catching up

It's been awhile since I posted. I've just gotten caught up in the busy-ness of life and have neglected the blog. With the kids back in school, everything else moves into full swing as well. During Christmas vacation I found out that Jared's piano teacher felt like she wasn't doing him any good anymore. This was a complete shock to us because he's really improved over the last 8 months of taking lessons. I think I mentioned in another post that we enjoy listening to him practice now because things sound good! Mark is finally on the bandwagon with me that Jared really should not be allowed to quit taking lessons yet. I was fortunate enough to get him set up with a new teacher with just a couple of phone calls. She is quite talented and is very used to teenagers and tries to help her students enjoy what they are playing. The only downside so far is that I have to drive him to lessons in the neighboring town rather than just sending him down the street. I'm crossing all my fingers that this situation will be positive and long-lasting.

Basketball takes a good number of hours during our week now. Jared started his recreation season and has a game and one practice each week. He's not totally thrilled with his team because he only knows 2 or 3 of the other players. All of his other friends wound up on a different team --together. Stinky. Anyway, he's making the most of the situation and he gets a lot of playing time. That's good.

Ryan is still on his competition team, but they had 14 kids on the team and decided to split into two teams. The teams practice together, but play separately. The head coach works with both teams and then has an assistant for each team to help him. Originally the idea was to split the kids into "even" teams -- ability-wise. I have felt from the get-go that the teams were not split that way. When the teams played each other last week it was obvious to anyone that they weren't quite that well matched! I was quietly furious! Another downside to the team split was that one of the kids that got assigned to Ryan's team had to quit because of health issues, which left Ryan's team with 6 kids! Let's just say those 6 kids totally get a workout at every game. I think Ryan's physical conditioning is top notch because he plays so dang much of the game! This is great however, because that's where Ryan wants to be (in the action) and it gives him lots of playing time so he can develop his skills. Also, since he plays the point, he gets lots of leadership opportunity. He practices twice a week and plays one game each week.

Jacob got his first "shot" at basketball last week. He goes to the rec center each week to participate in the instructional league. This is great. He plays with kids his own size, learns ball handling skills, and all the baskets are lowered so he can actually make the baskets!

Jared and Mark went to Klondike last weekend. The first weekend that the mountains have had big snowstorms in what seems like forever! Oh yippy. After convincing the scout leaders that whoever drove up must drive trucks and not little wimpy cars (like ours) they were off. Apparently it did snow quite a bit during their stay and the drive home especially was tedious. They managed to stay warm and relatively dry and had a great time. I'm glad they're home safe and sound.

Mark celebrated a birthday -- if you can call it celebrating. He didn't want presents (so that's exactly what he got -- nothing!) I made him a sour cream lemon pie (one of his favorites) which he ate little of because he's trying harder to eat healthier (and he's doing a good job!) and he was fighting off a cold. And because of the cold, he didn't want to go out to dinner or do anything either. What a party animal.

Ryan is knee deep in his science fair project. His project was finding out how to get an avocado to ripen more quickly than just leaving it sit on the counter. We tried about 6 different things and the winner was wrapping it in tin foil. Even then it took about 48 hours to ripen. Now we have to get all the graphs done and the display board put together. Science fair projects are always "parent projects" -- ick.

Another new "Ryan" thing that started this month is his participation in a Lego Mindstorms class that is being offered at the school. He gets to build a lego robot and compete with other schools in robotics competitions in the spring. But here's what most motivates him: a day off of school to go to Lagoon in the spring! To compete with his robot AND ride a few rides!

My parents were able to come down and spend a couple days with us a week or so ago. It was nice to have them all to ourselves and for them to actually be here for a length of time, instead of the usual 30 minutes or less that they spend when they stop in on their travels to somewhere else. They were able to spend time with the kids reading, playing and watching their basketball games. I'm glad they were able to come.

We all went to the BYU vs. Colorado State mens basketball game a couple weeks ago. It was an early game and they had a family promo for cheap chair seats. The kids love being there. I always enjoy being on that campus too. It's family friendly, clean, and just has a good feeling about it. Not all my memories from BYU are especially happy ones, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to go to school there. The kids got an extra vacation day recently since it was the end of the term. We were going to take them skiing, but the snow wasn't that great and Mark needed to renew his drivers license (which takes a whole day now, thanks to our state lawmakers -- this is a subject for another post), so we decided to check out the new Boondocks. We bowled one game and then the kids wanted to spend the rest of the money ($15) on arcade games. They had a great time and love those silly tickets they get to trade in for lame prizes!

I've been spending a lot of time doing RS things this last week or so and it's just going to get more intense over the next couple of weeks. I'm trying very hard not to get burned out. Today I was finally able to get the kitchen floor mopped --yay -- something that's been on my to-do list for over a week now. I think this is a good stopping place for my catching up post. Besides...I've got to go pick up carpool now. And squeeze in a run before helping kids with homework. And come up with something for dinner...