Over the Weekend We: Soccer, Volleyball, Moab and Prom (with a side of Fear Factory)

Saturday was full of supporting the kids.

We kicked it off first thing with Tayler's soccer game (I'm still planning on making a big soccer post where I'll post all her soccer pictures that I've taken over the last few years.  It will be interesting to see how she's grown up in the sport).

Tayler has not interest in making goals, but loves playing defense and is all about getting in the fray and making the block.  She's really good at redirecting the ball away from the goal.

They won their game, plus also, it was a gorgeous morning.

The chill of spring lasts much too long, and Saturday we felt that summer might finally be pulling through.

After Tay's soccer game Tay headed to the mall to celebrate her birthday with her friends, and The Man and I headed over to Jayme's volleyball tournament.  I don't have any pictures to post as I took them on my big camera and not my phone, but I do have these pics from a tournament a few weekends ago.

I'll also be making a volleyball post for all the pictures I've taken of Jay paying volleyball over the last year or so.

This weekend they nearly missed winning the silver.  It's amazing to watch Jayme and the control she has with the ball.  She comes alive on the court.

After volleyball I dropped Cali off at a friend's brithday party.

At this point in the weekend The Man decided to take some friends up on a last minute invite to head down to Moab for the night.

They did a night ride on Hell's Revenge and then spent Sunday in the Behind the Rocks area.

This one is West:

This one is his friend, Byron:

Casidee went to prom with Levi.

They went to a silver mine for their day date, then out to sushi and the dance.

And lastly, I attended a training at Fear Factory where we went over emaciated anatomy in the face for "shruken in" looks, as we use those quite often with zombies, victims, and even vampires.

This makeup wasn't "picture ready," but more just a learning process.  They're heavy because I traced over them several times with my airbrush, trying to memorize the feel of the lines and how the bones are shaped, and then how the skin would fall.

So, in simpler words, these are just practice photos, I know it's not a great makeup, but it was never meant to be.

Gosh, I love being involved with this.

With Saturday being insanely busy, Sunday was a crash day.  We went to church, I went to a camp meeting (I'm serving as Stake Camp Director), and then we crashed and watched all the chick flicks we could while Sean holed up in his room with his phone, and West was in Moab.

All in all, I think we all earned our down time with each other.

Musical Review

Last year (2015-2016 school year, 7th grade for Tay) Tayler tried out for the school musical and made it into a few routines.

They did a Musical Review, performing numbers from various different Musicals.

It was incredible to watch her.  She really does have the sweetest voice, however theater and choir don't really jump out at her.  She tried out to support her friend, Ashliegh.

Below are pictures and the musical numbers that Tay performed in.

Revolting Children from Matilda (my personal favorite of the bunch, though they're all really good).

Somewhere Over the Rainbow:

Footloose:

Sean with the photobomb.  We call them our "twins".

And Tayler with Ashliegh.  Opening night was on Ash's birthday.

And the Winner is: Tayler

This year Tayler is in AVID, along with Cali and Sean.  It's been a fun program for them and they've been enjoying the different projects that they get to participate in during the school year.

Every year AVID gives the kids an opportunity to make movies for the school district's annual film festival.  Last year Sean entered it and won (here).  

This year Tayler took advantage of the opportunity.  She wrote, directed, filmed, and edited the entire movie.

You know it's a big deal event when Chick-fil-a caters it.

Because, Chick-fil-a.

Tayler won best short film in the Middle School age category for the district.  They received hundreds of entries and chose the final three for the festival.

You can watch her video here:

Emails that Don't Warrant Response, Tayler Turns 14, Rest in Peace My Dear Friend

We are commencing catching up on years of neglect on this blog.  The picture storage on my phone just can't take anymore, and I need to have these memories saved somewhere.  The posts will be a little jumbled as I keep up with where we are currently, but also catch up with all that has not yet been blogged about.

Because I love writing about my life and my family, and I love reading back about the fun things that we've done.

Also, I miss writing in fragmented sentences.

Blogging has it's own style.

Here we go.

I love my job.  Working with the Mayor has completely blown my mind and changed my world.

It has changed who am I.  Not only in regards as to how I view politics and community (because it's absolutely so much more less politics and so much more about community.

At least in Ben's office).

West says it's changed me, and I know it has as well.

That being said, a lot of days I deal with this level of communication (personal info of the other people has been blocked out of the picture):

So there's that.

Making the community a better place one email at a time.

Actually, I didn't respond to that.  I'm hoping she'll figure it out on her own.

Tayler turned 14 on Friday.  She has more ambition than I have in my little finger, and as I catch posts up, we're going to be talking a lot about all that girl is involved with. This year alone, she's on the Jr. National Honor's Society (and serving as the secretary for her school's chapter), AVID (where she won the district film festival award with her short film in her age division (here)), she sits on her school's Senate, has been playing on a comp soccer team this year (post to come), and of course, is very active with her close group of friends.

Every year the girl asks for blue velvet cake, and every year this turns out to be more than my culinary expertise, or lack there of, can provide.  She ends up with black velvet cake.

Six months ago I saw a box mix for blue velvet cake and snatched it up and stored it in the freezer.

Finally, finally, she got her blue velvet cake. 

Also, I might add, my mistake was the base cake.  Red velvet is based off of chocolate cake so I was trying to base the blue velvet off a chocolate cake as well.  Turns out blue velvet is a vanilla base, so, you know, that helps drastically with the color.

Tayler and her friends have a tradition of decorating each other's rooms on their birthdays, which meant I needed some time with Tayler outside of the house.

Sonic.  Of course.

It didn't taker her long to ask, "Mom, are you stalling?"
To which I simply answered, "yes," because let's face it, she knows the drill with her crew, plus also, her friend Casadee really didn't keep it much of a secret.

We decided it would be more fun to go home and catch her friends in the act.

Cali, Casadee, Ellie, Tayler, Abbie

Happy birthday, T-bug.

As another catch up:

Mondays are hard.

And lastly for today, my dear friend and neighbor, Kenna, lost a year long battle with cancer on Monday.  It breaks my heart.  She was always so kind and happy, even when in the thick of her illness.  She's left behind her husband, who was also her high school sweetheart, a son in college, a son in high school, and her daughter who will be joining us in Young Women's in a few months.

My heart goes out to them.

It makes me think of several things.  One, being how glad I am that those kids have such a great father to continue to care for them.

Another thought being how grateful I am for a gospel that teaches about eternal families and that this life is not all that there is for us.

And my heart goes out to her husband, because heaven knows I would not want to face this world without The Man by my side.

Take time for your loved ones today.

Pre-First Day Of School.

They day dawned gray and heavy with the promise of rain, but that didn't damped the spirits around our house.

Today Tayler and Sean headed to their first day of middle school.

And everyone in the house got up early with them.  Which I don't understand, if it were me not going to school yet, I would relish my last day of sleeping in.

Our middle school starts the 6th graders a day before anyone else with a half day of school to give them a shot at running through their schedule and using their lockers before they're swarmed by 7th and 8th graders.

More on the upcoming school year tomorrow, when the rest of them start and it's the "real" first day of school.

And also, moms go to school to.

Sadly I'm not at the University of Utah anymore.  Their schedule has absolutely no flexibility in it.  One of my pre-req's was held at 11:00 in the morning.  And only at 11:00 in the morning.  Being a working mom, flexibility is huge for me, so I've transferred to the University of Phoenix to finish my bachelor's degree online.  Today is my first day, and I'm excited to keep pushing forward with this.

Since we seem to live our lives on a school year schedule, here's to a new year!