Drama Club 2019

Drama Club 2019 was another successful year! This is Laiklie's last year of drama club and I have committed to helping one more year then I will be finished as well. We did Lion King Jr. for the show this time and we had a great turn out. The kids worked SO HARD and did an amazing job! We had some great little voices and the costumes and animals were amazing! Laiklie got to be Sarabi, Simba's mom and Mufasa's wife. She is the tallest kid in the entire elementary so she towered over Mufasa. Hahaha! No big deal! Most of the girls towered over the boys in the play. It's just the age for that. Laiklie did great on her lines and loved spending Wednesdays with her friends at drama club. 

The week of the play is probably my most stressful week every year. I don't sleep, I am constantly going over all the little details and the songs are never ending running through my head. Being a co-director of 75 kids and trying to put on 4 successful shows is CRAZY to say the least. I am the backstage lady that makes sure sets and kids are where they are suppose to be. I run the lights and the curtains and crowd control. It is always high stress.....but it always turns out amazing. Such a great feeling to be a part of something that affects so many little lives in such a positive way. I'm so blessed!

Boise Dance Competition 2019

On February 15th the girls and I headed to Boise for the annual dance competition. Oakley decided since it was her car she got to drive. (Can you see me rolling my eyes?!?!) I told her since it was a clear sunny day she could drive to Pocatello where we were going to stop for lunch. When we got to Pocatello though she insisted on still driving. I, of course, gave in. She is actually a really good driver for the most part. About an hour of so outside of Pocatello we hit a TERRIBLE snow storm. It was blowing snow like crazy. We passed several cars off the rode and a semi on its side. The road was covered in slush that was constantly jerking us around. Oakley wanted to continue to drive so I said a little prayer and let her. She did amazing through the storm....she did scare me to death one time passing a semi when the slush about jerked her off the road and she jerked back. AHHHH!!! But she really did a great job. 

 We stopped in Jerome to use the bathroom and I asked her if the car needed gas. She said no, that it didn't. To tell you the truth I'm not sure if she even checked the gauge. She had gassed up that morning so I think she assumed we were fine. About 20 minutes outside of Mountain Home I heard a "Ding" and asked her what it was. IT WAS HER GAS GAUGE SAYING WE HAD ONLY 20 MILES OF GAS LEFT! What?!?! We were seriously in the middle of no where. We were too far past Mountain Home and still 40ish miles from Boise. Oakley was FREAKING OUT! I did get a pretty hilarious video of her freak out! Hahaha. She said, "I think we need to pray." I kind of giggled and she said, "No Mom, I'm Serious, I think we need to pray!" HAHAHA! Heavenly Father was watching over us that day and all of the sudden in the middle of no where when we were down to 12 miles left in the tank there was this little gas station. A definite tender mercy of the Lord. Once we got to the gas station she was ready to let me drive. About running out of gas scared her far more than the snow storm. :) Poor girl! 

 

 When we pulled into the hotel parking lot I asked Laiklie if she remembered to bring up her leatherish pants that she had tried on that morning and needed for her long duet with Ellie? We started digging through the bags, and NOPE, they were still on her bedroom floor at home. So we ran to Walmart as quick as we could and found a pair of leggings for her and Ellie that we made work for that night. We've learned with this kind of thing we just have to improvise. The girls danced well.  It was a great first competition of the new year. Oakley lost her tap part way through her freestyle and was suppose to be on stage to do her acapella  just after. I ran to the car looking for another pair of clogging shoes while her and Kasandra tried putting the tap back on the pair she was wearing. They successfully got it back on just in time for her turn on stage, only to have it fly off part way through the acapella. So sad! She didn't even finish the acapella, just kind of walked off the stage. Such a bummer! She got a 4th overall on her freestyle even with losing a tap so that was great! Such a fun weekend to be together. I love being the mom of these girls.

Gymnastics

Rhett and Laiklie started gymnastics again the summer of  2018. Rhett picked it back up SO FAST and in no time was back to almost an advanced level.  Laiklie also picked up on old tricks she had learned quickly and since her cousin Sage did it with them it was more of a party for those two each week than anything. ;) Because Rhett and Laiklie both loved it during the summer we decided to do a class throughout the school year. I realized the other day that I have a million videos of all their tricks, but no pictures and I definitely want to remember this time of their lives so here are a few pictures.  All the pictures are blurry....taking a good picture as their body flies through the air at top speed is almost impossible. hahaha. 

Brace Face

And just like that Rhett is finished with braces!!! Hallelujah! He only had to wear them one year. He got them on in January 2018 and off January 2019. Such a great smile!

Arizona 2019

In February Ryan and I will have been married 20 years, TWENTY YEARS! The past few months have been L.O.N.G. with several new challenges thrown our way and I've been telling Ryan that I've got to get out of here! We know February will be crazy with calving so we found 4 days we could leave and jumped in a rental car. We had planned to go as far as St. George, UT and it rained on us the entire drive there, but then the clouds left and the sun came out so we decided to just keep going. We made it to Las Vegas the first night and then went on to Sun City and Mesa the next day. We stopped in Sun City to visit our sweet neighbor Luella. Ryan rents her farm and we have become good friends. It was so fun to visit with her and pick some yummy fruit off her trees. We came home with all the oranges, mandarin oranges, lemons and grapefruit we could carry. We then went onto Mesa were we spent 2 days with Ryan's parents who were down at their condo and his grandparents who are still serving a mission down there. It was SO GOOD to just sit and visit. It was nice to feel the sun beat down on us for even just a couple days. I told Ryan when we left my old requirement was that we went somewhere I could wear my flip flops. 😎 We drove the entire way home in one day trying to beat a snowstorm...which was exhausting, but I love road trips with Ryan. We remember why we fell in love. We've had 20 great years, here's to 20 more!

 

Engaged!

In September my nephew Kaden moved in with us. He got a great job just after he got home from his mission and we just happened to live closer to it than his parents. So he stayed with us during the weeks and went home on the weekends. Sometime the end of October he met Abbey who was attending BYU-I and apparently she was the girl of his dreams because in January just after he moved out and up to college they got engaged. He is such a great kid! We are so excited for them. He still comes and stays with us off and on and we love having him here! They asked Rhett to do their engagement pictures. He did a great job. These are the unedited ones...still looking great without editing!