Middle School Awards for Megan

Wednesday was Megan's last day of school, well Monday they had an awards assembly. The parents of students getting an award got a letter telling us they were getting an award, but to keep it secret from the students. I went not knowing what award or how many she was getting. She got not one, not two, but THREE awards. She did a great job this school year. Her first award was for Perfect Attendance. There were only 10 6th graders to get this award. I know what you are thinking, and no I didn't make her go when she was sick, she was just not sick this year.

The second award was a Certificate of Excellence for having a GPA of 3.5-3.99. She did so great with her classes I could not be prouder of her especially since one was 8th grade math and she was in 6th grade. She must take after her Dad.

Her last award was an Outstanding Student award in Science. She was getting an A+, but it moved to just an A. ;o). These are lousy pictures, but you get the idea. This is the picture of for her GPA award. It's the only picture that worked.

She had a great 6th grade and is so excited to finally have a long summer break since we have always been in a year round school. I give her 2 weeks to be bored. Courtney will be joining her in Middle School in the Fall and she isn't sure about that. Now Courtney can be called "Gerbil" and Megan will be called "Sevey". Some nicknames they give 6 and 7th graders.

Antoher trip to the Emergency Room

About 2 1/2 weeks ago Tyler fell off a garden scooter onto the cement and had a big bump on the back of his head so I took him to the emergency room. He was fine. Well Friday night at 10:45 when kids are supposed to be sleeping Sydney starts screaming. I went to her and blood was all over her month. I sent her right to Ron because I couldn't look at it. He cleaned her up and discovered that her 2 top front teeth had not come out, but fallen down. I didn't get a picture with my camera, just my cell phone, but I don't know how to get pictures off of it. We called her dentist twice and he never called back, so we called a different dentist with the same outcome. We ended up having to take her to the emergency room at midnight. The dentist there pushed them back up and gave her some pain medicine. The only problem was when he pushed them back up he also pushed them back so when when she bites her front teeth are the first to hit, so she is changing her bite. This all happened because her and Tyler stacked couch cushions on top of each other and she fell and hit her wood bed frame. She did leave teeth marks as a reminder. This is a picture of her gums. They look so painful. Sorry about the lousy picture quality. There is something wrong with my camera.

I took her to the dentist and he wants to pull them. We are going to wait a week to see if she will start biting normally again. I sure hope so because I don't want her to not have her two top teeth missing for over a year.

Moral of the story is "No more monkeys jumping on the bed" or couch cushions!!!!

First piano recital

Courtney has just been taking piano lessons for 1 month. My friend Darcie that is teaching her always takes the summer off, but I wanted her to at least know some basic fact about piano before summer so during summer she can practice. We only have a keyboard, so it's a little different, but she still gets the idea. Well she had her first recital and did a fabulous job.

This is just a picture of her getting her Certificate. Great job Courtney and yes maybe soon we will finally get a piano. Does anyone know where we can get a really cheap one?

Courtney's Science Fair project

5th graders are required to participate in the Science Fair. Courtney choose to see if flowers will stay alive longer in ice cold water or boiling water. The outcome was that the boiling water cooked the stems and turned the water yellow and died faster. The ice cold water made the flowers last long. We should have had a controlled sample as well were it was just regular tap water. Anyways we are glad this project is over and I don't think there are anymore big projects left. Only 3 1/2 more weeks for her and then school will be over. Yeah!

Memorial Day Weekend, Silver City, Idaho

My parents came up here to visit us for Memorial Day weekend. We had such a great time. They got here Friday, and after eating dinner Ron and I along with my parents went and saw Star Trek. I'm not a Star Trek fan, but I really enjoyed the movie. We took the Jeep to the movie theatres. My parents had never ridden in a Jeep and to have no top on they weren't sure what to expect. It was the funniest thing seeing my mom try to get out of the Jeep because it has no running boards and it is lifted. We had a great laugh over that. The next day Ron, my dad and a friend Ray went shooting. They had a great time. They got back and relaxed for a little bit then took all the kids up to Idaho City to go panning for gold. It was great for my mom and I because they were gone for several hours. They had a great time. Sunday we decided to go on a family outing instead of church. I don't condone this, but my parents only come up about once a year. We decided to go to Silver City. We knew nothing about it, but we googled it and it sounded interesting. It is about 90 miles away and for the last 20 it is through the mountains on a windy halfway dirt road.

There was this one part of the road that had snow on both sides. It looked really cool.

There are only 2 places that are open. One is Pat's What-Not Shop and the other is the Hotel.Silver City is only 2 streets about a block long. There are so many old buildings and they all had outhouses. I am so thankful that I have a flushing toilet and water. There were 2 outhouses that looked like they were 2 stories tall. I don't know how that would work and apparently you can see some of them with by appointment.

I think this is the deluxe model.

This is the church they have on the hill.

There was a little peek hole you could look inside of. View inside the peek hole.

The view of Silver City from the church.

Some other shots of Silver City.

It's hard going to a place that you know nothing about, but we were all glad we visited it. At one time Silver City had a population of almost 5000 people. I can't imagine that many people living there since it's so small.

On the way home we stopped at Given's Hot Springs and had our picnic we brought with us. When my parents come my dad always pays the kids for doing different things. He paid the winner of running at Given's. We had to have several races so that everyone got a chance to win.Yes, Ron did loose this race to Courtney.They raced again so that Ron could beat her, and he did.

Tyler beat Sydney so they had another race and Megan and Tyler skipped the whole time. Sydney did end up winning. Ok I will admit that I raced as well with Sydney and Tyler. I didn't win but I blame it all on my flip flops and lack of a supporting bra ;o).

Pay up Grandpa.

We had a great time with my parents here and we got to see new sites. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming and visiting us. We can't wait until next time!!!

Sydney's Pre-school graduation

Yeah, my baby will be going to Kindergarten. I am not one of those mother's that will be sad to see her baby go off to school. I am so excited for her. She kept saying that Pre-school was boring. That is just Sydney for you though. Miss Susan to the kids, even though she is a Mrs, was a fabulous teacher. She taught all 4 of our kids for 2 years each. I think the reason I'm so excited about Sydney being done with Kindergarten is that I won't have to drive her so far away. It took me about 17 min. to get there every other Mon, Wed, Fri. I did carpool so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Here is the silly girl. I just love the hats that they got!

This one has a great picture of all the kids that were in her class.

The kids singing us there graduation song. They did such a fabulous job!

Even though Sydney said Pre-school was boring she really loved Miss Susan. Great job Sydney, only 2 1/2 months before Kindergarten starts. She is so excited!

Sydney's new eye wear

So my baby girl had to get glasses. I took her to her Kindergarten registration and she completely failed the eye exam. Good thing I had an eye dr. appointment already scheduled for 2 days later. She definitely need glasses. She looks so cute in them. She doesn't always wear them like she should because she says she can see better without them until I have her try to read something across the room without them then she realizes she needs them.

She has been so responsible with them. She is so grown up now.

Women's Conference April 30-May 1

So I grew up about 20 min. from BYU and never even knew some of the amazing programs that went on there. For example Women's Conference. I had not really ever heard of Women's Conference until this year. My Mom is the secretary for Sandra Rogers, the lady that is charge of putting Women's Conference on. Back in December, I think, my mom asked me if I wanted to go and thought to myself "I don't really know what Women's Conference is, but it is a great excuse to get away with no kids for a few days "so I told her sure. When the time was closer she told me I should invite some ladies from my ward to come down and stay at her house. There were 4 ladies that took me up on the offer. Mary Howell, Ashley Jones, Lynn Biggs, Michelle Miller and I all drove down to Utah together. Michelle stayed with her SIL while the other ladies stayed at my parents house. We had such a great time driving down together and back. What a special group of women they were.
The closing prayer for the first days closing session was given by my mom. Here is a picture of her getting the podium adjusted for her height, or lack of it. Just kidding Mom! You gave a wonderful prayer!I forgot to mention that since my mom was on the committee that put on Women's conference she was able to get one floor pass ticket for all 4 sessions. There were about 6 rows on the floor and I tried to sit on the second row, but they kicked me out and asked me to go to the back section. I did as they asked and then someone else asked me to move to the front row. Who am I to say no? I moved to the front row very middle. I had that same spot for all four sessions. I must have found my perfect spot because after that no one tried to kick me out. I felt so honored to be that close especially since there were over 16,000 people there. Wow! This is a picture of the people behind me. I didn't want to stand up and brag about where I was sitting so I turned my camera around and took this picture:All the classes where so amazing, but the part for me that was the most amazing was being so close to such wonderfully spiritual people. The second day morning session Julie Beck was the speaker. I was sitting in my usually spot when her family and friends started piling in around me. I was sitting right in the middle of her family. I kept telling them that I could move and they would say "Don't you dare". They were so kind! Julie had such a wonderful message and such a wonderful spirit.

I think I was too close because my camera wasn't working very well.

So for Women's conference they have a general session were everyone meets in the Marriott Center then we have 3 classes we can choose then a closing general session. After Friday mornings general session Mary and I tried to get into a class, but it filled up, so we wandered around the book store and bought Mint Brownies. Apparently that is what you do at Women's conference and after buying some and trying them I can see why. For the second class my Mom, my sister Stacey and I went to a class about Depression. We didn't really need that class, but it was taught by a good family friend named Karen Salisbury. She used to be our next door neighbor until both families moved away. We are still great friends though. She did such a fabulous job. I think my mom still owes her though because my mom is the one that nominated Karen to talk. Good call Mom! After class we brought Stacey home and I got to see here cute 2 year old daughter and there new house they just bought. When my mom an I got back to BYU it was during the last class and once the class starts you can't leave or enter, so we went to the hospitality room that is for the committee and important people. When we got to the room there were only 3 women there. My mom chose to sit by the one that was by herself. It just happened to have been Julie Beck, the General Relief Society President. We didn't talk because she was listening to one of her counselors give a talk. During the talk the BYU President came in and stood right next to me. So my mom and I were sandwiched between the BYU President and Julie Beck. Not back company if you ask me. Oh and they had mint brownies that we ate.

Fridays closing session we were so honored to hear from Elder L. Tom Perry who was accompanied by his wife and Elder Russel M. Nelson. Elder Perry was so much fun to watch. When he took his seat he wanted to see all the women so he had to block the bright lights.

I was so honored and humbled to be able to sit that close to them. They are such wonderful men and the have such a wonderful message and spirit.

This last picture is for my mom. I wanted to have her in a picture with the apostles.

During the last song we sang The Lord is My Light. During the song the women behind me started standing up. We then all stood up except those on the podium. Elder L. Tom Perry looked back and then they all stood up as well. Everyone started crying from being so filled with the spirit. I couldn't even sing. It was such a wonderful experience. I was so grateful to be a part of it.

Mom, thank you so much for inviting me and giving up your seat in the totally full class so that I could get it. It was worth the long drive and the lack of sleep. Thanks for opening up your beautiful home for my friends. We all can't wait for next year!

Dance Festival

Our area had a multi-stake dance festival at the Taco Bell Arena in Boise on April 25. Our kids weren't old enough to be a part of it, but I was there all day with the youth as a chaperone. After a long day of practice and dress rehearsal they all did a fabulous job. Our stake did a line dance and some sort of square dance I think, I don't remember, but here are some pictures of it.

These next two pictures show all the kids from the 6 different stakes. There were so many kids there. They all did such a fabulous job. Megan and Courtney both came to watch and can't wait to do it again in 4 years.