Update--at long last

Here is a long awaited update.  I can't believe I haven't posted since last January. It is mostly my wonderful family reading this, so I feel bad about not updating you guys.  I really love reading about what is going on in your families.  I'll just do a quick overview of our happenings this last spring.

Kobe had a fabulous soccer season!  His team moved up to the premier division.  Kobe started playing midfield wing and really liked it.  He even got a few shots off, but sadly their goalies stopped them.  He completely surprised me by coming to me the evening before tryouts for the next year and told me he had decided he wanted to take a break from soccer and not go to tryouts.  Since he has been living and breathing soccer since he was 6 years old, I was totally caught off guard.  But, he is big enough to make his own decisions and he feels good about this.  So he is going to focus on cross country and track right now.

 ........Which brings me to my next set of pictures.  Kobe had an amazing spring track season with the Lehi Junior High team.  He ran the 800m and the 1600m (1 mile) races.  His fastest mile time was 5:20. 

 This is the boys distance team

 Sprinting for the finish

And then on to Alex.  He went to prom at the end of April.  There is nothing better than seeing your son all dressed up in a tux.  He still hasn't picked up his pictures (I hope they still have them at the school), but here are some I took of him before he left.  

 He wanted to go like this....

 But I made sure he went like this

And then Alex turned 17.  Wow!  He loves the Costco 4 layer chocolate cake, so I obliged.  He was so happy. 

 He actually ate this huge piece in one sitting.  If you've ever had this cake before you know to be properly impressed.  I will also add that the whole cake was devoured (mostly by Alex) in exactly 34 hours.  It didn't even last for 2 days!

Then Steve and I took a much needed trip to Hawaii (Mauii) to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.  We went with my cousin Vance and his wife Annie.  It was so much fun.  Neither of us had been there before and it was fun to experience something new together.  We spent a week with no kids and it was awesome.  Steve's parents were kind enough to come and stay at our house with the kids.  My favorite part?--I really loved snorkeling and seeing giant sea turtles.
 

 Now on to Brooklyn.  She has finished up a great year at dance.  She did most of the choreography for one of her dances.  They took this dance to the Releve' competition and won 1st place with Honors in their age category.  She was so proud.  The trophy was huge.  Since it will stay in the studio, I took a picture of her with it.  I am putting a video of her class performing her dance at the final concert at the end of this post.

And......Brooklyn is doing swim team this summer.  She is doing great.  She likes the breaststroke best.  I love this because that was my favorite as well.  She got 3rd place in the IM at her meet last Saturday.  

We also had a great time competing in the Bone and Back race.  Tia posted all the pictures on her blog, so click on her blog link to see those. We won the family division again this year.  It was a cold windy day-bad for the spectators and perfect for the runners.  Tia joined the team for the first time this year.  It is so fun to do a race with my family!  Alex and I each won $50 gift cards to the running store in Idaho Falls, so we got a little shopping spree in before we went home.

Now I am working on painting the inside of my house.  Everything except the kid bedrooms. It is a huge project and I'm excited to get it done.  I repainted all the trim last week.  While I wait for that to harden and cure I am going to refinish the railings in my kitchen and get all the windows and counter tops re-calked. When it's all finished I am making new curtains for the kitchen and living rooms.  Hows that for a summer adventure! 

Here's Brooklyn's video.  She is the short one in the front at the beginning of the dance.  She gave herself the first solo and worked in a solo for each girl in the group.  And since my video camera films in wide screen, you have to double click after you hit the play icon for full screen so the right side doesn't get cut off .......

catching up

Once again, life has sped past me and I have neglected to document.  My last post was about soccer, and we are leaving Thursday for a tournament in St George.  I don't want to bore you with 2 soccer posts in a row, so I decided I better come up with something to go in between.  (Yes, you will probably have to hear all about a tournament in a few weeks). 

We had a great Christmas break in spite of Steve and I being sick.  It was wonderful to have Tia home with us....even if we did get her sick just in time to go home.  We visited our favorite Lowe's Airsports, went ice skating, skied, and shoveled lots and lots of snow. This Christmas was the first time since Steve and I got married that we have been home at our house for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We usually spend Christmas Eve at the Mickelson's, but Steve's parents are still out on their mission.  We often go see my parents on Christmas day, but us parents were sick.  I had great plans to go see the lights at temple square and have dinner at the Lion House for Christmas Eve, but the weather was terrible and us parents were sick.  So we just stayed home.  And it was really nice.  I guess now that I have kids coming home to my house for Christmas we may need to rethink some traditions. 

And I will mention that I'm pretty sure I cried half of the way home after dropping Tia off at her apartment (good thing I was the only one in the car).  It was harder to send her back this time than it was to send her off last summer!!  She is such a joy to have at home.  We really miss her when she is gone.  This is a tough phase of parenting!

So here are some pictures.  This first one is funny mostly just to me.  Background:  Alex chose to get a tablet for Christmas (I got the same one).  I haven't seen him this excited for Christmas in years.  I'm pretty sure he didn't even sleep.  I came home from work on Christmas Eve morning to find charging cords sticking out of our wrapped tablets because Alex decided he definately couldn't wait for it to charge on Christmas morning before he could use it (and he kindly thought of my feelings on this matter also).  So I took a picture.