Concerts galore

Concerts, concerts, and more concerts.

This is "Come Unto Christmas" put on my our Stake

I don't know how our school music teacher "gets away with it", but all of our kids Christmas concerts were Christian songs!! Imagine that! At Christmas time! Nice being "off the radar" sometimes.

Silent Night in German (sorta), English, and Spanish (sorta) :-)

This was a sing along at the High School (forgive my "singing along") with again... Christmas songs!

Goal driven...

Ethan decided one day that he really wanted to wear his socks for 4 days straight. He wouldn't even take them off at bed time. I really had to convince him that he HAD to take his socks off for his shower, but that was the only time!

He made a little chart in his room and everything where he checked off his "progress"On the night of day 3 even Ethan was a bit grossed out by the state of his socks and the grimeys between his toes, but he was determined to last the 4 whole days.

And he did it!!

Here he is with his "trophy socks"

....Boys!!!

Think they'll give him a boy scout badge for following through with his goal??

Let the festivities begin!!

We started our December fun on the 5th with the Bend Christmas parade.

Samantha got to wear this super sexy band uniform. Can you tell how excited she is?

Here she is. The flutes are at the back

It was a chilly day so the parade moved pretty quickly. In fact Samantha's band was at the beginning of the parade, and Elite was the 3rd to last entry, and Samantha was back from the parade route before we left!!

Abby and Ethan had a great time riding their scooters down the parade route with the Elite Fitness group. They didn't complain a single time the whole route! They were too busy showing off their scooter tricks... check'em out!

After the parade we met up with the Lewandowski's again for the great Christmas tree hunt.

Brad found "the perfect tree", but had to take one for the team trying to get the tree back to the van through all the brush and ended up twisting his knee. But, we did have one fine tree!!

Brett and Abby were working really hard

Brittany and Sam having a good time.

Sunday we got a nice big dump of snow to start our Christmas holiday off right :D Ethan and his "snow pillow"

Novembers end

We finished up November with a quiet, relaxing Thanksgiving

Christmas preparations

and "The Store"

Over Thanksgiving break Ethan and Abby (with a little help from Elise) opened their store, selling primarily things made out of duct tape, or things covered in duct tape. The milk jugs were "giant ornaments". They wanted to take their store outside, like a lemonade stand, but I told them it was too cold out and it was best to stay inside and we would buy their wares... which we did.

They had great fun for a few hours making their duct tape creations and then setting up their store and relocating their store a few times.

Lots of entertainment and it only cost me a couple bucks to buy their stuff in the end :D

Ethan Videography

Ethan got hold of the camera and made some movies. I will share just a few with you.

ENJOY!

WIBC/Seattle Tour- Nov 20-23

Well, the weekend really started with the midnight showing of New Moon in the wee hours of November 20th, which was FAR better than Twilight!! I have not read the books, nor am I a huge fan, but my girls are, so I've got to keep in the loop. Samantha was with a friend in one theater and I was by my lonesome in another, but that is OK. The movie didn't start on time as there was trouble (again), so we didn't get home until close to 3am, and Samantha had to be at the school to leave for her band clinic in Seattle at 7:15am!

I wouldn't mind seeing New Moon again. What did you think of it?

(p.s. my grocery store clerk at Albertsons looks like "Jacob")

Since Samantha was going to be performing at WIBC in Seattle, the family decided to make a little vacation around it. However, the rest of us didn't leave town until 5pm and rolled into Seattle around 12:30am.

That left a full day the next day to see some sights so we headed to the Aquarium.

Here the diver has a rock fish of some sort on her that is like a pet.

He comes out to claim her as his territory everytime she comes in the tank. Isn't that funny?

Huge tank!

After the auarium was Pike Place Market.

It was super cool! Brad and I loved it. It was a cool mix of Montreal and Boston.

I wish we could have gone into each little eclectic shop, bought all the neat imports and sampled all the yummy looking food! (except all the fush- YUCK!)
We ate dinner at Lowell's at the market and had a nice view of the sound

This picture is too funny not to share. This is Ethan leaving the bathroom once the girls went in after him and informed him that he had walked into the girls bathroom!

:o)

Brad was SO thrilled to be pumping his own gas again!

The next day we went to the "Experience Music Project/ Science Fiction Museum"

Even the building was "artsy" Inside was one very cool music museum. We ended up spending 4.5 hours here.

It was definitely heavy into the electric guitar and by the time we were done I did not want to hear another electric guitar solo for a very long time.

Music sculpture

All that aside it was a really neat hands on place. The kids could practice on real instruments in real soundproof studio rooms. VERY COOL!

They also had a room where you could perform and create your own music video of sorts. You picked from their selection of tracks and then went in the room and basically played rock band on a real stage with a simulated audience while they taped you and took a picture.

Here's our picture of our band-we didn't buy the dvd.
After our "music experience" we headed across the street to the Space Needle. It was the most expensive elevator ride I have ever taken! It was fun though, and cool to see the city all lit up. Seattle is a very pretty city.

We went home and got up the next morning to go see what Samantha had been up to all weekend while we were touring around Seattle.

Samantha was accepted by audition into the WIBC band. WIBC stands for Western International Band Clinic and basically involves, as far as the students are concerned 3 full days of rehearsals with different conductors and a final performance.

We are very proud of Samantha for having been accepted into this band clinic as a freshman. These are the best band kids in all of Oregon and Washington and a smattering from other nearby states. Only a handful of students from her school were selected, so we are very proud of her.

Here is some video of the band performing. Unfortunately it is very hard to see Samantha, but you can still enjoy the music :D

CONGRATULATIONS SAMANTHA!

You did a great job!

November Highlights- Lots of flute performances

One crisp fall afternoon we decided to go play in the leaves. However there are no leaf bearing trees near us (or big enough ones) so we had to head to the school to play in the leaves. Ethan wanted to take a rake, but I told him, if he wanted to take a rake over there, he would have to take it himself because I didn't want to carry it. Then he decided he wanted to ride his scooter over to the school, so this is how he managed it.

Looks pretty precarious doesn't it? (He DID make it to the school unscathed, surprisingly)

Fall leaves are so fun!
Star enjoyed it too!
Super heros!
An attempt at Charlie's Angels.
Considering the kids have never heard or seen of it... not bad :-)

Itchy, itchy, scratchy, scratchy leaves

Cool moon

November has been full of performances for Samantha on her flute.

First was the Veteran's parade

Then was the Ensemble concert in Sunriver.

Samantha's teacher, Pam Hughes, Sam and her ensemble flute trio
Samantha's Ensemble concert in Sunriver

We took the Elders out to eat at Pilot Butte Burger and Elder Yost polished off this 16oz. burger without any problem. Elder Simpson settled for the regular burger.

Our YW in Excellence night was really nice. These are our girls.

Samantha also performed on her flute at the YWIE.
Samantha, a beautiful "example of the believers"
Check out the WIBC/Seattle post for more of Samantha's flute performances this month.