Basketball
Madeleine made the middle school girl's basketball team. I never gave you the game schedules for volleyball, so I'm doing better this month by remembering the basketball schedules. Clark and Elliot start Dec. 6th, and I will put their schedules here when I get them.
Music
Tess and Madeleine both performed in school orchestra concerts and did great. Madeleine was even featured as the pianist in the piece "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." I wish I could play two instruments. . . . Tess is going to get the opportunity to do the same thing in her next concert.
Elliot performed in a Fall piano recital, playing "Hedwig's Theme" from the Harry Potter movie. It was a challenging piece and he worked really hard to get it learned and memorized. Having heard it several hundred times, however, we as a family are grateful he is moving on to Christmas music!
This year we had Thanksgiving dinner with the Browns. Nice in the fact that my house stayed clean and all we did is make pies and rolls, not so nice in the fact that we didn't have leftovers for days! Oh, well . . . it was very relaxing, which is what I need after having a group of thirty or so every other year. Pat and Wally put on an excellent dinner (they actually did spare us a few leftovers!) and we had a really nice afternoon -- I think Grandpa did too; he took a really loud nap!
College Kids
Loren and Phillip came home for Thanksgiving (bringing a friend from BYU) and spent 5 whole days with us. We saw two movies, played games and put Christmas up. It was really fun having them home for that long of a time. The problem was letting them go again! Tess and Madeleine miss them the most as Phillip and Loren are a whole lot more fun to joke around with than Alan and I are. They both have been working really hard this past semester and are really enjoying school. The art classes seem to be the favorites -- surprise, surprise. They took some pictures of their artwork which you can find on their individual pages. Finals are coming right up and then half of their first year will be over. How is it that time goes so fast?
Well, after much planning, designing and patient waiting, we have a new study. For years we have wished that we had more storage and better work space. We are so excited with how the project turned out. It kind of dragged on -- what project doesn't? But, it was worth the wait! So I write to you from my new wonderful work space.
We have a few odds and ends photos this month. That first early snowstorm brought enough snow to have a lot of fun in and since Phillip was home for the weekend, he went out and played with the little boys, creating a little snow art while he was at it.
The fourth grade had "Utah Day" and Elliot got to dress up and do fun activities all day. Isn't it nice that the Indian Halloween costume can double as a mountain man costume only two weeks later?!
Clark's first grade class had their class assembly on Veteran's Day with a very patriotic theme. They even had a small orchestra to accompany them which included Madeleine as a violinist. The teachers always do a really nice job with the assemblies. They are always well done, short and sweet.