{P-R-O-M-enade}

Keyan had no plans to go to Prom at all. I'm not really sure why, but I was glad at the last minute he was able to go. He found out at 3:45 p.m. Friday that he was going (Prom was the next day)!!! We had 3 hours to find everything he would need (I had a softball game at 8:p.m. and he was going to his dad's). We tried 8 stores to rent or buy a tux. No such luck. Tuxes to buy were way too big and no one was renting tuxes at this point. We were told to go to Salt Lake (forget it). We just ended up getting a tux shirt and tie. We couldn't find a vest that worked either, the sizes or colors were all wrong. Chris had cuff links and we recently bought Keyan a nice suit jacket. No time for flowers. Luckily my meeting Saturday morning didn't last that long and I was able to get a corsage while they were horseback riding.

I think they all had a good time. Keyan ended up knowing almost everyone in the group, one of the guys is in our ward. They ate at Olive Garden and the dance was at the Provo Library. They do the full promenade, where they call out their names and the get to come down the front steps. Friends and family are all invited to come and take pictures. It's crazy to think Keyan is old enough to go to Prom!!!

{LooK-a-LiKes}

I can't even tell you how many times Chris has been stopped (even in the temple) by people trying to figure out who he is - trying to convince him that he is who they think he is - trying to get his autograph - or to tell him they saw him on TV the night before. I think it's hilarious!!!

Yesterday he got one that surprised me. A lady stopped him at the Republican Convention and thought he was/looked like Luis Scola, from the Houston Rockets.

Chris has been told that he is or looks like some of the following:

Chris Isaak

Rupert Everett

Jim Carey

Patrick Dempsey

Luis Scola

{1 gAmE tO go!}

Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE/Getty Images

86 - 82

Last night the Jazz won their 3rd game against the Rockets!!! Yes, you may have noticed that I failed to talk about their loss a few nights ago! Houston won 94-92. Game 5 is in Houston on Tuesday Night....OHHHHH I hope they win :)

The worst part about it is that when (not if!) they win, they move on to play the Lakers. Yikes! If they can beat the Lakers, they definitely deserve to win the championships. They'd still have to move on to the finals after the Lakers. It's probably a long shot, but I'll keep my fingers crossed!!!

{bAby TY}

(oldest and youngest cousins on my side of the family - Keyan and Ty)

Yeah! My brother and sis-in-law had a new baby boy this morning. He is absolutely perfect in every way! He has lots of brown hair and looks like a Christensen. It will be fun to see how much he changes in the next little while. Dad is doing great. Mom was doing great when we first got there. I think Cooper wore her out! He's a big brother now! I think it's going to be a huge adjustment for Mel and Coop. It's so exciting though. Oh ... Happy Day!!!

{i ♥ earth}

Happy EARTH Day!!!

♥♥♥

{2 doWn}

90 -84

The Utah Jazz pulled off a second game win! It's their first time to win their first 2 playoff games away from home. The next 2 games will be here in Utah (Thursday & Saturday). I can't wait!!!

{go JaZZ!}

Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images)

93-82

Utah Jazz beat the Houston Rockets in game 1 of the Western Conference Quarterfinals! (2008 NBA Playoffs at the Toyota Center)

{s O f t b A l l}

Yahoo!!! Softball season is here again. Chris and I play on my brothers coed team. I've been doing it for a few years and love it. We had our first game of the season last night. We totally killed the other team! What a great way to start the season. We didn't recognize a lot of the teams in our division so maybe they are all new teams. That would be good news for us.

{tHe gReeN mAcHine}

Do you remember these? They had them when I was little, although I never had one. We are looking forward to nice weather so we can hold our first annual BIG WHEEL RACE! It should be great fun! Don't think the little ones are the only ones who can race!!!

{deAdliEsT cAtch}

Why... oh why... oh why!

I hate the smell of fish.
I hate the taste of fish.
I don't like fishing.
I hate being cold.
I get sea sick.

...But I'm hooked on Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch!

I just can't seem to get enough ... Dutch Harbor, the Bering Sea, the Northwestern, the Time Bandit, the Wizard, the Cornelia Marie, the North American, the Early Dawn, and it's King Crab season! Yahoo!

(image RollingStone online)

Tonight was the airing of the 1st & 2nd episodes of season 4.

{aRt cHasiNg allY}

Ally just got a phone call saying congratulations on doing the art chase and that her name was drawn as a winner of play tickets to the Covey Arts Center. After the lady talked with Ally, she said that she didn't sound like she was an adult (imagine that!) and that the tickets were for an adult play, but that they were transferable. Hopefully there will be something good for Ally to see sometime soon. She is jumping up and down with a huge smile on her face. She is so very excited! :)

{KicKing cAts & KilliNg prinCessEs}

DISCLAIMER: No harm has come to any animals or princesses in the making of the following excerpt!

As a parent I am sure there are many times you turn to your spouse and say, "that is definitely your child."

So there is this cat and keeps coming around and bugging our cat. Today Chris says, "if it comes around I'll kick it, and if it comes back I'll kick it again, and if it comes ..."

Then Sam said that the other day Landon took the pool stick and chased the cat all the way to it's home, with it's owners kids watching him! I'm sure that was hysterical to see!

When Ally was around 2-3 years old she loved the Disney princess villains. She was telling us that she was going to kill princess Aurora and if she gets up she'll kill her again and if she gets up... (my sister tells this story the best)!

It's funny how it's not only your looks that your kids get from you, but parts of your personality, habits and behaviors, even at such a young age.

{Mr. DaNieLs}

Glad the new principle has a good sense of humor!

{New ScHooL}

Yeah for new schools!!!

Here are some pictures inside the one in our backyard.

Library

Pit (that's what the kids call it)

Courtyard

Kindergarten Bathroom

(Bathroom for Little People according to Sam!)

Classroom

Hallway

Skylight

{sWeeT}

Being 16 just got a little sweeter for Keyan!

You should of seen his perma-grin!!!

{pRinCess AuRoRa}

Rory (Greg & Sarah's daughter) turned 5 years old.

She was so very excited!

I think her favorite gift was her Princess Aurora sunglasses.

{faCe ConTorTioNs}

Dance competitions are crazy. For the past several years Sam has been going to dance competitions. When I went to my first one I didn't know what to expect. Boy was I in for a rude awakening.

Parents think their daughters are in beauty pageants with makeup a mile thick (ok, not a mile, but you get the picture). Why do dance teachers, and parents for that matter, think that dance costumes need to be completely inappropriate and slutty? These are just little girls. I've had moms comment to me that they wished they hadn't taken their husbands, and others that said that they wanted to cover their teenage son's eyes... Or why they think it's appropriate for these girls to listen to music that is degrading to their soul, let alone dance to it.

*** This is where I'm so thankful that I live in good ol' Happy Valley! Where our dance teachers believe in having higher standards and wanting the girls to have a good self esteem. They choose nice costumes and appropriate music. ***

But I have to say that the part that drives me the most insane is the face contortions! If you'd like to see an otherwise beautiful girl make faces that look so painful or painfully disgusting go to a dance competition. I'm not sure what the dance instructors have in mind when they teach the girls to do this, since on some teams they all do it. The girls try to overly wink at the judges and move their mouths in long O shapes. It looks disgusting. Up until this past competition I was happy that no one on Sam's team made these faces, but now... there was one girl that was doing it...grrr...if Sammy starts to do it I might just pull her out of dance!!!

{oPticLe ilLuSions}

1) Is this possible?

2)

3) Are the purple lines straight or bent?

4) Do you see gray areas in between the squares? Now where did they come from?

5) You should see a man's face and also a word...

Hint: Try tilting your head to the right, the world begins with 'L'

6) Take a look at the following picture. It is not animated. Your eyes are making it move. To test this, stare at one spot for a couple seconds and everything will stop moving. Or look at the black center of each circle and it will stop moving. But move your eyes to the next black center and the previous will move after you take your eyes away from it.... Crazy!!!

7)

{cOnfereNce}

I love conference weekend. I love that I can go to church in my pjs, if I choose! This was the first conference we've had with our new prophet, President Monson. It was neat to be part of a solemn assembly Saturday morning (even if I made my kids stand up at the wrong part, at first). It was neat to hear everyone bear testimony of President Monson. It still doesn't roll off my tongue quite right, but I'm sure it will over time!

I thought it was really cute when L. Tom Perry spoke. Ally got up close to the TV, then she looks at me and says, "He looks like President Hinckley." Then she declares, "He sounds like President Hinckley. He looks and sounds like President Hinckley!" With that in mind I had to agree with her.

So here is my quick run down: salvation is an individual matter, exhaltation is a family matter, spiritual experiences are building blocks of faith, strive to make each day better than the last, tradition should be based on righteousness and faith, never satisfied with anything less than your best, go forward - find the one, be a witness of gospel truth, there are 13,193,999 members, steps of gaining a testimony (1 - desire to have, 2- ask God, 3 - seek, 4 - share it), obedience enhances knowledge, Jesus is our mediator with the father, we need the help of the holy ghost to get through perilous times, Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, through faith and obedience the lord will help us, 5 ingredients for eternal life (faith, repentance, baptism, gift of holy ghost, and endure), must honor and respect all souls of all religions, spiritual rebirth comes through Jesus Christ, we will be blessed temporarily and spiritually when we pay our tithing, we will be blessed with miracles, All the apostles hold the keys of the gospel - President Monson is the only one with the authority to use all of them, all members can receive personal revelation, Satan is waging a war on us - we have the tools to win, the Lord continues to speak to us today, engage in meaningful prayer, do not lower our standards for any reason, live gospel courageously, press forward having faith, Christ's atonement conquers death, like the bible the book of mormon is additional evidence that the lord loves all his children, women are beloved of God, and go to the temple often.

{aRt chAse}

Provo City's Art Chase was a blast!
Apparently once a year Provo City has an art chase, it was on Friday night. This was our first time. You get a card that has a small portion of a piece of art that you are suppose to find. There were 9 pictures. You were suppose to find one in each gallery. Once you found it you get your card stamped or punched from one of the hosts at that gallery. Sam, Landon, Ally and I went. The kids had such a great time. They would go in and look around as fast as they could to find the art piece for that gallery. Then they would relax and get some goodies. Then we'd go outside and be entertained! Each gallery had food and entertainers (musicans, jugglers, one guy gave Landon a science lesson on fuel, I think, he wasn't part of the program!). One of the galleries had sticks and marshmellow so you could go back outside to the fire hand warmers and roast your marshmellow.

At the Covey Art Center the exhibit was artworks of Calligraphy, above is one that I enjoyed by Carole Taylor. Thanks David for sending it to me.

{oDDs & eNds}

As I was getting out of my car Monday, I was accosted by a man on a bike shouting, "Quit filling up your gas guzzling junk cars!" Now I realize that this wasn't a personal attack on me, but to everyone that was there at Costco filling up their tanks! At first I thought what a silly man. What good is yelling at a bunch of strangers going to do? I love, need, have to have my vehicle that is not going to change, however, it did lead to a discussion with Chris about oil prices. When we lived in Missouri there was a place between Joplin and Pierce City that we could buy gas for 88 cents, now, at the cheapest place in town it's $3.15. Seriously, has inflation gone up that much? NO, we keep hearing about how the big oil companies are reaching record breaking profits every quarter. Isn't there something that can be done? Our government can put regulations on everything, can't they cap the amount they charge their citizens for gas. I didn't believe the stories before how the gas prices are hurting consumers, but now several years later... people aren't spending as much money, because their necessities are taking up all that they use to spend on extra stuff, people aren't buying cars, which having Chris in the car industry makes for not a great few months, and now the truck drivers are on strike... surely something can be done. :(



Our backyard is a brand new elementary school parking lot. Last year they had a cornerstone laying ceremony for the school, where city and school board officials came and laid the first few bricks. Of course, the neighbors were all invited to help. The bricks were engraved with the school's name on them. Now that the school is complete those bricks are not there. They have been moved to pillars at the front entrance of the school. So I'm wondering what on earth was the point of having the cornerstone ceremony if you weren't even going to keep the bricks where they were?