New tradition in our family…get up early on a beautiful summer morning in August, head down to the nearby park and watch 15 hot air balloons inflate and take off! Oh, and then head a little further down the street for some Hagerman’s Bakery french toast. Fun and yummy.
Our last family photo was taken in January 2006 just before Loren left for his mission. Now that we have everyone home and have added Anne to our family, we knew it was time to take a new one.
This time we thought it would be fun to take it on our own front porch. We think it turned out great! Elliot needed his senior pictures taken, so we took a few other group and individual shots as well, which you can see by clicking here or by clicking on the “Portrait” category above.
Every summer Clark looks forward to a week long Jazz Camp where he gets to play jazz piano to his heart’s content! This year he was also featured playing the Keytar!
Now that Clark is 14, he also got to go to our ward youth conference with Elliot. This year they went to Snow College. They especially enjoyed the ropes course, and the water games. The highlight was getting to see the Manti Pageant.
Clark is finally 14 and old enough to go to EFY! We signed him up with his friend Nicholas and down to Provo they went for a week of fun away from the fam. He is on the back row in the brown t-shirt next to their counselor, Justin.
As of today, Madeleine is the proud owner of her first car — a Ford Focus. After crunching numbers and thinking long and hard about it, she decided she needs a car to be able to take the jobs she wants. She spent the previous week doing research and making phone calls and then today she came up and spent the day with her Dad test driving, buying and financing the car. Needless to say, she is super excited!
Five kids down…only one left to go!
Every year during the school graduation ceremony, Waterford gives a book award to the top male and female student in the 11th grade. With a rigorous class schedule that included AP Calculus, AP US History, AP Art and Honors Spanish, Elliot managed to earn a straight 4.0 each semester and was chosen to receive the award. He didn’t know he had been chosen until they called his name and he got to go up and walk across the stage at Abravanel Hall!
After many many rehearsals, our stake put on three performances of Broadway Our Way; a collection of various numbers from several well known Broadway musicals (see playbill). The people in charge did an excellent job and definitely had a lot of vision! I’m still impressed with how well they pulled the whole thing off. They built a revolving stage and an additional stage out on the gym floor with surround seating.
In Fiddler on the Roof, Alan, Clark and I were townspeople (a papa, a mama, and a son). Clark was front and center linking arms with another guy as they took turns tossing each other into the air.
In The Music Man, Alan and I were in the opening scene when Harold Hill first arrives in River City on the train. (We both had speaking parts!) Then we were all townspeople and then Alan turned into a quartet member and I turned into a Pick-a-Little lady where I got to do a lot of fast singing and dancing (not easy for an old lady like me!)
Clark was also in the Freedom number from Shenandoah, where he got to dance barefoot and swing a cute girl around, eventually landing her on his hip!
It was very fun and we are glad we did it, but it was also very time consuming with 3 rehearsals a week. The best part was meeting and making new friends throughout the stake. Thanks to all the family and friends who came to see us!
We have another BYU graduate in the family! Phillip graduated April 22nd with a BA in Graphic Design and a minor in English. It was fun to go down to Provo for the festivities. Thursday was the big commencement ceremony in the Marriott Center. By coincidence we ended up sitting fairly close to Phillip and were able to find him and wave to him. Elder Richard G. Scott was the main speaker and gave an excellent talk.
Friday we attended the College of Fine Arts convocation in the DeJong Concert Hall, which had probably only 75 graduates on the stage, and yet we were never able to find where Phillip was sitting! We took some pictures afterwards and then headed home for a celebratory dinner.
