Jr. All Star Photos

It's that time again for Pizazz group photos.  The boys left Friday afternoon for a campout so Courtney and I had a girls night.  We started by curling her hair then spraying the heck out of it to try and get the curls to stay.  We then got her into her lyrical costume and argued over whether or not she should wear a robe in the van so she didn't get it dirty...she wore a robe.  Then we went over to Washington to Nisson Park for the photos.

Courtney had individual photos taken first.  No one would volunteer to have their photo taken so I told Courtney to just get up there.  She did a regular pose and then an action show that was...of course...a toe touch.  Then we had to wait around while everyone else had individual shots.

 It didn't take as long as it usually does but it still seemed like forever until it was time for their group shot.  Yes, I did have a mini-breakdown when they had her sit on the grass in her white lyrical dress.  But it helped that she was as panicked as I was and so she was extremely careful!  There are only 6 girls on Jr. All Stars.

 We had taken a girl from our neighborhood who is an All Star so we had to wait around until her photos were finished.  Courtney asked me to take some photos of her with  my phone and this is what we ended up with...along with a lot more.

 Two other Jr. All Star girls waited around to watch the All Stars have their photos taken.  They all have so much fun together.  This has been a good experience.  Here are Courtney, Bella and Emily being girls.

Scrimmage

Courtney had her first scrimmage on Thursday.  It was a crazy day because Ethan had been to the orthodontist on Tuesday but a wire was poking his cheek.  I called and they weren't in their office by our house so they made him an appointment at the office clear across town.

Courtney had SEPs all week so they were out at 1:15 and Ethan was out at 2:00.  They did homework and then we left so we could get to his 3:20 ortho appointment across town.  After they snipped of the end of the wire that was bothering him, we rushed back home so Courtney could get into her soccer uniform and I could get her to piano by 4:00.  We picked her up and rushed to Little Valley for her 5:00 scrimmage but we couldn't find anyone.  I sent a text to her coach asking where they were and was told that the location had changed.  We rushed to the new locating, which was in Washington, and got there at 5:20.

Courtney, and a few other girls who had been at the wrong field, warmed up and then they were put in the game.  Courtney can't play in the regular games but she can play in the scrimmages for experience.  Their team was creamed (no one kept score) and the game went on until about 6:45 (which was really long) and it was cold but she had a good time.

Courtney is number 2:

Drama

The last trimester started after the President's Day holiday so Ethan is now in Drama.  He says he doesn't like it but he is pretty good at it.  He came home one day and told me about an activity they had to do.  They all had to make up a character.  They partnered up and had to interview their partner who was in character.  Ethan started doing his character for me and I cracked up.  I just had to video it and share it with everyone.

Here is Ethan Pack...

Courtney, of course, couldn't be left out of the action so here is her character...

I think they both are characters!

Snow

We had our annual snow storm but it wasn't as bad as the one last year.  We woke up Monday morning to this:

Ethan had me check online to see if school had been cancelled but it hadn't so he had to go. There was an email saying that if your student rode the bus and you lived near a hill that you would have to get your own child to school that day because the buses couldn't go up and down hills because of the snow.  We don't have a hill near us to get to school so I sent him.

None of the moms of his friends would let their sons ride their bikes to school so they all ended up carpooling.  Ethan wasn't happy about this.  He wanted to ride his bike in the snow but didn't want to go alone.

Courtney spent the morning playing outside in the cold stuff.  I remember when she was really little and she HATED snow.  She would yell "Get the white stuff off of me NOW!"  Oh how times have changed.

Ethan wasn't happy at all when I picked him up after school.  Apparently the hill on Pioneer counts as a hill the bus wouldn't go up or down so the kids in our neighborhood in middle and high school decided not to go to school.  The intermediate schools didn't take attendance either and the missed day won't count against anyone.  Ethan wasn't happy that I didn't let him stay home.  I told him that he would be "One day smarter than the other kids" but he wasn't buying it.

It melted pretty quickly.  I was glad because I hate driving in the stuff!  But it was pretty to see and the kids had fun playing in it.  Ethan and his friends had a huge snow ball fight and he was soaked when he came home from hanging out with them.

Baby Shower, Baby Lucy and Unveiling

Great-Grandpa Pack turned 95 in January.  John, Bob and Brent hired an artist, Jeff Hein, to paint a portrait of Great-Grandpa Pack.  The portrait was finished and on February 21st they were having the unveiling at the Hein Academy in Salt Lake City where Bob has been studying art.

We left home on Saturday  morning really early because Courtney and I were invited to a baby shower for Jessica that started at 10:30 a.m. in Pleasant Grove.  The weather was great and the roads were fine, so we made good time.  Bryan and I talked for long time and then switched drivers so he could work on the computer while I drove.

The baby shower was a lot of fun with good food and a lot of laughs.  Courtney and I went with Grandma Pack while the boys (Bryan, Ethan, Grandpa Pack and Andrew) went to BYU's art museum and saw an origami display.  They said it was really neat.

 We met up at the hotel after the baby shower (which actually was a baby snow because it started snowing during the party but it didn't snow very long).  Grandpa and Grandma needed to get to the art gallery so they took off and we went to David and Jenny's house to pick up some disks of photos that Grandma had forgotten there.  So we got to see Lucy!!  She is so tiny.  We got to hold her and it was fun to see the kids with her.

Here is the oldest grandchild holding the youngest...

 Courtney holding Lucy:

When we finished with our "baby fix" we took off for Salt Lake for the unveiling.  They were actually doing 2 unveiling ceremonies because there were family members who had different schedules but who wanted to see the portrait.  I was surprised of was how young the artist was when we met him.  I expected him to be quite a bit older.  He was very nice and a bit surprised to see all the people who had come to see his painting.

We all crowded in Bob's studio with Great-Grandpa Pack sitting front and center.  Bob gave an introduction and then pulled the cloth off the portrait and this is what we saw:

It was so silent while we all stood there looking at the painting.  Great-Grandpa Pack sat for 9 hours (3 hours at a time with only a few minutes for a break once-in-a-while) for the portrait.  They kept commenting that he was one of the best models because he was such a trooper.  I don't know what I expected but this was much better than I could have imagined.

When we had all finished ooh-ing and aah-ing over the painting, we went to Little America for dinner.  At 7 p.m. it was time to go back to the studio for the second unveiling.  Bob did his same introduction but this time when he took the cloth off the painting there was a collective hushed "WOW" from everyone and then silence.  I haven't ever heard awe like that before.  It was great to be a part of something to honor Great-Grandpa Pack.

We then went back to the hotel where Bryan took Courtney swimming and Ethan and I went to bed.

Sunday morning we went to Church in Andrew and Jessica's ward where we heard her parent's give their farewell talks before leaving on their mission.  We changed clothes, checked out of the hotel and were off for home.  They were predicting really bad weather and we wanted to beat it so we took off as soon as we could.  The roads were wet and snowy in just a few places but it wasn't too bad.  The slowest we had to go was 55, so that was good.  After we went through there was a huge storm that hit Cedar City and closed down some of the smaller roads.  I couldn't believe photos they showed online of the area we had been through just hours before.  We were very blessed to get through when we did so we didn't have to  mess with snow because I hate driving, or being a passenger in a car that is driving, through snow.

Here is more info on the artist, if anyone is interested: Jeff Hein

Fishing With Grandpa

Grandpa Oman wanted to take Ethan fishing and Courtney wanted to try too.  Leigh Ann was in town for Presidents Day and it was Valentine's Day.  We all went out to a little pond where they stock the fish and Grandpa got everyone going.  Ethan enjoys fishing and has fun catching and releasing the fish.

Ethan caught the first fish.  Courtney was playing across the pond with the net so we had to call her back so they could scoop the fish out of the water (I don't know why he can't just reel it in and then lift up the line with the fish on the end, but oh well).  She was pretty excited that he had caught a fish and kept trying to find fish to catch with the net.

Bryan and I left to go on a date and that's when Courtney caught her fish.  They had a great time!

 Grandpa is getting it ready:

 Courtney caught a fish too!

 Ethan caught a few fish.

Pizazz at Dixie State

Courtney had a dance performance during halftime of a Dixie State girls game.  I got her ready and we ran down to the game.  It was on a Wednesday so the boys were at Young Men's.  The girls did a great job!

Here are the Jr. All Stars (Courtney is on the back row, right side):

Here are the 3rd-5th grade girls (Courtney is on the right side):