Art and Sculptures with a dash of Choir

Last Thursday (also our 15th Anniversary if you happened to forget) we were invited to attend an Art + Sculpture + Choir event at Mikayla's school.

The main focus of the evening, for Mikayla, was the Choir event.

As part of her Choir class this year, each student needs to participate in a concert.  This could be a solo, or they could sing with another choir student.  Mikayla R. and Mikaela T. quickly chose each other as singing partners and have been practicing their song for a couple months.

So, here is the video.  The song, Let It Be, begins with Mikaela T. doing a solo and then Mikayla R. has a solo during the second half.


The judge gave them a high score and offered to let them sing it a second time if they wanted to (since they were ahead of schedule).  The girls refused to sing it a second time, but it turns out that they qualified to perform at an upcoming concert in the nearby metropolis of Bellingham in the near future.

After the choir singing, we went on a short family-friendly art tour to find a couple projects that Mikayla has been working on in Art class.

First off, I'm pleased to present her wire Bird sculpture, currently on display in the Library:

Next, we located her pottery/clay bowl located outside the library.

Both are very unique pieces, but it seems they didn't quite meet up to Mikayla's original expectations.  I recall having the similar experiences in my 7th grade art class... forever squashing my grand plans to be an artist.

Anyway... stay tuned for info about the upcoming Bellingham concert.

~E

Our 15th Anniversary!

Ta dah!

15 years!

Started the day off right... gettting Tanya a breakfast from McDonalds... just like her father did for her 15 years ago. To bad Kari & Kim weren't here!

I'm taking the day off of work to have lunch with my bride (and to take Alexia to the dentist, but that's not the focus here).

It's like a holiday.

Comments are open... leave us a message if you are so inclined.

:~)

~E

Chocolate Rules

We recently renewed our family cell phone plan and took the opportunity to upgrade our phones at the same time.

Tanya was excited to get a new phone. Her old phone had an ongoing conflict between the battery and the battery cover. They would frequently fight about who knows what and the battery cover always lost. Every time. This continued for two years, until just recently they suddenly started getting along. Too bad for them... it's too late.

The kids have been sharing a phone for the last two years and it's worked out pretty good.

Well, it's worked out pretty good for T and I. It hasn't worked out too well for Mikayla because it's just a plain-jane basic phone. Without a texting plan, the phone pretty much sat in the dark corners of her backpack where none of her friends would see it. Sometimes it would accidentally get used. When no one was looking.

As for Alexia, she couldn't really care less about the phones yet. She's happy to use any phone she can locate.

So, you can imagine that we were all excited about getting new phones.

The process only took 3 visits to the Verizon website, one call to customer service and no less than six visits to a Verizon kiosk or store. I'm pretty sure I spent more time picking out my cell phone and family plan than I spent selecting my college.

T & I settled on the enV Touch and the kids got the Chocolate Touch phone. (Reviews here, if you're shopping for a phone).

The bad news was that the Kids Chocolate Touch phone wasn't in stock and would be shipped directly to the house.

We went home and while T & I tried to figure out how to work these new gadgets, Mikayla and Alexia went to work writing up their new rules for their fancy phone.


Once the rules were solidified, Mikayla came over and taught us how to use our new phones.

Thanks Mikayla (for making me feel old)!

~E

New Years Eve 12-31-2009

We spent New Years Eve hanging out as a family.

The evening didn't go quite as planned, but only due to minor hiccups.

T & the girls thoughtfully rented a movie for us all to watch and enjoy together (Night at the Museum #2 - Night at the Smithsonian) and we could have a nice dinner at Olive Garden. Plus, we planned on playing some board games as well.

First stop: Dinner.
Upon our arrival at Olive Garden, we quickly realized that our hunger exceeded our patience. The line was just too long, so after a bit of debate, discussion and compromising, we downgraded to our second option: Pizza Factory.

It turns out that Pizza Factory isn't even open on New Years Eve. We hadn't considered a third option, but managed to end up at Round Table pizza, which was going to be open for at least another hour. Good enough.

Alexia entertained us with some jokes from her soft drink cup:
Q: How do you fix a broken Pizza?
A: Tomato Paste!

Q: Who was the roundest knight in the Knights of the Round Table?
A: Sir Cumference!

Alexia also made up one of her own:
Q: What kind of pizza do cats love?
A: PepPurrrrroni of course.

After dinner we returned home to play about 10 rounds of Train Dominoes. The girls didn't remember playing this before so we taught them how and they quickly picked up the strategy. Most of us had fun, most of the time.







FLASHBACK to Thursday Evening:
Just the other day we pulled out the game "LIFE" and played it after dinner. If you've ever played that game, you probably remember you get a little car with six holes in it to accommodate the player, the spouse and up to four children. The rules, printed on the box, circa 1983, state that "If you get more than four children, just crowd them in as you do in real life." Remember those days?

After our game of Dominoes, we put in the movie... only to discover that the DVD box was the right box, but the movie in the box was not the right movie. The movie was Night at the Museum Part 1... which we had all seen before.

Oh well... we watched it anyway, and it was still entertaining.

Before we knew it, midnight was almost upon us.

We watched 'the ball drop' in NYC and the kids were both disappointed. It was not at all what they expected as far as 'the ball dropping'. I'm pretty sure I felt the same way the first time I saw it.

We quickly switched the channel to watch the Space Needle fireworks before shuffling everyone off to bed.

Congratulations to Tanya for staying up to midnight this year!

My New Years Resolution is to get invited to a New Years Eve party next year.

We hope you all had a safe New Year's Eve and we hope that 2010 works out to be a fantastic year for all of us.

~E

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Heather Meadows Skiing 12-27-2009

On the Sunday after Christmas Mikayla and I spent the day with Jessica & Beau skiing at Heather Meadows, located between Mount Baker and Mount Shuksan.



The weather was absolutely perfect. On a clear day it's hard to beat the scenery up here.
The snow, on the other hand, was a bit less than perfect, but certainly good enough to make it an awesome day on the mountain.

Mikayla is really getting the hang of skiing and did an excellent job up there.

There were a couple spills and emotional moments, but there was only one incident that involved a ski boundary, a creek and a well placed snow bridge.













On our last run we saw these three ice climbers and watched their progress as we rode the chair lift.


~E

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Christmas 2009

Shortly after Charlie, our house guest, left, we were visited by Tanya's parents and grandparents who came up to visit from Arizona.

On the eve of Christmas Eve, we enjoyed a nice dinner at the Space Needle with Nana, Poppy, Grandma Bette, Grandpa Ron, Aunt Dawn, Uncle Tory and Cousins Gavin and Aleigh.





This is about the only elevator I have no problem riding in.


The kids enjoyed visiting Santa on the Observation deck level before heading to the Restaurant.








After dinner, Gavin and Aleigh came up to our house to have a sleepover with Mikayla and Alexia.

The next day, Dawn and Tory came up for the Christmas Eve service, dinner and the family gift exchange.






Christmas Day provided more great food and additional gifts to open.




Sunday morning the house emptied out.
The Relatives had a safe trip back to Arizona, Mikayla and I went skiing and Tanya and Alexia stayed home to play with all their Christmas goodies (or nap).

Thank you, everyone, for making this such a wonderful and memorable Christmas.

~E

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