Home Life

What a GREAT night for football, as BYU beat #3 ranked Oklahoma to prove once again that the BCS is really a messed-up way to determine a national champion in college footaball!  The Cougars held their own as they looked up at the scoreboard at the end of the game showing a 14 to 13 victory!

Max Hall threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to wide-open McKay Jacobson in the back of the end zone with 3:03 left in the game, taking BYU up 14 to 13.  The Sooners’ last hope to recover and win ended when they came up short on a 54-yard field goal with 1:23 left.  This sent all BYU fans into a frenzy, including those at our house 🙂 and then even more cheering their upset was complete, a stunning end to the first college football game – and first regular-season game – ever played at the brand new, nearly $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium in Texas.

With Utah, TCU, and BYU all in the top 25, with Utah beating Alabama in their bowl game to end their season last year, and now this win over Oklahoma, maybe the BCS folks will start re-thinking about how the west was won!

Go Cougars!

Today we had curriculum night for both the elementary and the middle school.  They goofed on the timing, so Angela and I had to split up.  I went to the elementary and she went to the middle school.  Both principals were very apologetic about the mix-up on timing.  Anyway, it was fun to go to both Zachary’s and Kirstyn’s classrooms to see their teachers and learn about the changes this year.  We are excited for this year.  Both Zachary’s and Kirstyn’s teachers are repeat teachers for us.  Kirstyn had Zachary’s teacher, Miss Kalvaitis, and both Sarah and Brittany both had Kirstyn’s teacher, Mrs. Gudgeon.  Mrs. Gudgeon told us to apologize profusely to Kirstyn because she keeps calling her Brittany!  🙂

It was fun for Angela to meet Brittany’s teachers as well.  Mr. DeFarno she had  before, and Ms. Yu and Mrs.  Scott are new to the school.  They all seem very good.  I ran over and joined Angela for the very last presentation at the middle school after I finished up at the elementary.  Crazy night!  With all the changes (new high school and new middle school opening), the population at Brittany’s school is now down from 1150 to 780 or something like that!  It is so much of a more relaxing feel at the school than last year.  They have a new principal who we also met and were very impressed by both her and the two assistant principals.

It looks like our tax dollars are a little harder at work than they were last year.  We are very thankful for that!

Today Metea Valley High School had a great celebration and kick-off for the year at the building with scrimmages for all the fall sports teams.  The marching band played their pre-game as well as performed their halftime show for the crowd.  Things are really coming together for the band and she LOVES being a marching leader.

After the band played, the football team came out and had a scrimmage game.  It was fun to see the new uniforms of the team, the cheerleaders, the pom squad, and others.  One of Sarah’s friends from Seminary is the starting quarterback of the football team and is the team captain as well.

The more activities like this we go to, we get more and more excited for the kid’s experience at Metea.  Angela and I dressed up in our Metea band shirts and supported the school.  We need to get shirts for the kids as well!  🙂

A new record has been set!  The 2008 Halliday Family Album DVD is now finished!  Normally it doesn’t get done until Christmas of the following year, but it’s August!  This year’s theme is “Unplugged” and refers to no flashy dress-up like in the past (i.e. previous years were things like Halliday Incredibles, Meet the Hallidays, and Halliday Cars).  This year it’s purely,  hence the term “unplugged.”

Cover graphic for the 2008 Halliday Family Album.

The DVD this year contains not only the DVD video, but also:

• Two web albums (flash based and standard) for viewing in the browser and for future posting on my web site
• The video created in .WMV format for streaming on the Internet
• All the full-size photos used in the creation of the DVD

There were so many photos from 2008 (730 of them) that the video had to be split across 2 DVDs.  Last year a dual-layer DVD was created and couldn’t be viewed on some DVD players or on computers without dual-layer DVD players.  Becuase of this, I used single layer DVDs.  Not sure what we’ll do next year as there will be even more photos.  🙂

Today Angela and I went up to the new high school to the Metea Valley High School Marching Mustangs marching band parent preview.  We met with the marching band director and found out about all of the schedule for this season, including more details about the Disney World trip during spring break.  We then got to be the first group of parents out on the new field to learn how to march with our students.  It was pretty funny.  It’s amazing how the kids do what they do.

After learning some fundamentals (“fundies”) on the field, we got to go up in the stands and watch the marching band perform the first part of their halftime show.  This year it’s a Beatles theme titled “The Magic Mystery Tour.”  They did a great job, especially since they only have 57 members!  🙂  We were surprised that they took up as much of the field as they did with that few band members!

What was also cool is that there were friends of band members who showed up who play on the Waubonsie marching band.  They wanted to come and support their friends which meant a great deal to the Metea students.

Sarah is on the front row, third from the right.

Sarah is in the front between the two saxophones.

After the show on the field, we went back into the school where the band performed the rest of their show (music only), performed the fight song, and their patriotic pre-game show (“America the Beautiful” and the National Anthem).  It was great!  We are so proud of Sarah for all her hard work!

After the performances, we picked up our “Metea Band Wear” for the season.  Angela got a t-shirt like Sarah’s with the name of the show and all the band members on the back, I got a cool black polo, and Sarah got some Metea Valley Marching Mustangs sweats.  We’re all ready to go to support the band!

Even though we had a birthday party as a family when Zach turned 5 on July 5th, he still wanted a friend birthday party, and today was the soonest we could do it.  Angela worked really hard to pull it together.  The theme?  Spalsh Bash!  Zach invited 11 friends over for a backyard water party.  They had a TON of fun!  I did my usual job decorating the cake.  It was a beach and water cake to go along with the theme of the party.

The kids played all kinds of water games from relays filling up buckets with water from sponges, using squirt guns to soak a paper bag pinata until it broke and bags of candy fell out, breaking apart ice blocks with toys inside of them, sliding on the slip and slide, and getting each other wet!

Sponge relay game. Water from one bucket to another using a sponge.

The new Charlie's Angels!

Paper bag pinata. Break it open with squirt guns rather than a stick!

The kids loved the cake, ate ice cream, and Zach opened presents.  Each person went home with a squirt gun, a bag of candy, and a beach towel as their gift bag.  We had a hard time getting Zach away from the water long enough to thank and say good by to his friends as they left.  It was pretty funny!  Brittany, Kirstyn, and a couple of their friends did a GREAT job helping out with the party.  I got there just as things were wrapping up and helped clean up.  🙂

To celebrate the party being over, Angela and I went out for a quiet dinner together at a great little restaurant!  🙂

Today was quite the busy day!  While the kids were having fun at home, I was having fun at work.  I went to a seminar from LanDesk this morning (about workstation patching and software license management) at a movie theater in Rosement that was supposed to be a casino.  It’s an incredible theater!

The presentation was good, but after that, they gave us $10 vouchers and we were treated to the new G.I. Joe movie!  Now THAT’s a great seminar!  🙂  The movie was pretty good if you were there for great action (GI Joe meets Ironman)!  The large popcorn and large pop didn’t sit too well the rest of the day though!  🙂

This afternoon and evening was the student and parent orientation for Metea Valley High School, the new high school where Sarah will be going this year.  The picture below is a little old, but it shows the entire campus from above.

It’s amazing at how fast the building was put up and completed.  Just last Friday, Sarah and Angela went in and helped set up the band and orchestra equipment (music stands, instruments, etc.).  The band played the new fight song for both sessions of orientation, and Sarah did a wonderful job!  They have a very small band (only 58 compared to the 130 something they had last year at Waubonsie).  That’s pretty good, however, considering that only 2 grades (Freshmen and Sophomores) will be at the campus this next year.

Metea Valley Mustang Marching Band! Sarah is the third one from the right on the front row.

After the principal and other spoke to us, we got to walk around the school and check it out!  There are many pieces that are not finished yet but will be soon.  The school is move-in ready, however for the first two grades.  The science rooms were amazing (see picture below)!  They looked like college labs!

One of the new science rooms at Metea.

The courtyard area at the new high school. It's right off the commons so the kids have both an indoor and outdoor place to hang out.

Angela standing by the music stands she helped assemble for band and orchestra.

Temporary band and orchestra room at Metea. They will move into the larger "official" room when it's complete.

The girl's locker room at Metea. The only time I'll ever see inside there! 🙂

It was an exciting experience and one that I think energized the students to be excited for school.  While we were in orientation and walked around and checked out the school, the students had a dance which was fun for them.

When we got home, I took Brittany, Kirstyn, and Zachary over to the elementary to watch an outdoor movie (Race to Witch Mountain).  We couldn’t hear a thing so we packed up, went to Wal-Mart and rented the movie from the RedBox kiosk.  We came home and watched it there.  We were much more comfortable and we could hear it!  🙂 While we were doing this, Sarah was spending the evening with friends having a great time!  All-in-all, a GREAT day!