January Birthdays

Nelson and Caroline have birthdays 2 days in a row, 30 years apart.  So, Nelson turned 46 (always the same as the super bowl year) and  the next day Caroline turned 16!

Doesn't Caroline have a super nice big sister?  Katie decorated her locker and had a balloon delivered to her during school so everyone would wish her well all day.  Then she took her to lunch.  So nice.

This is us at dinner for Caroline's birthday.  She chose Malawi's pizza.  Here are a few of the pizzas we got...berries with fresh cream, s'mores, and spinach shrinp.  They were so good, especially the fruit one.  I have been dreaming of it ever since.  

Happy Birthday Nelson and Caroline!!

Tara's mission call

My niece Tara got her mission call!  She has been in love with Italy for a long while.  She has taken 3 years of Italian at BYU, went on a little study abroad trip there and loves it like no where else.  She got her call to....

Milan, Italy!!!

How is that even possible?  Her older sister Jordan got to go to Paris, her favorite place on the whole earth and now Tara gets her wish, too.  Some lucky girls!  

Michael is excited since Italian is the closest language to Romanian so maybe they can converse a little.  She enters the MTC on June 20th.  Congrats Tara!!!

The Secret Garden

Katie was in Orem High's production of The Secret Garden.  She was a ghost and also the headmistress, Mrs. Winthrop.

Here are some of the ghosts.  I loved the way the ghosts were still a part of life but just kind of lurking in the background also.

 I don't know, how many of us could pull off this hairdo?

 The girls

 Here she is as Mrs. Winthrop, the uber-strict headmistress.  She was pious, confident and direct.  She was also funny.  How DO you do that? 

Shocked at a tantrum from Mary.

 Great job!

Katie and Nicole

Seminary Centennial Broadcast

Well the day finally came!  Katie has been waiting for this moment since way back in November when she got to be in the film they played during this broadcast.  If you missed that post, check it out

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/11/seminary-centennial-starring-katie.html

She went up early on a bus, they rehearsed, fed them a sack lunch and we came later.  After they ate, they were going to show the choir the video the rest of us would see since the choir doesn't have monitors during the broadcast to watch.  They said to run to the bathroom and come back to see the video.  When she got back they had already started the video and sadly, didn't see herself in the film.  She texted me and was so sad!  She had spent a day in costume, filming shot after shot, and nothing.  I was texting her as we entered the conference center, saying so sorry and sad I couldn't reach her to give her a hug.

 Katie's view of the choir.

Katie's view of the conference center.  We sat in the first balcony level to the left.

The program started and the choir did a fabulous job.  The acoustics in there are spectacular!  Then they started with an introduction and the film.  The lights dimmed and we started to watch.  There was the recreation of the first seminary class, there was katie...hey! She was in the film!  She is at the very beginning of the film so she thought she had been cut from the whole thing.  I texted her even though she couldn't check it until after the whole program.  She was pretty excited to hear that she was in fact in the film.  You get to see her profile as they pan the room, and then you see the back of her head 3 more times, that's it.  Pretty cool.   You get a glimpse of her in the choir during the closing song also if you want to see that.  Here's the link.  You can see her in the film 5:50 into the program and you can see her in the choir around minute 56:25, she's in a teal shirt.  Here's the link if any of you missed her 15 (ok, more like 3) seconds of fame. 

http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/seminary-centennial-broadcast/2012/02?lang=eng&vid=1409904608001&pkey=AQ~~,AAABJMwIxCk~,V-s4Hivdj0tPNypCoK3-U7EDiMwrZ90Q&pid=1302760218001

Feel free to watch the whole thing if you want, it was a great broadcast!

Preference

Nelson got in on the fun for preference this year.  Recently he got some photo equipment to make his video clips for his work website better and we have been playing around with all of it.  One of the parts it came with was a green screen.  Since the theme of Preference this year was "Tangled...now that I see you" we thought it would be fun to do the pictures with the green screen and then put the kids in front of Tangled scenes.

 Here is Caroline.  So happy to be the model while we play around with the lighting, etc.

Katie is much more willing to help.  Maybe because this is her dance.

 All dressed and ready to go!  Thanks cousin Stephanie for letting Katie borrow this gorgeous dress. How lucky is Katie that they are the same size and Stephanie has SO many fun dresses?

You look gorgeous Katie!

I made dinner for the group.  It is always fun to have the group at our house and it gives me a chance to use the nice china.  We get so many pictures, we can eavesdrop....  HA! just kidding, not really, but I love to see the kids and listen to them laugh and have a great time.  Nicole wrote a "How to Host a Mystery" script so they did that before and during dinner.  After the dance they came back and had dessert.  They had a great time!

Poor Nathan!  He just looked too short in the middle of these two guys who are both 6'5" tall.  We gave him a stool so he didn't look like he was hiding out with the girls.  It finally snowed the day of Preference which makes it a little more difficult in a formal dress and heels.  Luckily for Katie, Kahai wears a size 17 shoe so he walked ahead of her and she just walked in his footprints!  Here they are before the magic...

...and after!  Cool huh?  Way to go Nelson for making the dance fun with cool pictures!

 Katie and Kahai

Katie, Nicole and Kaylee

Caroline at Region Swim

This is Caroline during the 100 back at region.

It looks like she lost one of her goggles straps. Good thing there are 2 straps!

She placed 9th in the 50 free and 14th (I think) in the 100 back.  

We love swim team!

Playing hooky

I know, I'm old.  If my kids were writing this post they would use the phrase "sluffing".  I'm not sure we can actually call it either because I think it is referring to when you leave school without permission.  When your dad comes and checks you out of school and takes you with him to have fun during school is that called sluffing or just really lucky?

Nelson and Caroline went to the flow rider on the Monday holiday but decided against it since it was so crowded.  You pay for an hour and with 12 people there it meant fewer turns.  The flow rider has to have 5 people to make it worth running but at 1PM every day they run it without a minimum number of people.  So, Caroline figured out which last period of the day was easily missed and talked her dad into it.  There were 3 or 4 other people there but just right to have fun and nice to get a little break in between turns.  This was hard work!  I graciously agreed to not don a swimsuit and take pictures instead, so nice of me.

 Here's Nelson surfing.  He said this would actually be a great thing to do for exercise.  A lot better than the gym.

 This was Caroline's first time on a flow rider.  Nelson and I had turns on a cruise once.  She did really great.

 I even got a couple of pictures with her smiling!

One lucky girl to get her dad to check her out for the day and then go play!

Afghanistan - Deployed

The baby brother in my family was deployed on Monday for Afghanistan.  We got together as adults for dinner before he left.  It was nice to be together and to wish him and Mary well.  

 This was taken from the Deseret News article of Chris and two of his kids, Terran and Serenity.

Thanks for making the sacrifice and serving our country Chris!  Godspeed and a safe return!

Life getting back to normal

Life as normal is an oxymoron.  Nothing about life is really normal is it?  It would be so boring if things were normal.  Well, sometimes boring is good.  So here's a little bit of normal...

 Yes this looks like baby food peas, huh?  It's not.  Katie is having a love affair with smoothies that have spinach in them.  This is actually super yummy, it just looks weird, promise.  Lucky us because she shares.

 This is Max.  This is his norm.  Yes, he is a live wire.  I am so grateful to have a calm dog, not one that chews things constantly, barks constantly, wants attention constantly.   Most of the time this is how you will see him, sleeping.   Except....

 ...when he hears the tell-tale sound of the mailbox shutting outside the front door.  It's like Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde.  He snarls, lunges at the door and does this to the rug.  I can always tell if the mail has arrived by the state of the rug.  I know, not really exciting but it's a daily occurrence I thought needed recording. 

 This is not normal.  This is what Timp looks like today.  I think it usually looks like this in July.  We had the driest December on record since like, I don't know, 1926 or something.  I am glad Sundance makes such great fake stuff  BUT I would like a lot more of the real stuff.  Bring it on.

 Katie decided she wanted to learn how to crochet so she did.  I think that's pretty cool.  She has been shown a few times at girl's camp or somewhere but has never made anything really.  She looked up some how to videos on youtube and got to work.  Somewhere along the road it got funny so she called a wonderful older lady in our neighborhood and asked if she would help her.  She was thrilled that a teenager wanted to learn how to crochet and helped her figure out where she had gone wrong.  She wore it to school the other day, so cute!

 It's another dance and this time girl's choice.  Katie asked a boy with a message written on a plate.   He had to eat the cake to read it.  Let me tell you, it just about killed me to have that cake on my counter all day until she delivered it.  How can a cake smell so good? 

This is not so normal.  David got shingles last week.  Poor kid!  It was very painful but luckily we figured it out quickly and got him some anti-viral medicine.  It is almost gone and was a very mild case from what I have heard it can be.  We are counting our blessings.

Not so normal....I have spent a good part of today getting caught up on my blog.  The semester ended yesterday and I think I am more excited about that than the kids.  The earth feels like it's spinning on its axis correctly again.  AND it's a 3-day weekend, couldn't get better.  

Since I like to date posts in the correct order just in case I ever get around to printing this in book form I will put all of the links here so you can find them.  They are kind of buried and mixed in with everything else...maybe my New Year's resolution needs to be keeping caught up on my blog.  Enjoy!!!

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2012/01/in-pool-again-just-cant-wait-to-be-in.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-years-eve.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/12/sundance-getaway.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/12/indoor-champs.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-day.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/12/katie-loves-choir.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/12/happy-birthday-david-14.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-begins.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/12/she-loves-me.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/11/seminary-centennial-starring-katie.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/11/thanksgiving-in-st-george.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/11/swim-team-dinner.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/10/strip-1000-2011.html

http://abbottshabits.blogspot.com/2011/10/random-cellphone-pictures.html

14 posts in one day!!  That's got to be a record.

In the pool again, just can't wait to be in the pool again

Katie's life has been totally dominated with school plays this year.  She loves the stage and actually gave up being the swim team captain to be in the plays.  As much as she loves the stage, she has missed the pool, too.  She had a rare afternoon with no rehearsal so she came to a swim meet to see all of her swimmer friends and cheer on the team.  Before the meet she went up to the coach and said something like "I don't see my name on any events!"  He laughed but she asked if she could swim that day.  He said he would love to have her swim but he couldn't put her in at that late moment (the meet was about to start) but that if she would fill out the required paperwork and let him know when, he would put her in sometime.  She was pretty excited!

 silly girls

 So, she did it.  Here she is at the beginning of the meet against Timpview.  She and Caroline got to swim on the same medley relay team. 

 A little blurry...it's hard to get good pictures from how far away I was.  Do you love that Katie's suit is last year's and doesn't match?  No biggie.

 Caroline swam backstroke at the start of the relay.

 Katie waiting on the blocks to swim the third leg of butterfly.

 After the race...again...getting a normal picture...sigh

 Then the big rival meet of the year came.  Katie texted the coach and asked if she could swim again.  He tried unsuccessfully to reach her and then it slipped his mind except that he had put her in the meet.  She thought she wasn't going to get to swim and was busy with her day.  Caroline called from the pool about 25 minutes before the start of the meet asking where she was and why wasn't she there?  She wasn't even home but scrambled and made it to the meet.

 Here's Caroline with her Battle for the Paddle sign and balloons.

 Wow, this place is decked with Tiger pride!

 Team cheer before the meet!

 Cute sisters swimming together again!

Caroline at the start of the medley relay, Katie cheering her on from behind the block.  You girls are awesome!