Borrowing a little from the Sterling Scholars idea that High Schools in Utah do, Union Middle School, where Tessa and McCoy attend, started a program at their school to honor and recognize student achievement in different areas. Tessa applied for the dance scholar award. She had to present a poster of dance, a poem and an essay about dance, and do an originally choreographed dance in front of a panel of judges. We are so proud of her for achieving this honor. At the end of May we had a lovely dinner and recognition night--her dance teacher said the nicest things about her and we agree.
We had a lovely dinner with both Elaine Homer and Sue Johnson, a couple of the "mom's" in our lives. We love and appreciate everything that mother's do for us.
Happy 13th Birthday, McCoy!
Happy 17th Birthday, Madeleine!
Happy 15th Birthday, Tessa!
At the end of February we took advantage of a super opportunity with Disney. To promote service and charitable works in the community they were offering individual Disneyland passes if you did a service project of some sort. We looked hard to make one work for the whole family. We ended up one Saturday morning working at the Utah Co-op, which is an organization that helps low income people who need help getting groceries and food items. The Co-op collects things and then people can come to their store on Redwood Road to "shop" for what they need. We worked cleaning up and organizing the storage area because people were also bringing in diapers and wipes that day for a shipment they were putting together for Haiti. I think we helped out a lot--we reorganized several pallets, consolidating them and getting more space open. And we set up a good organized way to store the diapers as they came in all morning. Everyone in the family worked hard, showed a good attitude, and did what they could to help out--we were proud of them all.What do you get when you cross the Piano Man and the Rocket Man?? You get an awesome concert. For my birthday and Kristin's birthday this past year, Janelle and Brad teamed up to buy us tickets to the Elton John/Billy Joel concert in November. Well, Elton got the flu and it was postponed and rescheduled for February. So we finally got to go one fine Friday night. We were both busy and running around and even thinking we have so many things to do, but when we finally to our seats and sat down and saw them just playing their hearts out on their pianos it suddenly turned into a really fine evening of music and memories. It was just good fun and great music. Elton John played his songs one after another--so many songs. Billy Joel would stand up and "chat" after each of his songs like he was at a lounge in Jersey. Thanks, so much, Janelle and Brad. You knew the right thing to get us--thanks for thinking of us on our birthdays.
Even though Easter was later this year (April 4th) you wouldn't know it by the weather. It was cold and we had some off and on snow flurries. But we did our best that weekend to celebrate with all our traditions.
We looked for Easter eggs in the morning and went over to the Johnson's to look for more eggs and eat. We also had the annual egg drop contest with Uncle Doug flinging the engineered egg packages over the roof to test their effectiveness. Crazy stuff. Well, Samantha won this year so she got to go into Grandpa's closet and get a prize--she got a lovely 4th of July costume, which she loves. Hooray for Samantha, the egg drop engineer!
Wow, it was Easter time again and here we were trying to get some eggs dyed so we wouldn't disappoint the Easter Bunny. Of course, as the kids get older we start missing a few of them. Oh well, that's the Circle of Life.
This is Tessa at the St. George Dance competition this year. We're sorry the video isn't up to par--the setting was on "compact", but we'll get it figured out. This a beautiful dance set to Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata". They wear black veils so it's like a funeral thing or something, but very cool and sophisticated. We'll try to get better video at another competition. (Tessa is the one in the middle at the beginning)
We all enjoyed McCoy's Spring band concert at Union Middle School. My favorite was the theme from Star Wars--it seems made for the trumpets. I must say, the sound of the 7th grade band and the trumpets in particular has improved alot since the fall concert.
We were so excited for Benjamin who received the Top Dog award at Midvalley Elementary (March 24, 2010) for kindergarten in March. He has come such a long way since the first fearful days of school back in September. He now loves going to school and learning. He answers questions and participates and tries hard to choose the right. When they announced his award they read from his answers to some questions. What he likes best about school is math. When he was asked what do you like best about yourself he replied, "I can eat roast beef".
Madeleine was recently honored (March 22, 2010) nationally by entering a society. I'm talking about the National Honor Society, which honors high achieving high school students. Along with high GPA's and academic requirements, the honor recognizes students who are involved in their school life, community, and family. We are proud of her and had a great time seeing her induction at Hillcrest High.
It seems like we just finished the last Bunny Brunch and all of a sudden it's March 20 and here we go again. The annual YW Camp fundraiser in the ward was a big success again this year. Everyone comes in the morning for breakfast, crafts, fingernails, photos with the Easter Bunny, and of course, balloon-a-gami with the Amazing McCoy..jpg)
While we were in St. George with Mccoy's soccer tournament we went up to Zion's Park to hike and see the sights. What a beautiful day for hiking and seeing--we loved all the water falls fed by the snow that was still white in the pockets of the red stone. I think we actually may have .jpg)
This is the Upper Emerald Falls pool.jpg)
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McCoy has the coolest Dad. .jpg)
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This is at Weeping Rock, and it was pouring!.jpg)
We saw an Ostrich farm on the way up to Zion's - super cool! 
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