a variety of good stuff...

Nelson is on the board of the BYU Management Society and this year's Pioneer in Leadership Award went to President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The purpose of the organization is to raise scholarship funds for business students at BYU and UVU. The board arrives before everyone else and we get pictures with the guest of honor each year. It was a nice dinner and evening. The Church had 6 tables of guests that evening. Some were security but there was quite a crowd, President Eyring, Elder Ballard, Sister Lant, and Russell Osguthorpe to name a few of the special guests. It was so cool !
The girls are looking forward to New Moon. They got 9:30 Thursday night preview tickets and they are soooooo excited. Here they are with their special lanyards and Bella/Cullen chocolates. Sweet!

This week, Nelson had a business trip to Phoenix and he took David with him. The hotel they stayed at had a kind of water park, tennis, mini golf, etc. so David had a great time. Here he is in front of the waterfall at the pool.

Here he is in the lazy river.

We got some great news yesterday. Michael was awarded the sterling scholar award in math for Orem High. I am so proud of him and all of his hard work in school. Way to go Michael, you are awesome!

Strip and strip again

I forgot to mention that last month amidst the chaos and frenzy of life, Nelson and I escaped for 3 days to Las Vegas. While he attended a CLE conference, I worked on David's stocking pattern for Christmas, shopped and lounged around. We went to see a Cirque de soliel type show that was so amazing. It was a water show and there were synchronized swimmers and some astounding physical showmanship. We went to a couple of buffets, one that was fine but overpriced for breakfast at the Mirage and another that was the best buffet I've ever been to for dinner at Paris. It has been two years since we have been anywhere just the two of us so it was really great to get away.
Orem High swim team has a Halloween tradition that came late this year because they were on a bus for St. George last Friday when they would've normally held this long awaited event. It's called the strip 1000. Each swimmer wears 10 items of clothing (or whatever - that kid next to Michael has a grocery bag diaper on) and for every 100 they swim they get to remove 1 item. Some kids dip into the costume box and the outfits are, well, a sight.

Here's Katie in the pool with some JV girls.

Michael is number one. He finished his swim first, way to go!

P is the letter of the day

Pain Meds and Phone

The day after I got back from Alaska was the first day of Fall Break. Lucky Katie got to have her wisdom teeth out and spend the long weekend eating soup, jello and mashed potatoes. Here she is the day after she got her teeth out with her...new cell phone. Nelson and I went to the cellular store and got a long awaited phone for Katie. The challenge at our house is to play all of the hymns in the hymn book, well enough for people to sing along, and then you earn a cell phone. As incentive to pass off songs, we pay the kids a dollar for each song. At first this is a good idea because it costs very little. Katie had 108 songs left to pass and I had to put a stop to it. I was going to go broke as she played song after song, no problem. So, convinced that she was capable, we went and put a stop to the madness and got her a phone, much cheaper than a dollar per hymn. Way to go Katie!

Pretty hair
Caroline got her hair cut last month and this one she likes. It is hard to be a teenager and always like your hair but lately she does. I do too, it looks great on her!


Paris, France
My niece Jordan got her mission call to Paris and she leaves on February 10th. Her mom had giant maps in the entry hall where everyone guessed where she would go and I was one of a lot of people who guessed correctly. It's not that Paris is her favorite city on earth, it's just that her French accent and fluency can fool the natives. We are so excited for her! Michael will be the next one in the family to go!

Pottery
Caroline is taking a pottery class and just loves it. She has wanted to do this for years and no one in town has ever offered classes. This fall the Scera did and we signed her up. She has fun and her teacher says she has natural talent. I took pictures because we needed something to display for Young Women in Excellence at church and her pots were not going to be ready to display in time.

Pool Time

Here are Michael and Katie at Orem High's opening meet of the year. It's the Blue and Gold and it's an intersquad meet. Michael was captain of the blue boys and Katie was on the blue girls team. Sadly, the gold team won but these two swam well. It's fun to have them together on the same team.

Blue girls - Katie is 3rd from the right.

Blue boys - Michael is 5th from the left

Pasta
Tradition states that whoever loses the blue and gold meet serves spaghetti dinner to the other team. We hosted the team dinner at our house and had a great time. Here's Katie, etc.

Michael and some of the guys (including David)

Piano Playing
Katie is the pianist for the Intermediate Jazz band at Orem High. Since the concert was so close to Halloween they wore costumes. She had a solo at the beginning of the concert, cool.

Pumpkins and alter Personalities

It is so fun to carve pumpkins and get festive. These are Michael and Katie's pumpkins.

Here are Caroline and David's pumpkins. I bought one to carve but never got to it because I was assisting everyone else.

Katie wore my mom's pep club outfit from West High School in Salt Lake.

Caroline went a bit more prehistoric as a cave woman.

David went as an astronaut. We got his costume at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum this past summer when we were there.

Here's David and his friend Adam wearing crazy eyes at the school Halloween party. One of the mom's brought doughnuts for an eating contest.

Michael went as farmer...Michael? Old MacDonald? Well, anyway, what a good sport. He looks great. Michael and Katie left immediatly after school Friday for a swim meet in St. George, the bus broke down on the way home and didn't get back until around 6:30 Saturday night. The kids got more candy than I think has ever been recorded. We watched Hocus Pocus on the big screen in the driveway and got some yummy homemade caramel apples from a neighbor. Happy Halloween!