Addiction

October 25, 2014

I have a CONFESSION to make….I am addicted to free fonts!  It started about 6 years ago when I began making digital scrapbooks.  It started very innocently at first.  I just needed the scrapbook page to look just right.  But they are all so pretty and I could imagine each one on a page in the scrapbooks I made for my kids.  Now, I have almost 900 fonts on my computer.  Who needs that many fonts on their computer?! 

But I’m now prepared if I ever need a font for Disneyland, Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day, July, July, July, Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, Father’s Day, baseball season, Primary, or anything else in between.  I’ve got it all covered!

Orchestra Concert

October 23, 2014

Courtney has been attending early morning orchestra since the end of August.  She has always wanted to play the violin and was very excited to finally be old enough for the program.  Lava Ridge Intermediate (where Ethan goes) has a 7 a.m., five days a week, early morning orchestra program that is free.  They offer it to 4th and 5th grade students of the local elementary schools who are "cone sites" to Lava Ridge (meaning they will filter into Lava Ridge from the elementary.  Our schools are "Snow Cone" schools because we filter into Snow Canyon.  Weird, I know.)  Students need their own instrument and books but the teacher is the orchestra teacher from Lava Ridge.  This is her first year at our school and she is amazing.

Last night was their first orchestra concert and she combined the early morning orchestra concert with the regular Lava Ridge student orchestra concert.  It wasn't too long.  The early morning kids play first, then the Lava Ridge kids played and then they did a finale combined together.

They really exceeded my expectations and I was very impressed with how well they sounded.  The first song is the G Major scale but the other songs are great, especially "Twinkle, Twinkle."  Take a minute to listen to how they sound.

Courtney is on the 2nd to the last row to the left of the Exit sign.  Her hair is down and she is kind of hiding behind her music stand.  Hopefully you can find her.

G Major Scale:

Oh, Gee Down:

Folk Song Melody:

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star:

Scotland's Burning:

Song of the Wind:

Lightly Row:

Boogie with y'r Bow;

Bile 'em Cabbage Down (the finale with the older students also):

Crafts

October 19, 2014

The kids were bored so we made fake stained glass windows. It was a lot of fun!!

Blog Book

October 20, 2014

In case you are wondering why I am putting date in my posts now, it's because I printed my blog book the other day and I couldn't remember some of the dates and I didn't post them on the date they happened.  So now I am going to try (haha) to remember to write the date it happened at the top of the post so I can make the book more accurate.  I count this as my family history work because I am keeping my family's history as I blog and get it printed out.

Just for information (and my future reference), I use Book Blurb to get my book printed.  They have a program called Book Smart that will "slurp" up all the entries you want included in you book and then you have to move things around so it looks how you want it to.  But it is very easy to use and you can consolidate and make the book as small as you want.  I find it is really easy to use but it can get a bit pricier than other places I have found.  But I think the extra price is worth it because....

You can go through www.sharedbook.com and it is really easy to use.  You log into a free account and tell it what dates you want included from your blog.  It will then bring all those entries in, fill in the pages with your text and photos, and in about 15 minutes your book is ready.  The drawback is that you can't edit it very much.  My book ended up being huge because I couldn't move things around and so I didn't like it.  I played with it for a few days but couldn't really get things looking how I wanted and it was a pain.  So I gave it up.

You could go through www.lulu.com and make your book but it becomes a huge process.  It doesn't use an online program.  Rather, you have to use Word and a template you download from their site to make a pdf file that you then upload to lulu.  The nice thing is that your book looks exactly like you want it to with text changes, etc.  But it is a pain because you have to be really good at using Word, styles and then they add all kinds of pages at the beginning (dedication, etc.) that can be deleted but then throw everything off.  I played with it for about 4 hours and it was a pain.  You have to cut and paste each entry individually and then bring in the pictures, resize them and then make sure each entry has the correct style attached to it.  It seemed like it would take way too much time.  But if you started doing it at the beginning of your blogging then it wouldn't be too bad but I just didn't want to mess with it.

So I am sticking with Book Blurb for now.  I just had our family 2012 book printed and I am working on 2013.  Yes, I am a bit behind on printing them but at least I am working on them.  I was inspired when my cousin, Kristina, asked me questions about how to use Book Blurb.  So I have her to thank!!

Wedding Carnival

October 17, 2014

Our neighbor's son, McKaye, was getting married on Saturday.  Instead of doing a family luncheon where people don't really get to to mingle and know each other very well, they decided to have a carnival the night before the wedding.  I thought that was a great idea.  She asked me for ideas on who in the neighborhood would have different items and I gave her suggestions.  We were invited to the reception but didn't hear any more about the carnival.

Tuesday at carpool her son asked if we were going.  I told him that I thought it was for family since it was taking the place of the family dinner.  He told me no and that I needed to talk to his mom.  The next day his mom called to make sure we knew we were invited.  So we went!

They had carnival games, prizes, a kissing booth (guess the amount of Hershey's kisses in a container), popcorn, "Worlds Best Corndogs", lemonade, cotton candy, snow cones, bounce house and dinner.  It was great!  Bryan was only 4 off on the kissing booth but someone else was closer so he didn't win.  But the kids got to play games.  We can now say we have eaten the worlds best corndogs.  And we had a fun time with some other neighbors who were there.

My kids have decided they now want to have carnivals the night before they get married instead of the wedding luncheon.  We'll have to wait and see how that goes over with their future spouses.

Another neighbor, who has a cotton candy machine, was there to make the cotton candy for everyone.  Courtney loves the people and is over at their house all the time.  Can you tell they love her too?  Check out the size of the cotton candy they gave her!

The ok thing about cotton candy (that I found out) is that it take 1 cup of sugar to make 15-20 cotton candy things.  So there really isn't as much sugar in them as you think.  That's only about 3 teaspoons per cotton candy.  So compared to a sucker it's actually less sugar.  Except Courtney got a huge one so it's probably not that impressive.

Go Giants!

October 16, 2014

Bryan is a huge San Francisco Giants fan.  He was listening to the game on his phone and watching the app that tells him what is going on.  The app on his phone is about 20 seconds ahead of the radio feed.  He usually knows what is going on before he hears it because of the lag.

Thursday night he suddenly jumped up and began running around.  Then he stopped, unplugged his ear phones and as still as a statue.  All he knew what that a run had scored but he didn't know what had happened.  We then heard the play and it was a home run!

The Giants are in the play offs and Bryan is one happy guy!

This was the best photo I could get of him because he was dancing around too much.  Go Giants!!!

Temple Week

October 16, 2014

Leigh Ann was in town to do Gary's temple work.  Ethan did the baptism for Gary and for some other family names she had brought. So Ethan got ready and we went to the Temple.  Mom and Courtney stayed outside while Dad, Leigh Ann, Ethan and I went in so he could do the baptisms.  When we got in the Temple it was packed.  A lot of youth were there for Fall Break to do baptisms and they told us it would be about 1 1/2 hours before Ethan would be baptized.  I didn't want to wait inside that entire time so I went out and found Courtney and Mom.  We watched a movie in the Visitors Center and then walked around.

After about 45 minutes Leigh Ann came running in telling us that we had to go in immediately and that we now had to have our write clothes to be able to watch the baptism.  I knew that wasn't correct so we just went back into the Temple to see where Ethan was.  We were given white socks to wear and taken into the baptistery to wait.  He was a bit nervous because he wasn't sure if they would have the names and how they would know the names were for him.  I told him just to ask them when he got in the font but he didn't have to.  They just asked his last name and if he had brought family names. When he told them his name and that he had brought names, they found them on their table and things were good.

It was another 45 minutes before it was his turn to be baptized (so we could have stayed out a while longer) but he was able to do Gary's name and 4 other family names.  Ethan changed into a dry jumpsuit and was confirmed for the names.  Then he got changed and we left. Courtney was happy to see us because it had taken quite a while.

October 17, 2014

Leigh Ann had some more names she wanted Ethan to be baptized for so we were at the Temple again on Friday morning.  Ethan needed some incentive so they offered to buy breakfast.  This time it wasn't so crowded and only took about an hour.  Ethan was confirmed for some temple names while we waited his turn in the baptistery.  Then he was baptized for 5 family names, changed into another jumpsuit, was confirmed for those names, and then he changed into his regular clothes.

I am very grateful to have a worthy son who is willing to go to the Temple and do baptisms.  He was a pro the second time around.

October 18, 2014

After setting up a bit for the funeral, I ran home, grabbed Bryan and we were off to the Temple for Leigh Ann's sealing to Gary.  When we got there and showed them our recommends I noticed Bryan's name on a slip of paper on the counter.  I asked Bryan "Why is your name here" and the Temple workers jumped into action.  One lady grabbed his arm in a death grip and told him to "come with me."  Apparently we were supposed to be there a lot earlier because Bryan was a witness but all he had to do was sign a piece of paper.

The ladies were acting like Bryan was doing something big in the sealing so I finally said, "Why do you need him?  He isn't a proxy just the witness."  One woman looked like she was going to drag him off but another one said that yes, he was a witness and that we needed to get dressed then meet in the Chapel to the right of the men's dressing room area.

After we were dressed we went to the Chapel to wait.  We still had 5 minutes to spare.  A worker came in and called our name so Bryan could sign the certificate and then we were told to wait some more.  When it was time, they took us up through the Celestial Room to a small sealing room.  The sealing was nice with Dad as a proxy for Gary.  The sealer did a great job and was a really nice man.

We changed clothes, took some photos and were off to the funeral.

Congratulations to Leigh Ann!!