1 February 2015 - Twin Falls Swim Meet

Ok, so this week's update is pretty lame as far as pictures go.  My cell phone had to go to the hospital to get its charging port repaired, so I was using an old back up cell phone.  The girls had a swim meet in Twin Falls, and this is the only picture I got that was even close to decent.  Jessica is swimming freestyle in lane 1 here.

The pool is actually an outdoor pool that they put a bubble over during the winter.  It's better than nothing, but not great.  The girls didn't have their greatest meet, largely because of the setup, but we did still have a few best times.  Jessica got disqualified in the backstroke, which would have been a new best time.  She's still not sure why she got disqualified.  At any rate, that was our big event for this week.

25 January 2015 - Skiing, Supper, Sewing

Since it was Martin Luther King Day, Phil and Dianne were able to stay with us until Monday.  We went skiing, then went out for empanadas for lunch.  Epic day.

For part of her Faith in God work, Madeline wanted to make a nice dinner for her mom.  I took her to the store and we bought food, then came home and made filet mignon, barbecued ribs, mashed potatoes and salad.  It was way good.

An up-close view of the bounty (complete with real candles and fresh flowers).

Joanne has been going to sewing school with her new machine.  Every week she comes home all excited to try new things.  Here is an embroidered heart she did this week.

18 January 2015 - Jessica's Play

This week Jessica was in a play at school.  The play was called Popularity.  It was about a group of girls who take great pains to identify and date the most popular boys in school.  It is set in the 1950s and used many songs from that era.  Jessica was a cheerleader (not a natural fit for her, but she did a fine job).

Here's Jessica at the prom at the end of play.

Jessica doing a swing dance.

All of the cast gathering for a photo op after the play.

Phil and Dianne came up for Jessica's play and stayed the weekend with us.  Madeline has been learning chess as part of a gifted program at school this week, and she took Phil on a few times over the weekend.

11 January 2015 - Finishing Emily's Room

As we all headed back to school this week, we also finished up the sprucing up of Emily's room.  Joanne did all of the woodwork on this valance over Emily's window.

She also did all of these custom shelves, complete with Mod Podged details.

In her spare time, Joanne returned to quilting.  The wife of the Young Men's president in our ward is having a baby boy, and this is for him.

4 January 2015 - Happy New Year!

We used some of our break time between Christmas and New Years to continue home remodeling projects.  Emily's room has turned pink.  This photo was taken while the project was still underway. I'll post some additional photos soon showing some additional work Joanne and the girls have been doing.

I worked on the kids' bathroom -- new light fixture, crown molding, and...

...new ceramic tile floor.  (There's a new toilet too, but I didn't think that was very exciting.)

It wasn't all work though.  For New Years we went skiing in Oregon.  It was *frigid* and the road to the resort was very treacherous, but the snow was dry and light and very fun to ski on.

On Sunday, we celebrated Lara's birthday.  Shaylee made this excellent chocolate cake.

Happy New Year to you all, may it be a blessed one.

28 December 2014 - Christmas Week

As we did last year, we spent Christmas Eve with Eric and Kathy.  Joanne had found this Star Wars Mr. Potato Head for her cousin Emily.  Emily's a big Star Wars fan, so it went over well.

Santa did come to our house on Christmas.

The girls slept until after 8 am Christmas morning.  I guess we're past the age where our kids can't contain their excitement and wake us up at 5 am.  They were plenty happy when we did finally wake up.

Jessica got the weirdest thing ever -- a Snoopy hot dog toaster.  She was very excited about it.  And we've been eating more hot dogs lately.  In the background, Madeline is showing off her new digibird, Sammie.

Joanne got a star quilt from her sister.

She also got a very fancy new computerized sewing machine.

By Christmas afternoon, the new sewing machine was already in action.

Joanne's mom and stepdad came on Christmas night to stay with us for the weekend.  We had a very nice Christmas snowstorm that had started on Christmas Eve, and left ten inches of fresh powder at Bogus Basin.  This is the snow packed road on the way to the resort.

The crew, including Grampa Phil, ready to make fresh tracks.

The views from atop Bogus mountain are incredible in almost every direction.  This is Jessica and Emily at the summit, looking east.

The day after skiing at Bogus, we took Grandma and Grampa Phil to our exercise class at the Y.  We do a weight lifting class called Group Power several times each week.  They said they liked it, despite some sore muscles.

Saturday evening it started snowing again.  We had planned to go see the lights along Indian Creek in Caldwell, and we didn't let the snow stop us.

Eric and Shaylee came too.  Caldwell does an awesome job with their light display.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and wish you all the best for the New Year.

21 December 2014 - Concert, Swimming and Skiing

This week Jessica had her school choir concert.  The lighting in the auditorium is always terrible so the photo didn't turn out well, but Jessica is on the left behind the piano.

Jessica also had a solo. She had a part where she asked this little kindergartner what she wanted for Christmas, and then she sang her solo while the little one listened.

On Saturday the girls had a Candy Cane swim meet.  Between the three of them they won several heats and improved best times in a number of events.

Santa even put in an appearance at the Candy Cane meet.  Wet swimming suits did not go on Santa's lap.

The girls did a 12 Days of Christmas thing for a family in our ward.  This blue Jell-o 'pond' was home for seven ducks-a-swimming, and you can't much tell, but inside the Jell-o there's some Swedish fish-a-swimming also.

For their last Young Women's activity of the year, the girls went Christmas caroling.

Emily made a pretzel and peppermint bark log cabin.

When the weekend arrived, we surprised the girls with a short trip to Sun Valley.  We stayed at a lodge facing the slopes.  This is the view from our room's deck.

There were several new inches of snow, and Sun Valley already had one of the deepest snow packs of the season, so conditions were optimal for skiing.

Dressed up warm and ready to hit the slopes.

Our first gondola ride as a family.

All smiles ahead of the first run of the day.

This is at the top of the gondola.  I loved this picture because the mountains behind the girls almost look like a painting.  The village of Sun Valley and town of Ketchum, ID can be seen in the valley below.

Soothing tired muscles in the hot tub after a long day of skiing.

This was a perfect way to warm up for Christmas.