Strip 1000 2011

Each year on Halloween the swim team has a special workout.  It is called the strip 1000.  The kids come with 10 clothing items to wear over their swimsuits and get all dressed up for their workout.  At the end of each 100, they strip 1 item of clothing.  They see who can do it the fastest.

 Caroline in her get-up.

 Lots of the girls.

 The swim team at their best!

After a couple of items were taken off.  Too fun!

More Halloween

I am getting caught up on some long overdue blog posts...enjoy!

Oranee has a Halloween party the day before along with dinner and lots of fun. We played a few games and the kids had a great time. We were divided in teams and had a race to see who could wrap their mummy the fastest with the least showing. Nana is being a good sport as she gets wrapped up.

Jordan and David...

Katie and Nelson systematically wrapping Lindsey.

Halle's team

David breaking free!

The rest of the teams showing off their work...

Ahhhh, I love this game. Mostly I love doughnuts.

YUM!! It was a fun party!

Ward Halloween Party!

This year our ward had a Halloween party. We have done them before but it's been a while. It was combined the yearly tradition of a chili cook-off. Nelson and I passed out candy to the trick-or-treaters who circled the church knocking at classroom doors. The youth were in charge of the spook alley. Being that this was for the primary kids and at the church, we thought it best to avoid gore and extremely intense stuff. There is a classroom in our building at the top of the stairs with an exit down the stairs on the other side of the room. The kids decorated with hanging crepe paper to walk through up the stairs and then sheets hung in a maze through the room. They had black lights and spooky music, teenagers playing dead, and one in a straight jacket. Then on to the peeled grapes, wet noodles and next...the mad scientist! They had a fake body under a sheet and then Caroline behind the table with all manner of lab instruments, lunging out and shrieking as you passed. She was awesome!

AP art goes viral

No, not really, but wouldn't that be so cool? For Katie's breadth assignment she chose to pop balloons filled with paint over plywood, and then over pictures she drew. I should really let her explain all this because I am sure she has a much better explanation that I do. Her teacher told her if she videoed the process and posted it on Youtube he would give her extra credit, love extra credit. Here's the link if you want to watch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcA6s8k5Org

It also counted for the PTA reflections contest this year, "Diversity is...".

Notice the shirt? When the kids were little, I went to DI and got dress shirts for smocks. They would put them on backwards and I would button them up the back. Here's a picture from Easter 1996 coloring eggs in their shirts. Katie now wears it forward, but still loves her old art shirt.

Surprise family visit!

For those of you who aren't up on my life story, here's the short version...I grew up in Alaska, age 6-17, came to BYU, got married and here I have stayed. All of my relatives, short 2 cousins, still live in the great white north. It is about a 3000 mile drive to get here so needless to say, I don't get many visitors. When my mom was still alive, she came down often, and we got to fly up there a lot also. My grandmother has stopped in to see me 2 times when she came to visit her sister who lives in SLC but she is the only relative beyond my mom, sister and step-dad in 26 years who have ever come to visit...until now.

The phone rang and an unfamiliar 907 area code number showed on the caller ID. Who could be calling me from Alaska? It was my Aunt Jani and she said they were in Salt Lake and could they come visit? Are you kidding me? YES! I wanted to jump in the car and drive up and spend the week with them, my family can get by just fine without me, right?

My Uncle Bill is my mom's younger brother and he has been retired for a few years. Jani retired last Spring and so they are both free to travel now. They drove (yes that's right) their truck, trailer and two dogs down the Al-can. It took them 9 days to get here. They visited all of the old haunts from Sant family history in Salt Lake and then came down to have dinner and visit with us. It was almost surreal to have them in my house. I haven't ever visited with them outside of Alaska. It was so wonderful to have family here. I really miss my family and wish I could visit them more often. There's nothing like your family, is there?

That evening after they left the kids carved their pumpkins.

Don't you think they pose so nicely?

This is Katie's pumpkin. A step or two away from the traditional triangle-eyed face. Maybe this is what AP art does for a person, helps them think beyond ...beyond where? Just a bit gruesome, thanks for not applying ketchup or red frosting or anything. Maybe this is saying something about her date to Sadie's recently. They went as Barbie and Ken(keep scrolling to see that post), hmmmmm, watch out Chris.

Love the teeth, David!

Caroline carved this dragon into the surface of her pumpkin so the light shows through the thickness of the pumpkin differently. Pretty cool, she also got extra credit in ceramics for this!

OHS festival of colors

About 20 minutes south of here in Spanish Fork is a Hari Krishna temple and they have a festival of colors every year where they throw colored chalk at each other, in the air, and all around. It has become a very popular outing here in the valley. Check out my posts with pics of the festival in SF

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html

and I can't find the other one, sorry.

Caroline, Katie and Tanner Mieure before the festival of colors....

...and after. Love that they used blue and yellow chalk!

Katie and Ben Wells. Go Tigers!

Sadie Hawkins

Kids at dances nowadays have their own photo shoots by moms or dads or big sisters or neighbors, not the professional backdrop ones of yesteryear. It's great because you get a whole bunch of digital pics to share all around and then print for cheap at Costco. The downside is that because the kids are in charge sometimes it takes a while to get said pictures. This is the case with Sadie's so I thought rather than hold up the blog train I would just post what I have. Maybe later I can update with some group pictures or something.

Sadie's was an 80's theme this year. Katie borrowed her cousin's Halloween costume for this year (thanks Brittney). She was...can you guess? Yes, it's ....workout barbie! Love the leg warmers (cut off sweater sleeves) and all the other Madonna-esque trappings. I had SO much fun doing big hair, especially the bangs, and Katie dug up some pink eye shadow and blue eyeliner, perfect, and even a pair of jellies.

No wonder parents freak out at current fashion. It's ok now that it's retro. Seeing it now I guess I can understand why adults thought it was a bit much. It sure was fun dressing her all up!! She looks great!

Still waiting for the pictures...this is the only picture I have of Katie and her date, Chris. Notice the polo shirt and sweater tied around the shoulders. He dressed up as the Ken doll. Ah, the 80's.

Blue and Gold meet

Here are the girls of the OHS blue team. Each year to kick off the season, the swim team has a blue vs. gold meet. They divide the team and have some good fun competition. Caroline is holding the sign on the right. The blue girls and boys won the meet and were then served dinner by the gold team afterwards. Ok, it was pretty much buffet style and not a lot of seating this year so they got their own meal but that's supposed to be the idea. Caroline took 6 seconds off of her best 100 back time so it was a great day! They had a lot of fun and it's so great to be part of a team! Go Caroline!!

Random cellphone pictures

Since Michael's phone is pink he thought he needed to wear my sunglasses too.  His phone was silver originally.  His phone battery was not holding a charge but since it was getting so close to his mission he didn't want to buy a new phone.  Oranee used to have the same phone, only in pink, so he asked if he could have her old battery.  For a while, his silver phone had a pink battery.  Then his screen went bad so he just gave in and started using the whole pink phone.   I guess it shows frugality and confidence together when an 18 year old boy can use a pink phone! 

Love the stare!  When the kids get new glasses, we go to different stores to shop for glasses.  Since they can never remember what the other ones look like we take pictures of them in the frames that are options so they can compare at the next store.  These are the ones she chose.

Michael did not choose this frame, whew!

Caroline painted her face for spirit week...on the way to school.

So I'm a little bit weird about numbers.  I am always making comments about what numbers are on the speedometer, this was a particularly awesome day!

Soccer and Shakespeare

Soccer has begun and is almost over for Fall. I had to get some pictures of David with his new team. He moved up to a AAA club team this year and it's going well. He has made a few goals and is doing well. They are going to play indoor soccer next. This is definitely David's favorite sport!

They have black and white jerseys even though they are the Yellowjackets. We all wonder why there's no yellow. I think later on they may get warm-ups that are yellow. Funny, huh?

Katie's love is drama. Here she is all dressed up for the Renaissance Faire the evening before they left for the High School Shakespeare competition in Cedar City. She was Hermia in a scene from "A Midsummer's Night Dream". She did awesome! She projected well ( a big deal in the not-so-great acoustics of the school's foyer) and was SO funny! Shakespeare is sometimes hard to understand but there was no question of what her character's plight was. Great job!

She was in the group ensemble scene and also the Shakespeare dance. Here she is twirling in her fun dress. They did Romeo and Juliet, country style, it was cute.

On another note, sometimes we go sweets crazy here at our house. This was one of those times. In the past week we have made too many treats. This one at least has an apple in the middle of it!

New look

I hope everyone likes the new background I gave to the blog I think it's a bit more modern...My mom's a bit of a centenarian when it comes to decorating (still trying to persuade her that shudders and flower boxes are out of style) but this sheds a new light to the blog that says "hello! I don't live in the 1800 century!" needless to say my opinion of previous designs has been to say the least, odious. Until next time ,savior of the blog, Caroline.

Conference Weekend - Wallsburg

General Conference weekend is always looked forward to around here. This year, we got out of town, too. We took the motorhome to Wallsburg with the Rhino's and enjoyed the fall leaves. We went for rides before and after conference sessions along with a ride back into town for David's soccer game and a bridal shower the girls went to during Priesthood session. We listened and ate, listened more, ate more, ate some more. Doesn't everyone have lots of yummy things to eat during conference?

Katie took this picture out the side of the rhino, zooming past the trees.

The fall colors were amazing! The weather was good, too.

We stopped at this clearing for the kids to take turns driving around in a flat, non-populated area. We discovered a swing someone had made hanging from a tree. Caroline and I were spider swinging when we discovered that Katie had NEVER in her life done this. What?? How is that even possible? So, Nelson and I picked her up and put her on Caroline's lap.

As many daring things that Katie will bravely face these days, deep down she has parts of her that are still her scaredy-cat-3-year-old-self. She screamed and looked frightened for a few moments and then realized it wasn't so bad and hopefully enjoyed a little bit of it. So funny!

Caroline having her turn. Too cool.

Katie is a legitimate driver so I let her drive me around quite a bit. She did a great job.

Here are some pictures of the gorgeous Fall scenery!

Only one of the Rhino's (the one I was in) had a windshield so we got to follow the dust...can you see them up there?

Hey! It's Wilma and Fred Flintstone on the way to a lodge meeting!

Just kidding. From where we were camped, we rode up and down to find Daniel's Summit Lodge and the gift shop/restaurant there. These were too cool and we had to have our picture taken.

David was the most excited of all to drive the rhino's around. Caroline has her permit and does get to drive but David has never had this experience. You'd have thought he had died and gone to heaven. He had so much fun!