Tonight, Brittany had her fall Orchestra concert and it was awesome! They played some pretty difficult pieces. We really love the Metea auditorium. It has great acoustics. They really put a lot of work in to designing it well.
It also helped that we have extra babysitters to stay at home with the boys so we can enjoy the concerts without having to take Ben out half way through. 🙂 Brittany is a second violin and is first chair! Way to go Brittany!
Tonight, Sarah had her fall band concert at Metea in the auditorium. She did a GREAT job playing her flute and piccolo. It’s really cool that she was asked to play both in the concerts. They played some really nice music.
At this level, they play more than just typical marches that you would expect from a band. The music is “prettier” and more symphony-like. We are very blessed to live in a school district with one of the best music programs in the nation. The kids are really pushed to excel and they rise to the task! 🙂
Great job Sarah!
Today was a fun day. Although Zach’s team lost, they played the Broncos (Zach’s old team from last year). It was fun to see all the kids he played with last year, as well as Coach Tim and the other coaches.
Tonight, we had our Stake Roadshow performances at the Naperville Stake Center. It was a hoot to watch them. Our ward’s performance was one of the better ones and the kids had a blast doing it. The olio’s were also pretty funny as well. There are a lot of talented kids (and kids who aren’t afraid to get in front of others and act crazy) in our stake. The theme of the night was Bedtime Stories. Our ward’s performance was around reading “For the Strength of Youth” and Rapunzel (Denzel), Beauty and the Beast, Finding Nemo (Nema), and others. We hope to get a DVD of the performances soon.
I tried to get some pictures, but we were a ways away and with our small camera, it was too dark. I only got one of Sarah that turned out blurry but recognizable…
Sarah played Nema’s mom and they were dressed up like clownfish. 🙂 Brittany was a cute pink fish and had her face painted up as well. Kirstyn was one of Rapunzel’s (Denzel’s) flock of girls who thought he was really cute. 🙂 I guess you really had to be there to understand. 🙂 I’ll try and get some better pictures posted.
Great job girls!
Tonight was a pretty busy night. Football practice was moved from last night to tonight and Zach and his team scrimmaged against the Steelers at their park. Zach did well. He was very excited to play a game with his cast and club off! 🙂 Everybody was excited to see him “castless” as well. 🙂
Right after practice, I dropped Zach off and hurried up to the high school to help with Marching Band. They (as usual) did a rockin’ job in their performance. We as the pit crew have things down now so we can get the equipment on and off the field pretty quickly. It helps to have a bunch more on the crew than we did last year as well.
Unlike the Marching Band performance, the game didn’t go so well and we lost. It stinks that we were able to start the season 3-0 and then lose the rest so far. 🙁
Today was a VERY exciting day! First, Zach got his cast off! He is sooooo excited! He can’t wait until tomorrow’s football game so he can play without his club! 🙂
Tonight, Sarah and Angela went to a meeting with Utah State University to learn more about their programs and to see what kind of scholarships Sarah might be eligible for. They took Sarah’s transcript and ACT score information with them. The understanding is that there were some “spot scholarships” that would be given there and Sarah was hopeful.
They had a great time there and learned a lot. The best thing, however, was that Sarah was awarded a pretty good-sized scholarship!!!!! 🙂 She gave them her transcript and ACT information and talked with the admissions folks for awhile. They were very impressed with her and ended up giving her a non-resident tuition scholarship worth about $13,000 the first year, and about $4,000 the second year! 🙂
Needless to say, Angela and I are very happy about this too! She still wants to go to BYU Provo, but USU is a great school for education and we’ll see what happens!
Congrats Sarah!
Happy 18th birthday today, Sarah! Where has the time gone! I don’t think that it’s really sunk in yet for Sarah either that she is now officially an “adult.” 🙂 We had a fun day today. Sarah opened her presents and per her request, we had cheesecake. 🙂
Today we just hung out and celebrated as a family. In the next couple of weeks, she’s going to have a large party with a bunch of her friends. So far, I think, the count is around 50! 😐 Not sure where we are going to have it, because I seriously doubt that 50 kids will fit in our basement (at least not comfortably, anyway)! 🙂
Happy 18th!
Today, Sarah had her senior photo shoot! The pictures turned out SO cute! We are going to have a hard time picking out the ones we want for the package. Here are just a couple…
Fortunately, we are going to get all of the pictures on a CD that we can then use for our family DVD and such. The photographer was absolutely wonderful to work with. He really made Sarah laugh and have a good time. Angela was cracking up at some of the things he said too. 🙂
What’s really unnerving is how fast time has flown. It seems like yesterday that Sarah was only a little bitty baby getting bathed in the kitchen sink in our apartment in Provo… sniff, sniff… 🙁
This week, Zach was captain of the football team. Today, Zach got to go out on the field with his club for the coin toss, and he was pretty excited.
After the game, we got cleaned up and went to Sarah’s and Brittany’s Elvis Tribute Concert at Metea. The Marching Band performed with a live band singing Elvis songs. It was very similar to the Billy Joel Tribute Concert that they had last year. They had a blast! The lead singer of the band was outstanding! He is a well-known Broadway performer that is in downtown Chicago for a show. It was really cool that they could get him to take time to come out and perform!
We went up early so the boys could say hi to Sarah and Brittany. Zach wanted a picture of him in Sarah’s band jacket, so she obliged. 🙂
When the concert started, the band played their entire halftime show through. It sounds really cool in the auditorium! As usual, they did an outstanding job! 🙂
Then the marching band turned the time over to the tribute band who played Elvis songs for about an hour! The band members jumped up and danced with each other, swayed to the music, and made everybody in the crowd laugh. It’s great to see how many friendships the kids make with each other during the marching season! At the end of the concert, the band came up on stage and everyone played together. It sounded awesome!
When the concert was over, the girls found the lead singer and just had to get their picture taken with him. 🙂 Kirstyn even joined in the fun!
Great job girls! Way to play!
Welcome to October! 🙂 Today was a pretty busy day for everybody in the family. In addition to General Conference and watching all the sessions, we had Zach’s football game and Metea’s Marching Band went to Northern Illinois University to perform an exhibition performance.
Zach had a lot of fun during his game. We “clubbed” up his arm and he was so excited to be back out on the field playing. His teammates were excited when they saw him too. He looks like a more formidable opponent when he has that big thing on his arm. 🙂
They played the Browns and did pretty well. In the end, they came up short again, but they had fun. Zach had to go up against a 182 pound 2nd grader who he really couldn’t block (or he would just get thrown to the ground). So instead of blocking, he just bumped him and went around. 🙂
The kids got their football pictures today as well. They turned out pretty good, although Zach looks like he’s in pain in his individual one. 🙂
We also got Sarah and Brittany off to Metea to go to NIU for their performance. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go because of the game, so I was kind-of bummed. We had a great time last year. They did a GREAT job and had a blast!
The video of the performance is posted on YouTube (not sure for how long), but here is the link if you want to watch the whole thing! They do such a GREAT job! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOo31dkxkS0
Aaaarrrrgh! Zach went to the doctor today and the guy put a new cast on him for another 2 WEEKS! He “didn’t” say anything about not playing football, so we’re not going to ask… 🙂
Zach was pretty bummed (although laughing in the picture above with his old cast on his other arm), but we talked to our friends who were in the same situation last year about how to pad up a cast. Zach and I went over to their house and she showed us how to do it. It takes awhile, but when it gets done, he looks like he has a huge padded club on the end of his arm. 🙂
He only will have to play with the club for 2 games then for the final 3 he’ll have it off. He thinks he’s pretty cool with it on and it makes him look really tough! 🙂
Tonight we went up to the temple with all of our young men and young women to do baptisms. We had about 360 names that we needed to complete and got all of them but about 10 completed! The kids were so excited because all the names came from the work that members of our ward had done (including us)! 🙂
We took about 35 youth and each of them did about 10 names. Due to the sheer number of kids and the number of names we did, it was very late when we finished up. We all had donuts and milk in the parking lot and then drove home. We didn’t get home until almost 11:00pm!
What a great feeling!
Today, Zach’s team played the Falcons. They were undefeated and still are. 🙂 Our guys played hard and Zach wished he could play. In less than a week, he will have his cast off and be able to get out and hit someone! 🙂
After the game, we had our team tailgate party! It was a lot of fun and there was a ton of work that went into planning and preparing. We had hot dogs, brats, and Italian sausages, along with a ton of chips, pop, veggies, and desserts! The kids had a total blast!
Our family brought a great dessert that everybody loved! Zach came up with the idea to make a football out of cupcakes and decorate it so we did…
We were so full when we got done with the event, that all we felt like doing when we got home was sleeping. We did some of that and still have a TON of stuff to do around the house. It never seems like we can keep up with the cleaning and projects. Ben and Zach especially mess things up faster than we can clean things up! 🙂
