Greeting from the Luau

Last night our ward had a Luau activity. We had someone teach a little Hula dance and the food was awesome!

(p.s. in case you're wondering; our ward borrowed the lobsters from Trader Joe's)

Abby's swim lessons

I've been meaning to post these for some time. Abby finished off her swimming lessons recently and passed again. She had the cutest, "funnest" teacher eva! In order to pass she had to swim 1/2 the length of the "big pool." It scared me to death. I am so glad her teacher was in there because I would have rescued her way before she had the chance to make it. I didn't think she would pass so I didn't register her for the next level for the next session, and by the time he told me she would pass it was too late, so we're taking a break from swim lessons for awhile.

Flautist

Samantha's band concert was last night. It is nice that the kids are getting good enough that is is quite enjoyable. I am so proud of Samantha as she has done really well with her flute especially since she only ever had about 5 months of formal lessons. Here is a clip of a duet she performed with her friend Katie last night at the concert, but it was actually practiced to be performed at a "workshop" in Redmond. She is a little embarassed of this performance as it is not perfect, but I think it's pretty dang good.

Bad taste in my mouth after Hell's Kitchen

So, since I have been watching the same shows since like... forever, I thought I would give a couple "new" ones a chance last night. Actually the remote was downstairs and I didn't want to have to go and get it to change the channel, so after AI was the show "Hell's Kitchen". I really was curious though to see what all the hype was about.
Yuck! The show consisted of people yelling and swearing at me for an hour! I do NOT recommend this show. Sorry if you like it. And how do these people... "chefs" send out undercooked chicken? I haven't ever even had that happen to me at a fast food restaurant!
After Hell's Kitchen I watched "Bones." The promo was cute, a little animosity between two co-workes, kinda CSIish... SO DUMB!! The lines were so canned and the glimpse into the future of ridiculous technologies, trying so hard to be cool... never again.
After spending 2 hours watching lame shows I had to make myself feel better and watch an episode of Cold Case.
So there you have it... I have watched so YOU don't have to!
What are your favorite shows?

We are proud owners of a minivan!!

As of today we are the proud owners of a 1999 Green Dodge Caravan!! Hooray!!
After 5 years of payments we finally own our van; we recieved the title in the mail today.
I suppose it can start falling apart now...

Happy Arbor Week

While National Arbor Day is not until the end of the month, next week is Oregon's Arbor Week. To celebrate we went out to Shevlin Park to help plant Ponderosa pine trees. It was a beautiful day to do it too. We were out there for about 2 hours and we figure we planted 20-25 trees. Every year they plant trees in this area that was damaged by fire in 1990. We will now have our very own grove of trees in about 30 years!

First start out with a 2 year old Ponderosa pine sapling and a basket to keep the deer out

Then dig a hole (Abby INSISTED on digging hers with her tiny trowel, even though I had a big shovel.)

Put the sapling in at the right depth and refill the hole

Pat it in really good

Tada! Here are the kids sitting in what will be shade in their grove of trees they planted. Check back in 30 years for a picture with trees and shade.

p.s. Thanks to Suelynn for the batteries for my camera so I could take more than 2 pictures.

p.p.s. Of course we knew someone here... this is Bend!

p.p.p.s. If you live locally they are doing this again Thurs. and Fri. 3-5:30, and Sat 9-1

Overplayed

I don't know how many of you listen to pop radio, but I thought this spoof our local radio station did of "Hey there Delilah" was funny. For some reason in order to get the audio to play you have to click on "Pop Out Player" to hear it. Enjoy!

p.s. I think I might be a radio dj groupie :-0