By the way...

Why are Caitlin and I (meaning Amanda) the only ones who ever post to this thing anymore? I feel like she and I are having a conversation amongst ourselves, but this is supposed to be for everyone!

I Finally Understand What Dad Meant...

...when he said he hated seeing all of our family events through black and white. He said that once when he was referring to filming everything that went on in our family and therefore viewing everything through the lens of the camera. Neither Andee and I were into taking pictures this year at Christmas because it just isn't as fun that way! Regardless, here are some of the few snapshots we did take:Dad looking at his new poop book.
Grandma and Grandpa opening their presents.
Caitlin and Amberlie as shepherds.
Ruby and Me (my motivation for posting this picture is simply because I look AMAZING!)
Kendra opening her bouncer.

Cutie Kendra

Here are some recent pictures of Kendra playing with mommy and having a ball!

Utah Trip

Last weekend Hannah, Caitlin, Amanda, and Dad went up to Utah to visit Trevor, Jamie, and Kendra, and to see the lights at Temple Square. Even though it snowed all day Saturday and the drive to Salt Lake was slightly treacherous, we had a great time! Amanda, Hannah, and Caitlin spent Saturday-day at the salon where Jamie's sister works. Jessie (sp?) gave us all new -do's and we look great! In the evening we went to Salt Lake and visited Temple Square, and then we ate dinner at the Mayan Adventure restaurant in South Jordan. Kendra loved the show! It was a really fun trip.

(Above picture) Hannah holding Kendra in her snowsuit.



We bought Kendra this beanie and mittens at the dollar store. The set was for a toddler, but we figured it would still work--and it did! Isn't she cute?







Here's Kendra all bundled up in her stroller. Even though it was cold, she didn't fuss at all (unless the stroller stopped moving). She was so good!




(Below) Here's a picture of us freezing our bums off!















A picture Amanda took of the temple.

Blithe Spirit

This weekend was Hannah's play, Blithe Spirit (for a synopsis of the play, visit http://www.queens-theatre.co.uk/synopsis/blithespirit.htm).
Hannah played Elvira, one of the lead female roles. She did a fantastic job (of course!) Here are some pictures of the performance:

Hannah as Elvira and Justin as Charles.

Hannah, Justin, and Carissa (as Ruth)

Hannah, Justin, Carissa, and Mvnte (as Madame Arcati).

Good times were had by all!!!!

Hmmm...

Well..since no one has posted a new blog lately, I decided I would. So this is what has been going on with my life lately.

Two girls recently moved into our ward. This is us on Halloween. Deandra was an inflatable chef (she's the tall one on the left) and Ashley was a pirate. We've actually become pretty good friends and it's fun hanging out with them.

We had our Cross Country Banquet last Thursday, and it was a lot of fun. It was extremely long...but a lot of fun. It's fun being with the whole team again.

I got my report card yesterday, and my grades were:
Spanish: A
Science: A
Computers:A
Fashion:B
Algebra:B
Algebra:B (yep I have 2 algebra classes)
English:B
and P.E.:A

I'm very proud that my first 9 weeks of High School have gone so well.

Thats pretty much all thats going on with me!!

Fortune Tee

Aunt Amanda bought this shirt for Kendra! It comes in a little fortune box and you open it and the shirt says... A surprise will appear in my pants! We all got a good laught out of it! It is so funny! Thanks Amanda!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

We had our first official snow of the season! I personally think it is still way to early!

Rice Cereal!!

Kendra wasn't so sure the first time she tried rice cereal. She HATED it! She is finally to the point where she loves it now!

We finally got the high chair out, it makes it much easier to feed her with it! Thanks Aunt Amanda!
She is starting to get the hang of a spoon, she still spits food everywhere though! You wouldn't believe how far she can get it to go!
I think more cereal ends up on my face and all down my front than actually in my mouth!!

It's Halloweeeeeen time!

Tonight we decided to decorate for Halloween. In the first picture, Caitlin and Dad are decorating the bush out front. Later, we all picked out our Halloween costumes from the plentiful supply...

The seasons what?!?!? Over?!?!?!

Yep you heard it right, Cross Country is officially OVER for the open season. They are now going to train only varsity, which we found out today on the bus, Mallory is now a part of. Sure I'm not sad that we don't have to practice every day in the blazing heat, but it still is pretty sad to know that the closest team I have ever been a part of is splitting up into other little groups and doing other sports. Yeah, I know its just a sport and I still have 3 years ahead of me but Cross Country is really like no other sport I ever played. I'm kind of just sitting here at home bein' all depressed that the season is over, and Mom, Dad, and Hannah are at Best Buy. It's just amazing to see how far I have come and how much effort I have put into the last few months. And all that just makes it harder to believe that it is over. Well there's just on thing for me to do and that is just get better and better for next year!

My Turn on the Couch

This week has been ridiculously stressful. Looking back on it, I can't pinpoint what exactly made it that way; all I know is that I was on the verge of tears for a good portion of it. Most of it has to do with school and my internship. I'm supposed to order graduation announcements and my cap and gown (Andee is encouraging me to, anyway) but I'm terrified that I will jinx myself and will end up with another NAU debacle on my hands and I definitely can't go through that again. That explains, in good part, my paralyzing fear of finishing my professional paper because while at NAU I became convinced that I am an idiot who can't write and despite large amounts of evidence to the contrary, that fear always sits in the back of my mind. Then there is the client situation. Today I reached a milestone: I hit my 400th client hour. That means I only have 100 more client hours to get before I graduate, but when I calculate it all out in my mind, I wonder if I'm going to accumulate 100 hours in just two months. It seems like a reasonable feat, except when you consider that clients often cancel, re-schedule, or no-show and I can't do much about it. So then there is the constant internal struggle that I go through daily. A part of me really wants my clients to show up so that I can get my client hours, but there is another part of me that hopes for cancellations, because then I will get a reprieve. I got 21 client hours this week, which is record-breaking for me and totally awesome, but I am also completely exhausted. Seeing clients tends to be very tiring and then there is the fact that I have casenotes, assessments, and consultations to do for every session. I guess I've just been feeling overwhelmed and tired, which is why I'm taking this time to be "on the couch" myself tonight.

Huntington Beach Trip!

While Hannah was in Utah, I was in Huntington Beach for a race. Amanda, Mom, and Dad all came to see me race, and we stayed an extra day. So these are some of the pictures we took from there.
The first one is Mom, Dads, Amandas, and my shadows on our walk on the beach.
The next one is of Me, Kelsey, Alexa, and Bree on our way to the beach at night. Our coaches said that as long as we stayed together we could go to the beach and hang out for a half hour. So we did and it was tons of fun. Our hotel was only 5 minutes from the beach so it was pretty cool.
The next one is of me and Mom after my race. It was a full 5K and was full of hills..which sucked. Also, there were 258 girls in my race, which also sucked. Mallory's time was only 2 minutes from mine, and still 75 girls got in between us. It was a crazy race!
The last one is Amanda holding her turd rock. Yes, the turd rock. She found it on the beach and said "this rock looks like a turd!" and picked it up. She later put it on moms pillow as a joke, and found that it didn't resemble a turd when it was dry.
Well that's all for the Huntington trip!

The leaves are changing!

We went for a walk up the canyon today and saw the leaves changing. The only problem is that it went from really hot to really cold almost overnight and most of the leaves just died without changing, but we found some.
Just a family picture in the canyon.
Kendra sitting by herself on a rock.

Hannah's Cedar City Trip

I went to the Shakespearean Festival this weekend to compete. On Thursday we saw The Moustrap, which was awesome. On Friday it was REALLY windy, and we performed our ensemble scene. Friday night we went to Art, which was also very good. On Saturday were the individual events, and after the closing ceremonies we came home. Mrs. Sax was really angry and weepy that we didn't win anything (she's crazy, what can I say?) but that's not the point of it. The point was to just go up and have fun, which is what my roommates and I did.

This is our ensemble scene on Friday. Left to right: Cody, Renee, Fay Rae, Mitch, Me, Carissa, and Mvnte (sounds like "Monday". It's stupid, I know).

This is us before our rounds on Saturday. About ten minutes later it started raining and snowing, so I was glad that I'd stolen the cloak before we went up there. (The picture was supposed to be of just Fay Rae and I, but Tabitha ran into the picture between us. Oh well.)

More Cross Country stuff!!

Well, the first picture of me, Mallory, Kelsey, and (kinda) Alexa,
is from Laughlin. Yep, thats mostly what we did. Take pictures,
run, and eat. We took lots of pictures in the mirror, and I liked
this one the best, and it would have been even greater if Alexa
had been in the picture. The best thing about all these mirror
pictures is that when we were done getting ready for bed,
and we didn't have to go to sleep for another 20 minutes,
Coach Weidknecht (or coach W) walked in while we were taking
these interesting mirror pictures. She just looked at us, said
"In bed in 20 minutes!" laughed, and walked out.
The second picture is of me and my friend, Kristyn, running to
Boulder for the first time. Boulder is the big rock that we are in front
of, and it is 6 miles from the school. They had only ran to Boulder
once before that entire year, and that was when we were in Yellowstone,
so I had never ran there without stopping before. It's a tradition that
when someone makes it to Boulder their first time, they have to take
a picture in front of it. Kristyn and I were lucky enough that it was
not a very hot day so we weren't that sweaty, but we were still tired.
So that's the story of the Boulder.

These are two of my favorite artistic photos that I took while we were in San Francisco. I was feeling bored tonight so I thought I would post them.

This first photo is of a rose that was in Golden Gate Park. They had a big rose garden with lots of different varieties of roses. I really wanted a picture like this because when I was taking Multivariate Statistics, the computer that I used in our classroom had a closeup of a tulip as the wallpaper, and I really liked it. I could never find that picture to put on my home computer, though, so I decided to take my own.

This other picture was taken at a mall that was close to where we stayed, in the Embarcadero district. I just thought the sign looked cool.

Our FHE

Jamie decided that she wanted some fish, so for FHE we dug up her old fish tank and cleaned it out. Then went to Petsmart and got the cheapest fish we could find. Kendra likes to look at them.
Also for FHE we watched Kendra do her favorite thing. DROOL! She loves it. It is getting worse by the day. We can feel a tooth coming in. (we think) Just look at that shirt, so wet with today's drool.

Andee's FHE Lesson

For Andee's FHE lesson, he taught us how to check the oil, tire pressure, and wiper fluid in Hannah's car. Caitlin is checking the oil, while Hannah bursts out in laughter, Amanda takes a refreshing sip, and Andee supervises.
Mom is busy opening a new toy for her new companion Lord Barkley. Mom also commented that this dog is not part of our family, yet she continues to attempt to teach it new tricks.
Andee shows Cowgirl Caitlin how to fill a tire with air.

The Producers

Saturday we found out that we could get FREE tickets to the Producers through the teachers union! So . . . with mom and dad being in the employ of dear ol' CCSD and having Amanda as the newest teacher in the family we were all able to go! My only regret is that we didn't get to "Hassel the Hoff" but we did get to "Dazzle the Danza!"

Here is my attempt on making Kendra smile for the camera.

Mom's new dog

This is Bailey, a.k.a. Lord Barkley. Caitlin came home from school last Friday (9/21/07) and found her in the backyard. Nobody knew why there was a strange dog running around with the others. Finally, someone got ahold of Mom and she said that she had been left at her school and so Mom decided to take her home. Mom also said that she forgotten to mention it to anyone. For FHE we put flyers up around the neighborhood where she was found, but nobody has called about her. Mom learned this week that Bailey does tricks: she sits, fetches, and rolls over. It seems that she has become a permanent fixture in the household.