Highlights

Courtney needed to get a haircut and she wanted to get highlights so we called our neighbor (who does hair) and made an appointment.  Courtney was so excited and it turned out really cute.  She just lightened Courtney's hair up a little bit so it looked really natural.

Channeling a radio station ;)


The end result




She was so happy!

Team Pictures

The basketball team had team pictures.  The girls got dressed up, posed in the large team picture, and then the photographer left before taking individual pictures or Freshman and Sophmore team pics.  So these are the only pictures we got of the girls because I wasn't going to pay $30 to a photographer that wouldn't hang around to take pics of all the girls at once.

But I think these are fun!

Turkey Trot

Courtney entered the Turkey Trot at Snow Canyon Middle School.  There were only 5 of the 9th grade girls who ran the race so Courtney had a really good chance of winning the turkey.  She had a good run but ended up getting 2nd so she didn't win a turkey, but she won a cool shirt!

   

I was at the start and finish to watch and help out.  Courtney started well but then after about the halfway point, she started to text me.  Who runs while texting?! ...Courtney does!  By the time she crossed the finish line she was watching a show on Disney+ on her phone!  Crazy girl.  That's why she didn't win!  But she looked great crossing the finish line.  I definitely don't look that good after running a 5K.



Here is the start of the race..

Here is the finish of the race...

Birthday Dinner

I wanted to post a pic of Bryan's birthday dinner because it was so yummy....kind of.  It was grilled chicken, wild rice, asparagus, and sauteed mushrooms (that's the part I wasn't too keen on).

80th birthday party

We had my dad's 80th birthday party and it was so fun to see everyone.  We had the party at the historic Relief Society building in Washington City.  We kept it simple with pictures of dad and candy corn as table decorations. We had balloons around the room and pictures and a slide show set up by the entrance.  We had a great turnout with people from the ward and a lot of family members.

   
Dad and his brother Eldon.  They are the two remaining siblings.

These are the cousins who came the party along with Dad and Eldon.  There is also a picture just of the cousins. 
  
Here is the cousin picture taken in birth order...I was last.



   
My cute parents
    

Sadie Hawkins

It was the day for Sadie Hawkins (it was also the day of my dad's 80th birthday party).  Ethan's cute date picked them up and they went to House of Jump to play around on the trampolines then went to lunch.  The group is a fun group of kids so they had a blast.

It's informal so Ethan wore his shorts along with the hoodie the girl gave him (that's the tradition around here for Sadie Hawkins, a hoodie).  They went to dinner and then to the dance.  The dance was in a parking garage (another tradition around here but one I think is really weird) and it was shut down early because the kids kept crowd surfing, which isn't very safe when it's dark and you are a couple stories up in an outdoor parking garage.  They went back to someone's house for dessert and then his date brought him home. 

   

   

Basketball tournament

There are only 4 sophomores so some of the freshmen have to play on the sophomore team and Courtney is one of them.  She now plays on the sophomore and freshmen teams.

To start off the season, they had a tournament over at Crimson Cliffs Middle School.  Only the sophomore team went so Courtney got out of school early and went to the game.

They lost and they look like they don't know what they are doing, but they will improve and they had a lot of fun playing.  They girl Courtney had to guard was a foot taller than she was!

   

She made the team!!

So, halfway through the soccer season, Courtney had the idea that she and her friends should try out for basketball.  It's really good for young athletes to play a variety of sports and not specialize.  Studies have found that it helps them develop better if they have a variety of muscle groups working.  So after soccer ended, they tried out for the basketball team.  The head coach works at SCMS so I asked him about tryouts.  He said that they would probably all make it because they need bodies for the freshman team (the 2 best freshmen players were already tapped to play JV).  I told him that none of them have played basketball before and he said he would take them because they are already conditioned to run and that's half the battle at the beginning of the season.

They had a day of tryouts and then the team was announced...they all made it!  So the soccer girls are now basketball girls.  We have a whole new sport to figure out.

Turning in Paperwork

For months Ethan had been close to finishing his Eagle.  He did most of the paperwork right after his Eagle Project but he put it aside and didn't look at it again.  Time was running out, so I pulled it out to check to see what more he needed to do to fill out the paperwork.  After inspecting it I realized he was done filling it out and just needed signatures.  So I encouraged (haha, ok so I kind of forced him) to get the signatures.  After a Stake meeting, the head man over scouts in our stake caught me and asked when he could meet with Ethan to get everything done.  I asked when he was available and he said to send Ethan back to the Stake Center that afternoon.  Ethan wasn't happy with me, but he got dressed and went to the Church.

   

They looked over all his paperwork and he only had 2 things to do: get another signature and a letter of recommendation...from his mom. ;)  Oops, guess I forgot to do that.

Senior Pictures

I wanted to make Senior Pictures as painless for Ethan as I possibly could.  We have a woman in our stake who does pictures really inexpensively but she does a good job.  She keeps it short and sweet, which was exactly what Ethan wanted.  He told me he would do whatever I wanted because "these pictures are for you mom."  Isn't he a sweet kid?!

We went to Snow Canyon and spent about 30 minutes hiking around to find the right place.  I only had 2 requests: a picture with a white shirt and tie, and a picture with Ethan's kindergarten picture.  Ethan only had 1 request/demand: no pants.  That one wasn't too hard because he doesn't own anything but church pants and he didn't want to wear those.

We both got what we wanted.

   

Creative cropping took the picture from this...

to this...
    



We had to watch for cars and Ethan kept having to move, but these pictures turned out great.
  







This is Ethan's "this is so awkward" picture...


 

I can't believe we have a Senior!!

21st Anniversary

Bryan bought me roses for our anniversary and we went to dinner.  The red roses are for the years we have been married and the white and pink roses represent Ethan and Courtney. It was a fun day!

The sign

I have a sign in my office that Courtney switches for me.  The front office ladies started playing Christmas music in mid-November and Courtney couldn't stand it so she made me a new sign...

It got a lot of laughs!

Evening in Excellence

It was our last Stake Evening in Excellence!  With the program changing, we didn't know if there was going to be something to take the place of Evening in Excellence or not, but we wanted to have a nice evening to celebrate the Young Women organization and the end of the Personal Progress program.  We have an amazing woman in one of the wards who can decorate and keep it simple but elegant.  She did a great job for us. 

We wanted to do a birthday party since it was the birthday of the Young Women organization.  We had the young women sit in tables according to their birth month and they got to know each other.  We had a game for them to play so they could find out things about the other girls in the stake who were born in the same month they were.  I did a slideshow and talked about the history of the Young Women program and then our high councilman spoke a little to the girls.

It was a fun evening and I think the girls had a good time.

End of Season Banquet for Soccer

We had the end of season banquet for soccer and it was a lot of fun.  The Seniors were in charge and they did a good job.  They had a lasagna dinner and then a program where the girls talked about how they loved the other girls.  The seniors gave candy leis to the girls. 

   

This is Courtney's "Mom, I can't believe you're taking my picture" face. ;)

These are the girls from our soccer team who were on the SCHS team.

This was a cute card Courtney was given from the seniors.  I was really impressed with this group of Senior girls.  They took extra special care of the Freshmen and, in return, the Freshmen just loved them.  They would make sure the girls had rides home and to team night and they really included them.  I really appreciated them!