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!

Too much to fit in title...

I think soccer is David's favorite sport. He isn't even playing baseball this year because it conflicts with soccer. We have fun watching him race around the field and he plays goalie, too.
This represents years of practicing and performances. Way to go David!
He earned his 15 point solo and duet gold cups this year for piano festival.
His favorite thing to play lately is the Pink Panther.

We finally have a finished space in the basement! Our remodel started ...when was it..I can't remember now it's been so long. We finished half of the basement as a storage room and the other half as a big kid "playroom". We have foosball and darts down there and Caroline had a sleepover with a friend down there last weekend. She said it was the best place for a sleepover!

Dying Easter eggs

I'll take some ham with that cheese...

...there we go, that's better!

David earned his tenderfoot rank in the boy scouts on April 12, 2009. He is excited about scouts. Michael even came in full uniform to support his little brother - you rock, Michael!


Over Spring Break this year we went to Zion's National Park and St. George. All of us except Michael. You will notice he is not in any pictures. He stayed home and earned his lifegaurd certification. Now let's hope he can find a job.

It was cold ( that's snow you see in the air). But not as cold as they had it at home. Orem had 13 inches while we were gone. Michael said it took him a long time to make it up the hill to sleep over at Aunt Lisa's house. The next day he drove my 4WD and we have since bought new tires for the kid car.

Hey, look who joined the kids for a hike in the snow, it's Ted Kaczynski!

The hiking was beautiful even if it was cold. This is below the waterfall on the Emerald Pools hike. The water has frozen on the tree below the falls.

Sad faces because this is the Weeping Rock hike.

We went for a trail ride ,too. Katie wasn't too sure about this but after a little bit she decided it wasn't that bad. I think she was bucked off a horse once, maybe that was Michael, well anyway. The scenery was beautiful, what else is there to say?

We found some rocks to hike in St. George. The wind was so strong this day and Nelson said he has never been so nervous on top of a rock in his life. This is saying a lot from the guy who likes to pretend to fall into the Grand Canyon to scare me.

The desert was in bloom!

I now have 4 children who need glasses. Michael has contacts and does need them to drive and see in general. The others just need help seeing the board and movies, etc. I took the boys to the eye doctor and they both had their eyes dilated. When we got home they wanted to see what it looked like but of course you can't see very well with dilated eyes so I took a picture of them with Katie's normal pupils to compare how huge theirs were. kinda freaky huh?

Katie has been on the Junior High track team but this year she hasn't been because she was the student director of the 9th grade play at school and rehearsal conflicted with track. Well, now the play is over and even though there was only one week left in the season, she joined. They were grateful because none of the 9th grade girls on the team ran distance and she does. They also needed a 4th runner for the 4x100 relay. Go Katie!

Michael took Kara Oviatt to Junior Prom on Saturday. Do I really have a child old enough to be taking a girl to prom? I swear I went to Junior Prom , like, last month. They sure look great!

I will try to keep up with my posts a little better so we can avoid epics like this one.

ROAD TRIP!!!

We had to get away! Winter has decided to stay so we headed south for the weekend. It was General Conference so perfect time to sleep in, eat, watch Conference on TV, eat some more, swim, did I mention eat?, watch some more Conference and then eat some more. Conference was wonderful. We were definitely spiritually fed and...well... fed.
Dad, Kathy and Jeramy came over and brought dinner Sunday. Yay! No more frozen fish sticks, real food!

Here are the kids during conference. Have I mentioned we are having rubik's cube mania lately? Everyone has solved the cube except me. I told Nelson I need a large block of time to learn and when would that happen? Maybe this summer I could concentrate on that.

Caroline and Grandpa. These kids are getting too big!

The boys riding rip sticks outside.

The weather was so nice. Here are Katie and David at the pool.

We had a beautiful view from the balcony of the condo. It was just nice to get away, no phone calls, cleaning, laundry, jobs, homework, etc. Just lounging and being together...