Shoes...

Tonight we had the "Big Shoe". It's a big music program for our elementary school. I think I remember the music teacher, Mr. Leggett, last year explain that he calls it the big shoe because according to the English rule, shoe should be pronounced as show....ya know, the rule "2 vowels go walking, the 1st one does the talking"...So, it's really the Big SHOW. Make sense???

Anyway, here are some fun pictures of our night. It's amazing I made it through with some pictures. Emma and Kaden were tired and HOT and did not want to be there!!!

Taylor playing marimba for the opening:
Where's Waldo? Can you find Ethan amongst the impatient 3rd graders?
The 3rd graders danced/sang with long long ribbons. Ethan didn't want to go because he said they didn't have adequate time to prepare and he didn't want to look silly. When it was over he said, "Didn't you see how bad we messed up?" Uhhh, sorry, I didn't! It looked great to me!Ethan's best friend, Chase, is on the right in the brown shirt:
Where's Waldo, again? 5th graders getting ready to sing:
Taylor's BFF's. McKenna, McKenzie, T, Mikal, Hannah:
Then they did a little dance, sorta like the micarana, but not! :)
Strike a pose, girls!While the whole school sang "Rockin' Robin", the 5th graders did some swing dancin'. In the middle the Red Robin came crashing out of the "hiding" spot. Didn't see that one coming, did ya? The kids thought that was to coolest and asked if we were surprised!Good job, kids! It's always fun seeing what they've been learning!

Hiking

Chris and I love to hike. Especially Chris. When we lived in Utah, we had this 15 minutes away:
How could you not love to hike when you can go somewhere like this? When it was nice out, Chris would wake up in the morning, go hiking, and still be to the office by 8:30am. We loved it! Here are some of our favorite pictures of us hiking in Utah:




Teton National Park: (Though this is not in Utah, we still love it and think it's beautiful!!!)
Ok, so let me get to the point. When we moved here, we knew we would miss the mountains! And I'll tell ya, we still do! I obviously never had any desire to hike the "mountain" they have here. Is it still considered hiking if it's in the sagebrush? I didn't think so. Anyway, here it is 3.5 years later and we finally hiked the "mountain". It was definitely different than what we are use to, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! Thanks, Holli, for the extra push to get us there!

I have found that there is still beauty in unexpected things. My mom would especially think this is beautiful scenery. Her having been raised on a farm, I remember driving through miles and miles of wheat farms to visit Gma and Gpa and her telling us how beautiful the land was. I think she would appreciate and love all the farms in our community. Though it's not like the Utah mountains, I have learned to love and be grateful for this area in which we live!
The kids loved the black hawks that were flying around:
This is how we were the whole way up....Emma far out hiked us!



To the kids disappointment, we didn't make it to the top. Kaden just wouldn't go further and we had to get back to Costco. We are excited to go again....can you believe it???

Outside Adventures

Captain Jack has taken his first outside adventure. I must say, I am very anxious for him to be out there permanently! He's not quite all that the pet store owner promised him to be. Go figure. Anyway, he enjoyed walking around and even ate some grass. Come on summer! We're ready!!!!

Spring....Could It Be???

Finally!!! We have felt the first day of spring - the sun shined all day and it wasn't even that windy!!! With the kids being out school we went to the park for a picnic with friends. There is nothing like enjoying the outdoors after being cooped up all winter!



The we headed off to the bowling alley. Taylor didn't want to go, so I sent her home with Kaden so he could nap. Ethan and Emma had a great time and Ethan even scored 118.

Carnival Surprise

The Mia Maids (as in ME) were in charge of putting together a carnival for our ward. It turned out to be a huge success and so much fun. I didn't bring my camera, but one if my friends did, so I'll post pictures once I get them. Anyway, Ethan won 2 goldfish at the 'ring toss', aka the Bishopric. Yes, 2. By the morning there was only 1. I secretly thought the other one wouldn't last long, so I didn't even go by a fish bowl. But, here we are 3 days later and the sucker is still here. So Ethan spent his money today on a fish bowl, a decoration thingy and a companion for his survivor. He named them Quartz and Dose. My anti-pet reputation may be one the line here....

Glory Days

BEST. NIGHT. EVER.

For Taylor's last basketball game, they played....(drum roll, please. bluddddddddddd) us MOMs! I haven't had that much fun in a long time! It's been years since I've played, but I must say, I pretty much kicked butt!!! haha!

We had the game at Kamri's house, who just so happen to have a full court basketball gym in their house. Her parents are Kimo and Tondi, so yes, we had an advantage having Tondi on our team. We had the best time playing with our girls, and I left with only a hurt knee. Not too shabby!

Team huddles:
Me and Taylor....she's got nothin' on me!
Hannah and her mom fighting over the ball:

Taylor making a shot:Afterwards the kids ate pizza, shot some pool and played around their 18,000 sf house. Fun, fun night!

One More...

Here's a video of Taylor's Marimba performance last night. This is her favorite song "Eye of the Tiger":

She is so serious when she plays. They played about6 or 7 songs - I am so impressed with their teacher! They have a great little band and their steel drums will finally get here this week! Yah!