Concerts, Contests, and 1st Grade Reader's Tea

This week has been busy with all kinds of performances. Braden has a band concert, band competition (straight 1's), Tanner had a Choir performance, Elizabeth had a Choir Contest, and Abigail had a Reader's Tea. That wasn't all we had with field trips, baseball games, and Father's Son Campout. It was a busy week. It is wonderful to see all their hard work and see the performances at the end of the year. Luckily school is back and no more threat of closing the doors. There are too many fun things to miss out on at the end of the year. We are getting ready for summer around here.

Here is Braden after his band concert... He looks so nice in his tux. Abigail had a soccer game at the same time and we juggled the schedule and make it for both of them.


Tanner dancing and singing to "Transylvania Mania" and posing with friends after the concert. (Amazing only 11 more days until he is 15.)(Tanner is the second on the left.)

Abigail at her 1st Graden Reader's Tea, reading her book she wrote and published. "All About Abigail" Excellent story and fabulous illustrations. She said she had 1 sister and 4 brothers. Has green eyes and has a dog Toby. Toby got an entire page about him and how he flips when he is excited. That puppy is loved and loved around here! She did a great job reading for the parents.

256 is the Magic Number

Corbin has a favorite number and we are not sure why he loves it so much. Whenever he is describing anything BIG he says there are 256 of them. The other night he went to camp with his dad and he told his dad he has 256 friends at camp. I was told we are in a traffic jam and there are 256 cars on the road. 256 toys to pick up... that is too hard! I laugh at all the times life is compared to 256. That is an important number!
The picture isn't related but it is a cute picture of him. He is so darn cute!... trouble too but we love him anyway.

Swine Break

So all the stress and reaction to swine flu has hit our town. We know that one school in our district has had a "confirmed case" of swine flu (another city). Rumors have been said that the day care has closed because of another case of swine flu in our city and the siblings of that child go to the elementary my children go to. We don't know anyone with the flu and would like to keep it that way (any flu is bad news when it hits our house... everyone has to share and it never goes away!!!!) All our sports have been canceled but since it has rained for weeks now (it feels like it at least) I think the rain would have canceled all our games anyway. Life and quiet and much slower than usual for us in May.

Then surprise my children got a great benefit to this flu last Friday as they were leaving school. A note was passed out saying the entire district is closed for an entire week (they don't even have to make it up.) My brother in law named our extra week of vacation "Swine Break". I suppose we are suppose to avoid the mall and going out (we only went today but won't go again... the older boys really needed new clothes and grandma and I had a great time going out to lunch with them.) and the kids get an entire week of fun, playing with friends, and hanging out with cousins. Tanner still has seminary so he gets to sleep a little later but still has to be there are 7:00. He said 7 makes a big difference. Everyone participated today and was alert. LOL

We hope this week helps stop this flu around here and we would really like to see it gone. We can only take advantage of some time together and a few quiet days... it won't last. Now two weeks of school and sports events will all be fit into the last two weeks of the month. We will be BUSY when it is back to school.

Escape to Ecstasy

This post is a month past when it happened but since it was such a fabulous week I thought I would share a few highlights.

After a lot of preparations and organization (it is a lot of work to leave!), Daniel and I went away for a week to go on the Carnival Ecstasy Cruise ship. We had so much fun and enjoyed the time to relax and be together. Grandma stayed with the kids and made it possible to go. She had a busy week trying to keep up with their schedules but she was awesome and they enjoyed her here.


We enjoyed the shows and of course all the food. Daniel loved his ice cream.

We spent two of the days in port. Our first day was to Progresso Mexico and we went on an excursion to Uxmal a Mayan ruin. It was amazing to see the structures they built and to walk through them. It was extremely hot. The heat index was 105 degrees. We have been to many ruins on other trips and were happy to explore another one. The place was great because it wasn't very crowded and you got to climb one of the pyramids.

Our second day of excursions was to go snorkeling. We took a boat out and had a great guide that pointed out many fish and other sea creatures. We saw a huge king crab, sting rays, Morey eel and a huge variety of fish. Snorkeling is amazing to see the beautiful fish and world below the water.
I think one of our favorite things to was to sit at the back of the boat at night and watch the water behind the boat it was so soothing and relaxing. We also watched the sun set. It is incredible to see nothing but water all around the boat. It is so nice to have so much time to relax, read a book, and talk. We loved our time away and were excited to see the kids when we got back. We missed them but loved our brief escape!

Chase by the Lake

This past weekend was the annual Chase by the Lake. It is a race just for kids. They break the kids into age groups and run a 1/2 mile race ages 5-9 and 1 mile for the 10-11 year old kids. We had 4 racers this year. All the kids did great and it is a challenge to run but they all did it and felt great for being a part of it.

This was Corbin's first race. He was the most excited. He finally got to do it this year and get his own shirt! He had us all cheering. Nathan ran along the side lines during his race to encourage him. The last racer has a high school runner along side of them to make sure all the kids in that age group finish... as you can see Corbin ran right along with her. There was a little boy that came in behind him that was walking along the road with his dad so Corbin was 14th out of 15th. Just to watch him finish was emotional and exciting. He was one of the youngest racer there since he only turned 5 a month ago.
Nathan, Elizabeth and Abigail all ran last year and were excited to do it again. (Well Nathan decided once we got there to do it again.) They all did very well.
Every racer gets a ribbon at the end of the race and the top 5 racers get medals. Corbin loved his ribbon and showed it to everyone all day.
Your guys did a great job! Way to go. I am proud of you for being in the race and doing your best.

First Post- Finally blogging!

After reading many friends blogs and spending time contemplating having my own blog, I have finally got mine set up. We will see how often I get on, post and keep up now. I think it will be fun to post constant activities in our lives and to stay in touch with friends and family. Hopefully you will enjoy some our silly stories too!

To start off I had to post a picture of Abigail and her first lost tooth. What is more news worthy than losing a tooth! It wiggled for a long time but it finally came out.

Corbin turned 5 a few weeks ago. We had a great party at the park. They had water gun fights and an egg hunt. It was a fun day. The wind was really strong and blew all the presents away and the cupcakes went flying at one point but it didn't damper his fun. He is thrilled to be 5 and big now!
Tanner and Braden went camping for spring breakwith friends from the ward. I spend a couple of days up there but didn't have a camp site so they went without me. On Friday we all came up for the day, had dinner up there, and joined everyone (a big group of friends from the ward were all camping together) for dutch oven desserts around the fire. There were skits and singing. It was a blast. The youth had a great time hangout out together. Here is Tanner and Braden at the camp fire that night.

Nathan only out to the camp one day since he had spend the week with his cousins, Michelle and Cindy, Uncle Michael, Miriam, and Elizabeth out at Glenrose. They had a fun trip but he got back just in time to have one day out at the camp. His friends Michael and Connor came out with us too. The boys had a great time in the mud and clay. They had a fight in the mud and dug tunnels in the sand.

Abigail and Cassie are best of friends. They want to play everyday and loved being at camp together.

Elizabeth and Chloe decided to be very brave and go in the water. It was fun but a quick trip to get wet. It took awhile to warm up after their brief swim (run into the water, go underneaths and run immediately back out... this was repeated a couple times until there were sufficiently frozen!) As you can see there were no other "swimmers" in the water with them.

This post is about the last month and I am sure I can post many of the things going on in our lives. It will take me awhile to get the hang of this but it will be fun to share our stories! Be sure to share your links with me and help me get connected!