Idaho Dance Competition

Wow! multiple posts in one month.....

I had a solid week of being sick with a sinus infection and all the other symptoms you can think of. And then I had to pull myself out of bed and pack up for a weekend in Rexburg, Idaho to watch Tia compete in a ballroom competition. My mom and Aunt Marsha came with me.

Can I say, this was so much fun! I haven't ever watched a big competition like this before (it was a national competition). The dancing was fabulous (it almost made me think I could learn to like dancing, but not quite) and the dresses were amazing. There is nothing fancier than ballroom dance gowns.

This was Tia's first time competing as a couple in the Cabaret, so I needed to be there to watch her. We made her costume. She glued on nearly 700 crystals. I did the sewing and trim. It was an adventurous project, but well worth it. She was beautiful. Her partner is Brayden Roberts. They were both pretty nervous. But they came out with 4th place (whoo hoo!), and they only missed third place by less than a point.

Here's some video of their Cabaret and a video of Tia's favorite group dance. (She's on the front right when the dance starts. You'll have to follow her from there)
PS After you click play, double click the screen to get a full screen version--otherwise the right side gets cut off.

President's Cup Tournament

Last weekend Kobe's soccer team played a tournament in St George. I had such a personal dilemma over this. My grandpa's 90th birthday surprise party was also last weekend. But in the end I decided I needed to be there to cheer on my son. Luckily I will be in Idaho to cheer for Tia next weekend, so I'm hoping to visit grandpa then. Steve couldn't come (Announcement: for those of you who haven't heard--Steve has a new job!) so I teamed up with another mom who was going alone. We rode together and stayed at her aunt's condo in St George. This made the trip so much more fun! Her son Conner is one of Kobe's best friends. Unfortunately the team didn't make it past the quarter finals, but they got 2 wins and 2 ties. Single elimanation tournaments are tough. I was very proud of them. Kobe played awesome. He almost scored in one of the games, getting two shots off (not bad, since he plays left wing defender/mid).

Once the games were over, my friend showed us a really fun park where the boys could rock climb to their hearts' content. It reminded me of a small version of goblin valley. And, of course, we spent a few hours at the pool with some teammates.

This isn't the picture I wanted to add, but I can't seem to delete it. So guess it stays. Imagine a better one with Kobe's eyes open. This soccer complex even had a soccer themed playground by it, so I had to make Kobe pose on the giant soccer balls.

Yeah, he stole that one and went in for a shot!

Another run at goal--I hate it when the other team has a good goalie!

Are we ever too old?

A few weeks ago all my dreams came true. Well maybe not all of them, but a really big one.

You see, we have lived in this house almost 10 years. And in that time my piano has been the one and only piece of furniture occupying the front living room. It was a very lonely place...except at Christmas time when a very cool tree decorated with blue lights and snowman ornaments came to visit for a few weeks.

But now things are much better.
Because we are the proud owners of some new couches! We decided to get different couches for the TV room and move the old ones up to the front room. (the old ones are a wine colored leather and my piano has a cherry finish, so they match nicely) And it looks fabulous.

The best part was that couches come in very large boxes. And now we know that even teenagers can have a lot of fun playing in a box--for quite a few hours in fact. Especially when those boxes come with LOTS of bubble wrap and big pillow-sized bags filled with air.

Teenage boys

So we had spaghetti for dinner last night

And Alex and Kobe really love spaghetti

I just had to show you what Kobe considers a "serving" of spaghetti (Alex wasn't home last night, but he would have had an equal, if not bigger, "serving" to go with Kobe's)

Keep in mind that this is my bigger 11-inch dinner plate.....and that is not a thin layer of noodles...

This year I put in my first try at designing my own Christmas card. It was a little scary, but I think I pulled it off alright. Bree was kind enough to donate an afternoon and help us take a family picture. She did a fabulous job! So wonderful, in fact, that I cannot choose which one to blow up for my wall. Which do you like best?.....

I'm Back

I know, I know. It has been an embarrassing amount of time since my last post. So I'm here to let you know that we are alive and well. To be totally honest, life has been moving entirely too quickly!

I've been putting off writing because I have been overwhelmed with how much I need to catch up on. So I'm going to take the advice of my much wiser sister and just starting with now (and maybe a few past recollections).

We had a great summer. And then I took on the fall carnival at Lincoln Academy (where Brooklyn and Kobe go to school) Yep, I was in charge of the whole thing. Which is mainly why you didn't hear from me in August, September, or October. I will happily report that it was a huge success. We had higher attendance than ever before and made twice as much money as we needed to! I have to admit I was a little proud of myself.....

And then Brooklyn decided to try dance--which meant she had to quit gymnastics. (I just can't afford both, nor is there time) Yes, I was shocked too. I mean, this girl just got 4th place in the all-around at the state competition (and 3rd and 4th places on all the individual events)! But, she is my daughter, so obviously she is talented in more than one area.....(JUST KIDDING!) so I had to let her follow her heart. We found a dance studio we felt good about and jumped in. By the way, she is performing and the Festival of Trees on December 1. If you like to go to that event, this might be a good day to do it! I'll get some dance pictures to show off then.

I love the look on her face in this picture! I mean, here she is winning 4th in the all-around--which is very cool-- and she's mad that she didn't get to stand on the podium (as she did a few minutes before when she won 3rd on the beam).

Alex and Tia had a great cross country season. Alex would like everyone to know that he ran a 19:20 at the Cedar City meet. (He set a goal to go under 20 minutes this season) He might just beat grandpa pretty soon.

Tia is having a great time being a senior. She loves being on the ballroom dance team. And she is busy touring college campuses to see which one she wants to attend next year, and filling out scholarship stuff.

Kobe lives for soccer, as usual. He's playing indoor right now. Sorry-no pictures yet. But he scored 4 goals and got 3 assists in the last game. WOO HOO!

One more thing. Steve's grandma was going to turn 100 this December, but she died last week. She was a wonderful lady and we will miss her. The family was going to make a book of all her decendents as a birthday gift. Since I can't give the pages I made of my family to her I will post them here for everyone to enjoy. I'm rather proud of them, and the people in them.

Triathlon Triumph

How's that for a title!

Anyway, hopefully you've already read Bree's account because she is so much better at describing things.

I couldn't believe the perfect weather when I woke up. The sun was my good omen. This was going to be a great race.

Kobe came along to be my cheerleader and photographer. He did a great job with the pictures...and cheering.

The swim. I love this picture---it makes my shoulders look awesome! My goal was to keep up with Bree. I had 2 sluggish swimming sessions earlier in the week and I just wasn't sure how it would go. I came out 6 minutes and 20 seconds later. I did not get my goggles kicked off and thus didn't have a black eye coming out of the water. Yes, things were going quite well.

I felt great going into the bike and had an awesome first loop (even though Bree passed me right at the end). Then......the bike chain fell off. I have trained on this course several times a week for the past 2 months and I have NEVER had a chain come off. Even better, it was stuck between the rings. I lost at least 4 minutes getting it unstuck and back on. Then adrenaline took over. I was determined to catch back up to Bree and make up the lost time. I ended up doing the bike in 44 minutes. I saw Bree leaving transition just as I was going in.

I quickly changed my shoes and headed out on the run. I was worried that I might have pushed too hard on the bike and my Asthma would cause me problems on the run. BUT I felt GREAT. I showed that nasty hill how it is done! (thanks to my Dad's perfectly timed encouragement. He knows just where to stand along the steepest part) And I ran a personal best for a 5K. I've never broken through 26 minutes, and I did it in 25:22. Woo Hoo!

The funny part was that as I was about 1/4 mile into the run I looked down and noticed blood running down my left hand. Apparently I cut it up pretty good when fixing my chain. I did the second loop on the bike and changed my shoes in transition without even noticing. Here's a picture taken after the first aide people helped me out after the race. The bandaids are covering the heavy bleeders.

I beat my time from 2 years ago by only one minute, but the bike was longer and I lost a chain. So overall I feel pretty good about that. I think I will probably be talking Bree into joining me again sometime.....

I'll end with a little mommy bragging. Later that afternoon I watched Brooklyn's gymnastics meet. She won the all-around with a score of 37.4, and got gold on the beam, vault and floor! She got silver on the bars. She is so proud. She hung that gold medal on her bedroom door.

prom and other recent happenings

So, I was able to give myself a few days to recover from the half marathon......and then I had to jump into finishing up the school 5K. I was a co-race organizer again this year. I think we did our best job yet. I was happy to have my kids running, my dad, and Bree and Abby. As Bree told you in her blog, Abby was awesome and won the overall girls in the 1 mile division. Dad won his division, and Alex, Kobe, and Brooklyn all won their divisions. Brooklyn was thrilled to get to run with Bree! Kobe has now met his lifelong goal of beating Grandpa Griffiths in a race. (You can refer to Bree's blog for a great shot of them at the finish). Here are a few more pictures from the race that Tia took for me. Tia didn't run this year, but she was a wonderful help to me. We were out there at 5:00am setting up the courses, and she helped out on the course during the race and took pictures for me. I hope everyone had fun. Of course, it is the best race around!

THEN....Tia turned 17. Wow!! Her junior year is nearly over. AP tests have been accomplished, and the last of the many big end of the year papers and projects and posters, etc are getting turned in this week. She got her certification to teach swimming lessons this summer and she is looking forward to that. She wants everyone to know that she grew 1 1/2 inches this year. She is now 4 feet 10 inches tall. Woo Hoo!

We also had prom happening the day after her birthday. I say WE because I was the dress creater for this event. I'm pretty proud of myself on this one! We just couldn't find very many stores that carried her size, and even fewer stores that had modest selections in her size. I even had a hard time finding a pattern with sleaves. I ended up combining 3 different patterns. Tia was the fashion designer. I only had two weeks to pull this off. Lots of late nights. Four hours to glue on all those crystals around the neck line!! So now I'll give pictures of our first Tia/Shamae original....

Bree was kind enough to make another hair design house call. Tia loved Bree's latest hair creation.

And tomorrow is the Women of Steel Triathlon. Give a cheer for Bree and I. We'll be hitting the water at 8am!! I'll try to get a post in on how it went soon.....