5k and the Haka

Here is me and my running buddy, Suzette, after crossing the finish line of the 5k this last Saturday. We ran the whole way, we made it! I know a lot of you are thinking "3 miles? so?". This is a giant feat for me! It was a great sense of accomplishment and now I guess I can run!

It was actually fun and Suzette just e-mailed me about another one in a couple of weeks.

We may be hooked.

After the 5k they had a kids race through the Orem city center park and guess who won? David! Here he is crossing the finish line. Can you inherit running talent from your kids?

They had bounce houses, free frozen yogurt, massages, and face painting for the kids. Katie had them put "My mom is the best" on her cheek and then she came to give me a big kiss.
Awwww, is she sweet or what?

Here are the 5th grade boys at Cascade Dance Festival today. They did the Haka. It was awesome!

I need to get a recent picture of Caroline on my blog. She got braces on last week so we had a couple of days of Jamba juice, yogurt, applesauce and soup. ouch. She seems to have recovered and is just as thrilled as I am for the school year to be almost over.

Gorilla Man

David decided to run for student council at Cascade Elementary for next year. Here are two of his three posters. There are 24 kids running for 8 at large positions and today they gave their speeches and voted.
It's hard to see but these figures in history are lined up to cast their vote for David.

Here is the gorilla man himself!! When he came out the crowd screamed, laughed and cheered. It was a great reaction. David said "Hi, I'm gorilla man." Then removed the mask and really introduced himself. He then gave the top 10 reasons to vote for him for student council.

Here he is giving the top 10 list. The principal will call on Monday night to let us know if he made it or not...the suspense!! Way to go David!

Katie Rocks!

Last night was Canyon View's Billboard Top 10 Chart concert. Katie played the piano for the jazz band. They played "Fly Like and Eagle" and "Enter Sandman". For the second song, she moved the bench and went to town, playing barefoot and Jerry Lee Lewis style. Do you love the dress? Does it look familiar to any of the Alaskans reading this? My mom knitted that dress in the 70's and wore it, too!
PEACE !

Caroline's debut

Here is Caroline playing her bass. Last night was the Spring concert. She is the only girl bassist in her orchestra. We were glad to finally see her perform. The first concert, we thought all four kids had the chicken pox, strangely, for the second time. It turned out to be hot tub rash, that's a whole different story. The second concert, we were in Hawaii. So we got to see her for the first and last time last night. I will miss having such a beautiful instrument in my front room.

She did a terrific job last night.

Yes, it's that time of year again. The Hope of America! For those of you far, far away who don't know, this is the kick off event for Provo's Freedon Festival every year that ends on the 4th of July with a parade, the Stadium of Fire (or stadium of smoke as we like to call it) and fireworks. This year they made it much more audience friendly by having the performance in two nights instead of one. So there were only about 4,000 kids and their families attending instead of 8,000 in years past. So, less traffic, and the program didn't seem as long, either. The flag is made up of about 3500 5th graders, David being one of them. I'm sure you could spot him. He's on the 4th red stripe from the bottom, six people in from the right. I think it's great that these kids have the chance to learn all of the traditional patriotic songs along with some new, hip ones.
Too cool, this is "America Rocks"

David and his friend Adam Robins.

This is the finale. After the America the Beautiful medley, the lights go out and they have "We can be a light", choreographed with flash lights.

Here's David and cousin Lindsey Conger after the show! It's fun to have cousin's the same age.

David and Adam and Matthew Conger.

The end has come to a fixture in our life. Nelson (along with help from family) built this play castle for Katie when she turned 3 years old. It was the coolest castle! Inside the turrets, there were ladders that reached the roof. The kids have loved playing on this for years but they all were really too big for it anymore. The castle needed some love(paint) and we figured someone else with little girls could do that. Within 4 hours of being online it was sold and hauled away. a lot of memories....

Ah, Mother's Day. Here I am relaxing. Love it! Thanks to my family for the great breakfast and doing the dishes all day long. They made me feel like a pampered princess! After a yummy lunch and lounging, we went for a walk and ended up at Abbott's for dinner. Tradition holds on and the men put together a fabulous dinner and cleaned up as well. It was a wonderful time. Here are all of the Abbott women, Ali, Me, Lisa, Cindi and Oranee.

And life goes on...Michael took his AP Calculus test last week and has AP Chemistry to take tomorrow. He got a job as a lifegaurd for Orem city so everyone look for him at the rec center and Scera pool. He was also voted Orem High swim captain for next year. He will be relieved I think after tomorrow and can go back to regular life. Katie went to Music in the Park ( a competition for all of the Jr. High and high school music programs in the mountain west ) on Saturday. She plays the piano for jazz band and they placed first. Footnotes choir placed first, also. Then on to Lagoon for fun. Caroline and David are home from school sick today. I hope they feel better soon. Well, we have a choir and orchestra concert this week, band next week and the elementary schools dance festival and carnival the week after. The end of the year sure can get crazy. I have girls camp to get ready for, only 3 more weeks until we go.

A blast from the past and life goes on

This last Sunday I put out a long table, boxes of pictures and all of the scrapbook stuff I had and let the kids go to town. Katie and Caroline were the only ones interested. I was really excited. The girls both finished all of the pictures for themselves for 1996. This is really confession time. Caroline was born in 1996 and has never had a baby book. Well, now she does. We scanned this picture from brother and sister-in-law Jeramy and Cheryl's wedding in St. George from that year. Gosh those kids are cute!
Soccer is over for the season. This is David at one of the last tournament games. Now comes the stress of what do we do next? Stay in this league, move up, same team, different team? I guess we will figure it out eventually. It's crazy how serious sports can get for kids this young, people talking about them like this is a career decision.
I thought we were doing this for fun and exercise!

Here's Katie at Alpine Days, the district end of season meet. Her 4x100 relay team got 3rd for 9th grade girls. She also ran the 800, 1600 and 3200.

There sure are a lot of endings this time of year. Here is Katie and friends at Canyon View's Drama Banquet. Katie was on the planning committee. They decorated and are ready to seat people as they arrive.

Katie and her friend Nicole.

They asked all of the kids in 1 play to stand up. Then keep standing if you had been in 3, 4, 5, and here is the group of kids who had been in 6 plays or more at Canyon View. Katie is 5th from the right. She has been in 6 plays, one kid up there had been in 12! Wow!

Michael and his friends posing after playing basketball for his 17th birthday party.

It was a combined party, Hans turned 16, Michael 17.

Happy Birthday Michael!!

Michael's friends singing loudly.

Katie loves her new 50 cent yard sale sunglasses!

Here is Katie getting all of that scrapbooking done! I can't tell you how excited I am to have more of this done. Keep it up!

Even though soccer and drama is over, swimming continues. Michael came home with 7 medals yesterday from this last weekends meet. Nelson and I volunteered for 4 1/2 hours to be timers for Friday's half of the meet. It continued for just as long on Saturday but we had other stuff to do. I have timed at meets before but not for one this big. It was intense having to start, stop and record times every 30 seconds to 3 minutes or so for that many hours in a row. Congratulations, Michael!