Frank's Letter April 22, 2009

Here's Frank's letter.... He's been transferred to Spanish speaking... he's so excited... and scared.

I had to laugh...

Prom 2009

This should have been posted on the 19th but I must have gotten distracted :)

Prom was last night. saginaw_annie went with a very nice boy, Tanner.

They went with a big group of friends and had a great time. For the day-date portion they played night games at a stake center with glow in the dark balls and stuff. Then they went to a neighbor's house for dinner. The only bad part was when one of the girls passed out at the danced and had to be taken to the emergency room by paramedics. Yeah. I guess that's pretty bad. But she's okay.

Saginaw Annie's in another competition

saginaw_annie has entered her picture of N in another contest. This one is sponsored by UVU. Here's a link to the website with the other entrants... HERE. She's loving her photography classes and is thinking of studying it in college. WOW. How fun would that be? And stressful. I think coming up with a killer photo would be so hard, day after day.

Anyway, for anyone interested, we are going to see her photo on display at the Bountiful/Davis Art Center on Thursday after the wedding breakfast. Anyone is welcome to accompany us down there... if they're open,. It is hard to tell and the website is useless. But I think they are there from 10-6 on Thursday.

17 Again

Yesterday I took saginaw_annie , Scout and N to see 17 Again. I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked it. I mean, yeah, it was embarrassing when Zac was making passes at his son's 37 year-old mom (don't ask--it doesn't make sense), but there was a really good story line about abstinence which is sorely missed in most of today's "teen" movies. And now, I have to admit, I am a fan of Zac's eyes.

Saginaw Annie's a Winner!

saginaw_annie entered the school photography contest and placed in the top 3, qualifying her to enter her picture in another photography contest. She got a call last Thursday informing her she'd placed in that contest, too. She was too surprised to ask details (like what contest it was, what the award was, etc...) but she's still pretty excited. Here's her picture...


To take this, she had H hold a lamp, illuminating half of N's face. Then, in Photoshop, she blew out the background and added some color to N's eye. Coolio.

David Archuleta

To quote Scout, "he sweet, sweet, like a chocolaty treat."

D.A. came in concert a few weeks ago and N wanted desperately to do. We tried to get tickets but they were sold out before we could log in even though we were sitting there on the phone AND computer as tickets went on sale. Sheesh!

But N didn't give up. For three weeks she checked to see if tickets were available. Finally the week of the show she got some tickets. She was THRILLED, So Dilbert and I, like dutiful parents (which we are) drove N and her friend Vern and saginaw_annie (aka BNLFan) and Scout to the E-Center. We kissed them and sent them off to their first solo concert. We dropped them off at 7, just in time for the opening singer, whom they hated. They said she was weird. They really liked the second act but it went so long... it was after 9 when David finally stepped on stage. But it was worth it... He was the cutest little white blob way down there on the stage... Did I mention their tickets were the second to last row at the top of the E-Center? Anyway, their pictures are worthless, but he was quite cute on the jumbotron.

In the meantime, Dilbert and I were sitting in the parking lot watching TV on my laptop. I hope this wins me parent of the year!

Frank's Letter April 15, 2009

Read his letter here!

Frank's Letter April 8, 2009

Last one, until tomorrow :) Read it here...

Frank's Letter March 25 2009

I've gotten a bit behind posting Frank's letters... so here's an old one...

Frank's Letter April 1, 2009

Read Frank's letter here!

In our lovely Easter bonnets

Easter was a lovely day. The sun was shining, an unusual occurrence as of late. Strangely, we had a missionary "farewell" rather than a traditional "Easter" service. Not that it was bad--of course it wasn't. It was just different. Anyway, Dilbert has been out of town since last Monday and he found out he had to stay until this Tuesday so he was in California in a hotel, rather than here with us. Since he missed it, I am posting a picture of the girls in their Easter dresses.
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This makes me remember the "olden" days when I used to make matching Easter dresses for my girls. It was hard to find something everyone would wear. it was also hard on the lit youngest ones who had the same dress for YEARS, thanks to hand-me-downs. Finally, and thankfully, we had to give it up. The sewing was also a problem--since I am NOT a good seamstress. I just don't enjoy it. I have a "skip it if you don't understand it" philosophy when it comes to sewing directions, a policy that makes success at the sewing machine doubtful.

I'm Baaaaack!

Last Saturday M tripped over the power cord of my laptop and broke it so I've been dark for a week. But finally I got a new cord so I'm baaaaak! Did you miss me? Don't answer that. My fragile ego can't handle it.

Anyway, a lot has been going on, as usual, so I will post about it as I can.

First, Happy Easter. It was been a very special season, made more so because BNLFan and I got to sing in this amazing choir for Lex de Azevedo's performance of Hosanna. It was so powerful... There just aren't words to describe it. When we all were singing "Alleluia" at the top of our lungs, it just reverberated off the rafters and was thrilling. If they perform it again next year, it is something you should NOT miss. There just aren't words to describe the feeling--the spirit--of hearing the words of Christ put to music. It moved me to tears every time.

The performance was held at the First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City. The architecture is awesome. BNLFan took some pictures...

First is the exterior. This is the front, as people lined up for the performance.


Inside is full of cool stained glass windows. The picture isn't great because we were trying to do it without the flash, but you get the idea...



We sang from the balcony and so we had a great view of the architecture details.

Oh, where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?

Yeah, it's been a crazy week--not that I've been doing much, it seems...

H and M had their run of Seussical. It was so darling, if I do say so myself. The director was so good with the kids and the staging was amazing. I took H and M's Activity Day groups to see the play on Saturday afternoon (the girls kept calling it a manatee, rather than a matinee. It is a legitimately confusing word... I mean how easy is it to confuse a large ocean dwelling mammal with an afternoon performance of a play?) Anyway, all this theater has compelled me and my good friend to commit to writing and directing a play at the elementary school next year. I know... I'm insane. We are talking about something like Into the Woods where we have a bunch of fairy tales strung loosely together. That way we can have lots of parts and we can rehearse them in smallish groups... We will be writing our own music, too. Yikes!

Friday morning was Guests and Goodies at the elementary school. I went as support while Gma and Gpa Christensen went to share a moment or two with H and M. They invite the Gparents to visit the classrooms after a "treat" of a muffin or slice of Great Harvest Bread, and share what it was like when they were in school. It's pretty cute. I was delegated the runner and I got to make emergency trips to the grocery store for restocks when we far exceeded the number of Guests projected. That's a good thing, though, and I was happy to do it. Then I spent three hours assembling fliers begging for donations for the PTO. It is a never-ending story without the cute boy on the flying dog--monster.

Late in the night after closing night, H threw up, finally sucumbing to the horrible virus that has been making it's rounds through our school. Dilbert stayed home with her while I went and battled Primary kids alone while the teachers went to a special combined RS/Priesthood meeting on Provident Living. Apparently the Primary leadership doesn't need the lesson? I told the teachers they were responsible for taking care of me since I took care of their kids while they were counseled. I hope that works...

H stayed home from school on Monday, too. Poor thing. Once the nausea passes, it turns into a raging cold. She's so congested! She uses a box of tissue in just a few hours. Unfortunately for me, she just leaves them lying around for me to pick up. Uggg...

Monday night BNLFan came running into my room beside herself. When she was leaving orchestra, her cello, securely strapped in her pretty red hard case, tipped over. When she got home to practice, the finger board had come off--that's a major thing on the cello... It's the part where you put your fingers on the wires to make the pitches. That meant I had a trip to SLC for Tuesday. Just as I was leaving to take it in to the repair shop, H called and said she was too sick to stay at school. I picked her up and we headed to Scoggins and Scoggins. I was glad for the company. We listened to a VERY eclectic music mix CD and talked about when the song came out and who the singers were... It was fun. After we dropped the cello off (a simple repair, it turns out, done in less than an hour for under $30), we went and sat in the parking lot of a Carl's Jr. so we could surf the internet on my laptop and watch The Amazing Race together. FUN!

As we left to go back to Scoggins, we drove through the old SLC neighborhoods around 13th East and 13th South. Those old bungalow-craftsman homes are so cute. We talked about what SLC looked like back in the time when they were built, 100 years ago. That was about the time Grammy was a little girl in SLC. What a fun time we had imagining her life in SLC at that time.

Yesterday was INSANE. I had a PTO meeting at 4, Arts Night at 5 for H and M (their classes sang and then H's choir sang), then BNLFan and I went to SLC to practice for the Hosanna performance. At the same time Scout was having an orchestra festival and N was at New Beginnings without parents (Scout and BNLFan had to miss New Beginnings, something that broke my heart to do). BNLFan also was supposed to direct the elementary school orchestra because Miss Lee had to be at the orchestra festival with Scout and the rest of the Junior High Orchestra (she's the TA for Miss Lee at the junior high). She had to miss that to go to SLC with me, as well as miss the LHS Film Festival, which she entered. We got home at 10 only to find Scout frantically trying to print an assignment for English (that had nothing to do with English, it was one of those "creative" assignments to help immerse them in Elizabethan times in preparation for reading Romeo and Juliet, which she read two years ago on her own). We finally were able to get the new printer installed at 12:30. What an exhausting night.

So I'm looking forward to today when I can sit and do nothing... Oh, wait... I need to do laundry (always) and clean bathrooms (always!!!) and the kitchen--hey, maybe I'll even make dinner today. Nah, I've got a perfect record this week 100% of "whatever you want nights" for dinner.