Music Recital

Our 6 year old daughter has been taking music lessons in the "Let's Play Music" program. This was her second year in the program. They first start out learning the solfeg (do, re, mi, etc.) and rhythms and intervals on a small set of bells and also learn to sing and match pitch. The second year this is expanded and they also start learning piano. I'm amazed at how much she has learned and she loves it. Here are a few shots from the evening.





Pupil and teacher.

His First Art Show

Our 3rd grader participated in his first art show this Spring held at BYU. His teacher selected his Middle Eastern Art to display. There were samples from students in many media and many grades. We were quite impressed. This piece (his is right above his head) started with the student's name in Arabic done in glue and then the students made other designs around it. Covered it once dry with foil and burnished it down then rubbed with stain. He was proud of it. We are glad the art teacher is exposing them to so many styles of art.

My Niece the pig, found guilty

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

My cute little niece made the news.

Spring Break 2010 Slideshow

We took the week of Spring Break and traveled down to Southern California. We had earned a free day in Disneyland for doing a day of service, so we happily used it. And fortunately my Aunt and Uncle allowed us to stay with them only a few miles from Disneyland. It was very generous of them. Then we went to Legoland the next day. We'd advise going a week other than a Spring Break week. The kids had fun but the lines were far too long (an hour wait for even the tiniest ride). The Lego Mini-Land was by far the most impressive thing of the day. And each of our kids had saved up money to buy a set of legos at the end of the day...even our daughter. We traveled to stay with my cousin and her family and had a great time visiting with them. The next day we spent at the beach with my cousins and then traveled down to the San Diego area the day after that. We ended our trip with a visit to the USS Midway aircraft carrier, the Mormon Battalion Visitor Center in Old Town, the Windan Sea Beach, and the San Diego Temple. It was a wonderful trip. Here's a slideshow of it.

Easter 2010

On the Saturday before Easter, we always have a picnic and egg hunt with family usually out on West Mountain. This year, however, the rain/sleet of the morning prevented any prolonged outdoor picnic. We kept all but the egg hunt indoors at Nana and Papa's house. We still had a good time.
Dying the Easter Eggs.
A perfect indoor activity.
Ahhh. Which Color to choose? Our daughter LOVED eating the boiled eggs later through the day.
Some Rice Krispie chocolate dipped easter eggs.
The egg hunters with Nana (the race starter).
The start of the egg hunt...traditionally done with a red bandana.



Trying to warm up the day with a sunny flower.

Then on Easter Sunday, the kids woke up and found their baskets and found that it had snowed 7 inches. It looked more like Christmas than Easter. But we still had a great day enjoying LDS General Conference together indoors. (Unfortunately, our youngest ate WAY too much candy that day and got sick that night from it...lesson learned).

Martial Arts (Kyukido) Belt Graduations- Again

The Boys both graduated Martial Arts Belts in March. They had to show sparring skills and their forms.
Our oldest son is in the red sparring gear, above.
Our second son here is in the navy blue sparring head gear.


Congrats kids!

Kyukido Tournament

Our 2 boys participated in a Kyukido (Martial Arts) tournament a week ago. Our oldest didn't score as well as he had hoped, but as you can tell from his sparring opponent, he was a little shorter (therefore, the 2 point head kicks were out of range for him, but not for her). He did really well though in sparring and forms. He was within a tenth of a point of the other 2 opponents. Our youngest son had a great time...winning the sparring competition and coming in second in forms. It's a little surprising that he won the sparring seeing as how he'd close his eyes when kicking or getting kicked. Notice the shut eyes in the picture...funny.




Our boys with their friend after the competition.