Competition #2: St. George

Last weekend my daughter and I headed down to sunny St. George for her 2nd dance competition of the year. It was 82 degrees and beautiful!

We had a great time!

The competition started with a master class taught by Brandon Bryant from "So You Think You Can Dance."

He taught them an upbeat, athletic routine that was very quick...it was a real challenge for most of the girls to keep up!

It was going to be hard to do better than they did at the last competition, because they did so well...

but they did it!! White diamonds (the highest rating) all around, and high point awards for both routines!

Way to go Turning Point Dance!

Great job!

Girl Party in Cedar City

Top Secret Information is about to be revealed! What are the elements of a successful girl cousin party??

First-no brothers.

Second-girl cousins.

Third-lots and lots of laughing (and running to the bathroom to avoid accidents).

Fourth-more laughing and silliness.

Fifth-staying up late and playing lots of girl games.

Thank you to our Cedar City cousins for the fun, fun time! Our daughter had so much fun and so did I! I spent a wonderful evening chatting with my sister and her husband. It was so great to catch up!

Double-tied at the Tracks

Our 4th-grader recently took part in a play put on by her and her classmates: "Double-tied at the Tracks."

It included all the elements of a blockbuster: a conniving villain with an evil plot,

valiant and noble good guys willing to defend the law and hunt down the bad guys,

an eventual confession of true love,

and a proposal with a promise of "happily ever after." It was well-performed and very entertaining! Our daughter told me afterward that had she known her character would be proposed to, she wouldn't have sought out that part. "That was so embarrassing, Mom! I had to hold his hand!" She played a beautiful "Sophie!" And we are so proud of her.

Family Night: Cleaning AR-15 Rifles

Recently we spent a fun family night down at the indoor range with some good friends.

Our task: to clean our AR-15 rifles so they are ready for the upcoming High Power season.

They younger kids spent the evening sorting match pins for our Shooting Coach. They were challenged to find a pin from each match over the last 30 years....yes, they were kept busy for hours!




The rest of us learned how to take apart, thoroughly clean, and reassemble
an AR-15.

Thankfully, we had the help of a National Guardsman highly trained in such an endeavor. (He can disassemble and reassemble one in less than 2 minutes-blindfolded!)

The rifle was carefully taken apart and each part carefully cleaned. They were pretty dirty so it took quite awhile!

We were grateful for the expertise of those who had done it many, many times.

We learned a lot and had a ton of fun!

And now our rifles are clean and ready to compete!!

The evening ended with the presentation of medals from a recent match. What a fun night!

Cousins!

We will always remember 2012 as the year that our St. George cousins....

became our Springville cousins!!!

We love them so much and we are just so excited that they are only ten minutes away!

Our daughter loves her younger cousin like a little sister. They are two peas in a pod...born six years apart.

Our boys are so excited to have Tan-Man here...he adds another dimension of fun to shooting every Tuesday and Thursday night at the Rifle Club! We just love him!

Dance Competition #1

With the arrival of March we entered the season of dance competitions.

The first one of the year was highlighted with a master class taught by Katherine McCormick from "So You Think You Can Dance."

It was fun for our daughter to learn a short routine from such a great dancer.

The first dance of the competition was a fun country dance with a swinging beat, but our daughter's favorite part is when she gets lifted.

After a quick run-through and a quick pep talk,

it was off to the stage!

Their second routine was a slow lyrical dance that is really pretty.

A quick pose for a group picture and then back to the stage.

Our dance company performed very well and took home a big haul of trophies. Congratulations on their hard work!

Down and Out

The last two weeks of February are a blur in my mind. We had a virus going around our family and somehow, I got it! I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise, but to me it was. It was a horrible waste of a perfectly good President's Day weekend.

But there's more: I was well just a few days when I got hit with another illness that knocked me down hard. A real doozie! I was so sick! There are a few days that I don't remember anything except laying on the couch. It may sound like I just want to whine about the misery I was in, but I have a different purpose. My husband, my children, neighbors, and good friends were so kind to me. Meals were brought, children chauffeured, teeth still got brushed, and laundry even was done. People really went out of their way to help and I am overwhelmed with the gratitude that I feel! Thank you! I am relieved to be enjoying good health again, but I'm glad that I can look back on that illness and remember all the love that I felt.

Lovely

Dance pictures were taken shortly after our daughter's birthday and was she excited!!

It was a chance to try out all her new hair accessories that she got for her birthday. It was a long 2 hours, but we had some fun mother/daughter chats over all the curling.

Isn't she just so cute?!

She's Ten!

Our daughter has now reached the ripe-old age of ten. She is growing up so quickly!

She could hardly wait until Dad got home from work so we could have her party.

She was especially excited to find that Grandma made her some beautiful knitted socks! She loves them and they are very warm!

As she approached the age of ten she told me that ten years old is old enough to do your own hair (hallelujah!) and she wanted hair stuff. She has had a lot of fun learning how to curl, crimp, etc. Mom still helps every once in awhile, but she is becoming hair independent.


Another perk of being ten: she is old enough to babysit her younger brothers for short periods of time....actually, I don't know that she considers that a perk, but I sure do! Yay for being ten years old!!!

Job Shadow Day

Several weeks ago our 7th grader got to go to work with his Dad for Job Shadow Day. They get to pick someone they know and then go to work with them...of course, he chose his Dad

I don't know that he chose his Dad because he is interested in his occupation, but the idea of spending the day with Dad and seeing what he does...and, of course, going out for lunch was just too much to resist!

He found that the marble and granite industry is very busy! They didn't go to lunch until almost 3 o'clock. And he found that Dad is on the phone...a lot. The picture I didn't get was the one of our 7th-grader crashed on the couch at 6:30 p.m. completely worn out! I think he's grateful for a few more years until he will be a real working man.