Chiawana Jazz Festival

Kate's jazz band played in their first festival on Saturday, October 31st at Chiawana High School in Pasco.  A bunch of middle schools and high schools participated from around the area.  The WVU jazz band came too and did a concert later on in the day.

 The middle school Jazz Band I played at 9:20 and played three songs.  Kate got to play the piano for two of them and a percussion shaker for the other song.

 Afterward, they got to have a clinic with the WVU jazz band director.  It was pretty neat to hear the kids' sound improve after just a few minutes working with him.

Halloween 2015

Halloween was fun this year.  It was much different from our "Halloweekends" in Los Alamos for the last several years.

I didn't even think about costumes until the start of Halloween week.  Kate and her friends had plans to dress up as nerds.  She spent some of her bread money on suspenders and a bow tie.


I saw an idea for Jack online and made his mask and shirt on Friday while he was at school.  Finished just in time for the ward carnival that night.  I thought I'd just use an extra white tshirt that we already had and paint some stripes on it and iron on some prisoner numbers.  The painting took a little longer than planned, but Jack loved it.

Ty was happy to reuse his Yoda costume from last year.  He did ask me to make his ears perk up so he "didn't look sad."  I ran out of time and he was happy being Sad-Eared Yoda.

I wasn't sure if Nick really understood the costume concept.  He wore a dinosaur Old Navy top to run errands with me on Friday morning, but didn't want to put it on later.  I went outside to take pictures of the kids before the ward carnival and Nick yelled that he needed a costume.  So we went to the dressup box and I started handing him hats and giving him options.  He was happy with the cowboy hat.

Watch out for these two!  They're very much alike, for better or for worse.

Friday after school, Kate had a Halloween recital at her piano teacher, Angela Jacobson's house.  She left early to go to the ward carnival with Claire.  Nick fell asleep on the way home from dropping Kate off at the recital (it was for piano students only).

Friday evening we went to the ward carnival at the church.  Kate took her friend, Claire.  Jack took his friend, Jack, and our neighbor, Jon.  I didn't get a picture of the boys.  But the lots of the girls planned to dressup as nerds.  They were pretty cute!  

Claire Zettlemoyer, Kate, Audrey Good, Kaylee Memmott, Brianna Brooks, Aleah Farris

These girls are best of friends. 

Saturday (Halloween day) was pretty busy with Kate's jazz band festival and Ty's football game and normal Satruday chores.  We finally got around to carving pumpkins at 3:00.  Kate got everything set up.  Jack and Ty gave up after a little while since Jon was over here playing with them.  

Ty chose his pattern, a bat, and I carved it for him.  I did easy faces for Jack and Nick's.  Nick thought it was great and kept talking about how his pumpkin had ears.  

Kate did a great job on her cat!  

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It was fun to carve the pumpkins that we grew in the garden. They were pretty easy to carve because they've been picked for a month now and we already had to throw eight or so away because they were rotting before we even picked them.

Nick fell asleep on the way to buy doughnuts at Krispy Kreme with Dave at 5:00.  I thought he'd wake up and want to go trick-or-treating.  He did wake up, but he wasn't happy, so he went back to sleep on the couch.  

Dave took the boys trick or treating with Blake Farris and his boys, Jackson, Weston, and Ty.  Aleah and Kate went around the neighborhood together without the boys.  Our neighborhood doesn't have streetlights, so it was pretty dark, so the kids were extra careful.  They got plenty of candy and even some full-size candy bars.

I stayed home and handed out candy.  It was fun to see kids from church come.  I gave everyone two pieces of candy, hoping that I'd get rid of it.  I bought way too much.  Nick woke up and I took him outside to see the jack-o-lanterns.  He said, "Let's go stand back inside." because it was raining and cold.  So we did!  He didn't care that he missed trick-or-treating.

The Farris family all came over after trick or treating.  Amber brought hot chocolate.  I'd made taco soup and hot dog mummies for dinner.  We had Krispy Kreme doughnuts instead of making our traditional doughnuts.  The kids played, mostly Lego wars (throwing legos at each other???) and then cleaned up while the parents and Aleah and Kate chatted.  The kids counted and organized their candy and ate plenty.

2015 Primary Program

The primary program this year was pretty neat, at least for me, since it's my first here in this ward in the primary presidency.

I made these invitations and the ward mission president printed them out on heavy paper in color.  They looked great.  The kids got to take them to hand them out to people.  I gave three out.  One of the Zettlemoyer's, our neighbor Angi Barillo, and to the Martinez family.  Angi and her son, Nate came!  The other two families had sick kiddos.  

I got to speak first.  Here's basically what I said:

My name is...  One of my younger sons asked me the other day if Jesus is really real.  Immediately a line from a primary song that we've been learning for the program popped into my head.  "I did not touch him or sit on his knee, yet Jesus is real to me."  I talked with my son about how we weren't alive when Jesus was on the earth, but I have faith that he really did live and that he still lives.  My faith in Jesus Christ grows as I pray to Him and my prayers have been answered many, many times.  I feel the sweet, warm, calm feeling of the Holy Ghost confirming to me that what I believe is true. 

In primary this year the theme is:  I Know My Savior lives.  We have been helping the children feel and understand the great love that our Savior, Jesus Christ, has for them.  We have been learning about his life and his commandments and how to be more like Him.  We are helping the children recognize when the Holy Ghost confirms to them that what we are learning is good and true. 

The children all wrote their speaking parts themselves.  They are sharing their testimonies of what they know to be true. 

Job 19:25 reads, "For I know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter-days upon the earth."  I know my Savior lives.  I know our lives are better as we try to be like Jesus Christ.  I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who knows us and loves us individually and who has a plan for us to return and live with Him again with our families.   

Here's Kate's part:  My name is Kate Judi. I like President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk in the October General Women's Meeting. He talks about how a girl named Eva stays the summer with her great aunt Rose. Great aunt rose is happy all the time even though some things in her life didn’t go as she planned.  This taught me that I can be happy even when things go wrong.

Here's Jack's part:  My name is Jack Judi. In the Book of Mormon we learn that "By the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things."  I felt the Holy Ghost when I went to General Conference."  

Here's Ty's part: My name is Ty. I will share my love with others by helping my friends.

I really enjoyed the program.  Mariann Medina put it all together and had the kids write their parts.  I added a few scriptures at the last minute after realizing that there were none in the script.  It was a neat meeting.  We talked in primary afterwards about how we felt the Holy Ghost.  The bishop challenged the kids to either/or write in their journal about what they felt or share their testimony with their family.  Kate and Jack did both!

In sharing time, the kids got to dress the teachers up.  The kids (and teachers) loved it!

Moving Day at 1960 Camino Redondo

December 1st was the day that we've been thinking of for months...the day we close on the sale of our home.  Kind of have mixed feelings about moving out from our first home that we've owned.  We've definitely put blood, sweat and tears into it and many, many hours of work. Lots of good memories there for sure!

Dave and I signed the closing papers a week before closing because Dave was supposed to go on travel.  His trip ended up being rescheduled, but at least we got the papers signed and out of the way.

The movers didn't show up until about 10:30 in the morning.  I tried to have every organized and ready for them to start loading.  The moving company had guys come pack most of our stuff the previous Monday and Tuesday, but the guys had to wrap all the furniture and get all the odds and ends.

The buyers came over at 9:30 because they couldn't get two of the burners of the stove to work during hte walk through the day before.  I tried to send them a picture when we got home on Sunday to show them that all the burners work, but they really wanted to come try it.  They knew that I didn't really want them to come, so thankfully they didn't stay long or ask any other questions.

The moving guys were still loading stuff in the truck when the kids came home from school. They tried entertaining themselves without any furniture or anything.  They ended up playing the computer for a long time.  They said they were hungry too, but luckily Mrs. Wilson next door brought over some really yummy brownies.

I was getting into a cupboard and Jack asked if he could have his vitamins.  Habit, I guess.  I thought it was funny, because he knew we didn't have any food left in the house.

Nick screamed for a long time.  He didn't have much of a nap, because he fell asleep in the car and then was woken up.  Or maybe he just liked how his screaming echoed in the empty house.

 Taking turns on the computer.

 Jack made this dragon stove at scout camp this summer.  We never tried it out, though we should have!  We ended up having to throw it away because the packers didn't pack it and we were running out of room trying to fit our stuff in the truck.  Jack agreed to throw it away.  It was pretty cool though.

Nick was happy when I was holding him...for a little while.

I snapped a few pictures of the totally empty rooms.

Living room

 Entryway...

 Hallway...

 I'm sad to leave this end of the hall closet.  It's so much nicer than the cupboards that we took out there this summer.

 Nick's room (aka toy room)

 Master bedroom...

 Kate's room...

 Kitchen...

I tried to snap a picture of the kids in front of the door, but Ty couldn't hold still.  I told him that he was making the pictures blurry by moving, so I think he was moving more.  

I thought it would be really sad to leave the house, but the new owners made it less sad for me.  They showed up at 5:40 ready to take over.  I'd texted our realtor to let him know that the movers weren't going to be done by 5:00.  They filled up the whole truck with our stuff and were trying to fit in the last few things.  I hope my piano survives because they put it in last with the odds and ends.

Anyway...the buyers didn't get the message that we were still there, so they showed up and waited outside for a little while.  Finally they asked how long we were going to be because we still had to go through the moving paperwork with the movers and they went for a drive for 15 minutes.

When we finished we gathered our few strangling things, like our modem, a bag of frozen food that I forgot to take to the Epperson's, a remote that I found under the heater, etc. and shut the doors and we left.

We took the kids to Quizno's for dinner.  After dinner Dave drove by the house and the new owners were moving things in already.   The new owners are an older couple that are moving from California to live closer to their grandkids.  I didn't really want to meet them because they'd been so picky about things in the inspection, but they seem nice, just very particular about things.

After dinner we headed over to the Epperson's to start our stay there for the next two weeks.  The kids hadn't done their homework yet, so we did that.  They explored the house a bit and then went to bed.

Thanksgiving Weekend 2014

The day before Thanksgiving, we loaded up a bunch of stuff that we're going to keep at Vaughn and Marianne's house or that we're giving to them in the back of the old truck and Dave drove it to UT.  The kids and I followed the truck the whole way in the van.  It was kind of hard to keep up with him.  Dave mentioned that he almost forgot he was driving an old truck.

The kids took turns riding with him.  Nick got to ride with him from Cortez to Mapleton (5 hours) and he was happy the whole time.  He loved being with Dad, being high up and being in the truck (he loves it!).  

It took us 11 hours to drive from our house to Vaughn and Marianne's.  We had to stop more often than we usually do to get gas and to check the stuff in the back.  

Once we got to Vaughn and Marianne's house we ate dinner and went to the store to buy stuff to make red hot jello.  I made the bottom two jello layers before bed and the top layer the next morning.

Thanksgiving morning I made four cookie sheets full of cloud light crescent rolls.  I was distracted or something because I forgot to put salt in one (or maybe two) of the batches.  I might have made a few too many rolls.

While we were getting ready to head to Coalville for Thanksgiving dinner, Ty ran upstairs and said that there was water downstairs in the hall.  It turns out that the upstairs toilet had a problem with not shutting off, Ty had plugged it and Kate had flushed it before she got in the shower and it overflowed while we was in the shower.  Water was gushing onto the floor, through the floor/downstairs ceiling and all over the basement.  Vaughn and Dave spent the next couple of hours sucking water up out of the carpet.

We drove the truck to Mike's house and we'll leave it there until we have a house to park it at in Washington.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with Mike's family, Vaughn and Marianne, and Melinda's family.  It was really yummy and the kids loved playing with their cousins.

Jack played basketball in the living room almost nonstop with whoever would play with him.

Ty bopped around and played with Jace and Ben off and on. The boys spent lots of time playing differnet computer games.

 Kate and Avery were inseperable and holed up in Avery's room doing girl stuff most of the time.

Nick found a chocolate pie on the table and helped himself with a few finger-fulls.  I gave him some on a plate and he was very happy!

Nick spent plenty of time like this...

After dinner and pie we sat around and talked.  We played PIT for a while.  Melinda's family went home, but the rest of us spent the night at Mike's house.

Friday we hung out while the kids played and played.  Maggie was sick, so we didn't get to see her.

We headed back to Mapleton and got stuff ready for dinner.  My parents and Emmalee were spending the week at theri basement apartment in Springville (it's really pretty close to Dave's parent's house).  They came over for dinner (BBQ hamburgers) and fresh out of the oven peanut butter cookies.  We played PIT together and it was really fun.

Avery, Jace and Austin came back with us, so the kids had a big sleepover on the family room floor.

Saturday morning we all went ice skating at Seven Peaks.  Melinda and family came too.  I got to ice skate for the first time in years.  Marianne and Vaughn kept an eye on Nick (who wasn't very happy about Dave and I leaving him to skate).  I didn't do as bad as I thought I would.  I didn't ever fall, but the kids and Dave are very good skaters and I definitely looked like a beginner.

We skated until about 3:00 and then we went to Chuck-a-rama for lunch.  One day while we were in UT, Jack asked me why we never have lunch in UT.  And he's right...we didn't really have a normal lunch any of the days we were there.

After Chuck-a-rama we went downtown Salt Lake to Temple Square and met Lissa and her family there.  It was fun to see them, especially since it's been two years since I saw Lissa last and even longer since I saw her kids.  The kids were together this summer though.  It was crazy busy because it was a pretty warm night, so everyone came to see the lights.  We tried to talk as we wound through people, but we ended up leaving after a while.  Nick screamed for a long time and his diaper had leaked onto my jacket.  Gross!

Dave started to not feel very well at Temple Square and was sick all night and wiped out on Sunday while we drove home.  Vaughn gave him a blessing before we started driving and luckily we didn't have to stop extra times because he was sick.  We made it home in 9.5 hours and only stopped once in Cortez.  I drove the whole way and the kids were pretty well behaved since Dave sat in the back with them half of the time.

We came home to our boxed up house and I tried to organize things so we'd be ready for the movers to come load our stuff into the moving truck the next morning.

Wish I would have taken more pictures of everyone and everything because it was a fun trip.

Bobcat Bolt

The kids got to run in their annual Bobcat Bolt fundraiser at school on Friday.  They ran around the field behind the school.  

Kate ran 7 laps.  Jack ran 10.  Ty ran 6.  I ran a few laps with each kid while I left Nick with a friend at the starting line.  Towards the end of the afternoon he caught on that I kept leaving him and he would cry if I set him down.  I had to walk with Kate instead of run.

General Women's Broadcast 2014

The satellite in our ward building was having issues, so they cancelled the dinner for the women and girls in our ward and the Los Alamos ward along with the broadcast.  Kate was bummed that it was cancelled, so we planned our own dinner.

We invited 15 other ladies and girls over for tacos, dessert and broadcast watching:  Juli, Anna, and Sophi Miller, Elise, Annika, and Ashley Nye, Sylvie & Nina Johnson, Elizabeth Allen, Ada Tripp, Kristi and Eliza Lamborn, Emmy Baker, and Angela and Kyra Vest.

Dave took Jack and Nick on a bike ride to Sonic for dinner and ice cream while everyone was over.  

Kate and I took a picture together after everyone left.  It's pretty special to be able to watch the General Women's meeting together with my daughter.  It was neat to watch it with our friends in our home and sing I am a Child of God together during the congregational hymn.

Saturday around Los Alamos

While Dave, Kate and Jack were hiking Wheeler Peak, Ty, Nick and I had the day to hang out together.  After cleaning the house and doing laundry, we headed downtown.

First stop was McDonald's for lunch.

We were planning on going to the pond to feed the ducks after lunch.  Sciencefest was going on, so after feeding the Ducks we looked around.  Ty liked watching the Legos Mindstorms and the big robots.

We snapped a picture on this chalk art.

 Then we went to the church and practiced the organ, went to Smith's,  then mowed the lawn.

Tonight Bob Judd called and told us to look outside.  We saw a bright light in the west.  Through the binoculars it looked like a weather balloon.