, the painting, and his help came mounting the wheels. The car looked good and he won 3 heats, came in second on 2 heats and third on one heat.

Great job, Joe. You're awesome!

Jason Mraz--The Interview and The Concert

So much has happened since Summer. We found out Travis got the job in Utah. We put our house on the market. Travis, Bruce and Veronica stayed in Bill's basement and started work and school, while Savannah and Joe started school in Idaho with me. We finally couldn't stand it anymore and came to Utah as well, thanks to Leslie, who kindly let us stay with her.

During the craziness of looking for houses, making offers, trying to sort of home-school the two youngest kids, new jobs and schools, etc. we won tickets to see Jason Mraz in concert. We had to answer ridiculous questions on the radio, but with Leslie's help on google and Veronica's help tracking down some lyrics to a song, we won tickets and the opportunity to interview him before the show. Bruce and Veronica did the interview and then they along with Travis and me enjoyed a great show. He's an amazing musician and it was really fun.

The interview was really casual and he was very nice to them. I got to watch.

This is us following him back to the room for the interview. He was riding his bike all over the corridors of the e-center. It was a nice diversion from the hectic school, work, house-hunt schedule we'd been keeping.

Miscellaneous July

We worked on the house a lot during July, in preparation for probably selling it and then Leslie, who was visiting took picutres of the whole house for us. Here's the house we enjoyed for nearly four years and that now we desperately want to sell.

I hesitate to even put this in my blog, but here are Leslie, Veronica, Savannah and me at the midnight release of the fourth book in the Twilight series. I ended up hating it with all my heart and didn't finish it. A piece of crap book as far as I'm concerned.

Here are Joe and Anna watching the actual airshow featuring the Blue Angels. Lori and Scott's family, Leslie's family and our family were in chairs by the side of the road. We had sandwiches, chips and cookies. It was fun.

Here is the main reason for their visit (and everyone else's that came). The Twin Falls temple is absolutely beautiful and we so enjoyed going through the tour with everyone. What a blessing for the people in Twin Falls.

The Blue Angels Arrive in Twin Falls

July was a busy and fun month for us in Twin Falls. During the month, Travis was interviewing for a job and travelled out of town twice. Bruce, Veronica and I worked hard during the month on the temple open house and we began having a lot of company as family came to visit and attend the open house.

I haven't posted for awhile, so these pictures are backwards, but on Nairn and Maria's trip to Utah, we drove to the airport and watched the arrival of the Blue Angels who were in town for an air show. We watched them arrive, taxi in formation down the runway, line up and exit the planes with exact precision. They had someone standing on the tarmack leading them, as if they were an orchestra or something. It was very neat.

Joseph, who is obsessed with flying and Daniel were able to sneak in a picture with one of the pilots. It was a neat event.

Shows, Rockets, Haircuts & More

It has been a busy few weeks. With the end of school came the end-of-school programs and activities. We had a great time attending so many fun things. I managed to get pictures of many of them.

The Xavier Spring Showcase was excellent. Each of the grades shared things they had learned. Joe's class tap-danced and sang a song. Savannah's class did the waltz and a song. Veronica was in a group that did a medley of songs from Le Mis. They made costumes and everything. It was fabulous. It is hard for me to describe the feelings I felt during the show. I love this school and the wide variety of things our younger kids are getting to learn and participate in. It was a great show!
I wish I had a better picture. This was during "At the End of the Day." The kids were bedraggled and bitter because of the hardness of their lives. Their body language and expressions showed that. Veronica did such a great job.
Here is Savannah's waltz. The kids moved all over the stage. It was really neat.
Savannah at the end of their song "Idaho."
This is Joe after singing "America the Beautiful" and performing a tap number to "Eensy Weensy Spider."
You can see their tap shoes in this one.
There were about a dozen kids invited to perform at a Broadway Showcase with a high school group. Savannah was able to do that. They performed three nights in a row. The songs she participated in were "Do Re Mi," "Getting to Know You," and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." On the first two songs, their teacher performed with them. She's great. She is the same teacher that Veronica has for piano three days a week.

Mrs. Kokx has asked Veronica if she'd like to be the accompanist for the show choir next year. Veronica is nervous, but I think she's going to do part of it. That will be so good for her.
This is during "Getting to Know You." Savannah is in the middle.


The 8th grade read several of the classics this year. One of the books they read was "Pride and Prejudice," so at the end of the year, the 8th grade had a Pride and Prejudice Ball. It included a wonderful banquet with food that was appropriate--Veronica's contribution was a bread pudding dish. They played parlor games and danced the waltz. The teachers had decorated it beautifully and it was a really neat evening.
Here is Veronica with her friend Andee and her favorite teacher, Mrs. Corpron.
Veronica dressed up and we did her hair. It took much more than an hour to get all these little curls in it. Her hair is so thick.
But look at the end result. It looked so pretty.

Bruce cut Joseph's hair to match his own. He did a great job. I'm in favor of other people doing haircuts.

Joe looks pretty cute!
On Memorial Day, we spent several hours cleaning out the garage in preparation for a garage sale. During the clean-out, we found a rocket that Travis had purchased at NPS several years ago. Bruce spent a couple of hours getting it all put together and ready to go. We took the kids over to the big soccer field across the street and shot it off.

Here is Bruce preparing the rocket for take-off. The information said it could go up to 600 feet. Yea, right, we thought.
Everyone played on the playground equipment while Bruce prepared the rocket for launch.

Finally, it was ready for take-off.

This is the sky where the rocket was launched. It went so high we could no longer see it. We caught sight of it on its descent, but it was traveling quite a ways from where we were. The kids ran after it, but couldn't get there. A group of kids on bikes a block away stopped to watch it come down. We asked them if they saw where it went and they pointed to a row of houses another block away. We never found the rocket, but the area where it came down was at least three football fields away from where it was launched. RIDICULOUS! After about 1/2 hour of looking for the rocket, it was getting too dark, so we gave up.
At the ward auction to raise money for girls camp and scout camp, I donated a birthday cake. It fetched $55 and then I was told it was for a lady's 90th birthday. This is what I made. I thought it turned out really pretty.
Bruce donated high five's for a year. That was purchased for $25.00 by an older couple in our ward. He hasn't missed a week. When we go on vacation, he has found a substitute for the high five assignment. Veronica donated 2 dozen cookies a month for six months.

This takes in our last few weeks. Now that summer is here, I'm sure it will slow down. Maybe.