Sunday, January 30, 2011

Best of Especially For Youth and Jr. Prom







For some reason every best of EFY and Jr. Prom are on the same day. Last year Shayne went with Austin and they went to EFY together as their Day Date. This year Shayne had a date to EFY with her friends Kyle Hendrixson who came and sat with us. We love Kyle. He is a great guy. He's on Desert Hills Swim Team and has always shown respect and kindness to us. EFY always starts at 9 and goes until noon and is held in 3 different buildings. 2 Stake Centers and the Dixie College Institute building each holds at least 500 people and there are 3 speakers that rotate to the different buildings. We left at 7am to make sure we got good seats and after we saved them we went outside to eat doughnuts and hot chocolate. Here is a picture with the early morning sun in the background.

Later that afternoon, Shayne started her date with Sam Correy to Jr. Prom. They went shooting around 4pm. Apparently Sam's family is very into hunting. Although he had a hand gun that Shayne fell in love with. Then they went out to eat and then she came home to get all dressed up in a gorgeous black dress that she borrowed from her lovely Aunt Ashley. I know you're all wondering about the "Do". It's one I found the night before online and we decided to be crazy and do it without any practice. It was surprisingly easy, but did take 30 bobby pins.
Shayne said they had a great time but some girls passed out and hit her head at the dance and was unconscious so she had to stay around to help out until the EMT's arrived. I guess it's a law that if you are certified in emergency health situations then you can't leave someone in need. So there where 5 life guards surrounding this poor girl, one was her date.
Sam is in the band with Shayne. He's a funny kid. He's only been over to the house a couple of times so Joel hadn't ever seen him and was a little concerned. It was funny to watch Joel actually be concerned. He knew Austin and his family for ever and every other kid that Shayne has been out with has been on the swim team or been over to our house a million times. She looked beautiful! It was another great memory for me. I hope when Sophie gets old enough to date she lets me play dress up with her and do her hair and make-up. It's been a lot of fun.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

St. George 1/2 Marathon






So, Thursday and Friday were Region Swim and Saturday was the 1/2 marathon which Joel and John ran in and also our Stake Conference that I had to speak in. It was also the opening of Jan's play "All Shook Up". My parents came down to watch it all unfold. The 1/2 marathon started right at 9am and went passed Joellen's church at the other end of her block at mile marker 2. So we all walked down to see all 4,000 runners and cheer those we knew on. For Christmas we got shirts from Mike and Elaine that had a new Beckstrand logo on it that Jared had come up with. They are really cool and Joel and John's shirts were the dry-weave ones that runners wear. So we can all wear ours to cheer them on and so we can pick them out of the crowd of 4,000 runners. And it worked perfectly. You could see them 2 blocks away. After they ran by we waited about 50 minutes and went a block south of JoEllen's house across the street to the trail where the runners where passing mile marker 9. The kids loved giving everyone high 5's. Even Matty. She was so cute. Sophie was holding her and she would stick her little arm out as far as she could so people could slap her hand. It was so funny. We missed John because he was to fast for us but we saw Joel and others we knew. Then Sophie and I went down to the Dixie Center to see Joel finish. He finished in 1:49! He did a great job. He has been running almost every morning at the rec center and has helped John with his training for the Ironman in May. It was a gorgeous day for a run. Joel's next run is the Dam to dam relay that he and his Dad and brothers are doing. It'll be fun to watch! My talk went fine and Jan's play was so much fun to watch. It was a hilarious musical love story that had all Elvis music in it. They did an amazing job as usual.

Region 9 Swim Meet








Region 9 Swim meet was held in Cedar City at there new aquatic center that had only been open for a week. We were all more than a little worried that it would be a flop because this was the first meet they held there and they hadn't tried out any of the equipment to make sure it worked properly. But everything went great. No computer or scoreboard problems at all. Joel and I were timers. Which I love because you get to sit right down on the floor wear the actions is. Otherwise you have to sit upstairs in the bleachers where it's hot and no one can hear you cheer. So day one - Shayne was in the 200m Medley Relay (Mickell Bracken, Alex Meyer, Ashton Turek and then Shayne) and they took 2nd place. Then Shayne swam the 200 Free and took 1st! The boys Medley Relay took 3rd (Koby Sullivan, Kaden Dinsmore, Nick Rabbit & Jordan Vane). The next day we timed again and Shayne swam the 100 Butterfly and took 1st! Then her relay team swam the 400 Free and took 2nd again (same girls). So Shayne ended up with 2 first and 2 seconds. The girls 200 Free Relay took 3rd ( Katrina Lee, Amber Harper, Charee Russell & Taylor Hancock).The boys 400 freestyle relay (Kyson Sullivan, Zack Paddock, Kyle Buck & Mitchel Hutchings) ended up taking 1st place! Which was AWESOME! It also qualified them for state! It was a race to remember. They out touched Snow Canyon by 2tenths of a second. It was a really fun tournament. Now we are looking forward to State the 4th & 5th of Feb at BYU.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Sophie's Principal

Mr. Bob Sonju is Sophie's principal at Fossil Ridge Intermediate School. He was name Principal of the Year for the whole state of Utah. He really is an amazing person. He is at every single event that the school does. He talks to the kids and know them all by name. Our local newspaper did a big front page article on him and I tried to copy the link but you have to have a subscription in order to read it so if you want to know more about him just Google him.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Last Home Meet

Friday was the last home meet for Pine View High school. Tears were shed but more importantly so were seconds!!!!! Shayne shaved off 2 seconds in her 200 freestyle. She came in second again but every time she comes in 2nd place it is to someone from 3A so it still counts as a first in 4A. She doesn't like me to sat that because she thinks it sounds worse to be beaten by a 3A team. But it's not when the 3A school has 400 more kids than our 4A school. Region is this Thursday and Friday starting at 5pm each day in Cedar City's new city pool. It's exactly like Washington City's. It'll be fun to see how it turns out. Pine View is not in any contention to take a place except 2nd to last over Hurricane because we have 20 swimmers and they only have 15. The team with the most swimmers is the team that will take Region and State because of the stupid way they do points. But oh well, as long as Shayne does her best and takes off more time then we are happy. Good Luck Pine View Swimmers!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Swim Season

High School Swim season is coming to an end and this last weekend Shayne had a great meet. It was against all of the regular Southern Utah Teams (Pine View, Desert Hills, Snow Canyon, Hurricane, Dixie, Cedar and Canyon View)plus Delta, Syracuse, Bountiful, Skyline and Copperhills. On Friday she swam the anchor leg of the medley relay and when she jumped in they were already 2 body lengths behind. She can make up some time but to win that would have taken a miracle. Then she swam the 200 I.M. and came in 2nd. On Saturday she swam the 100 Fly and took 2 seconds off of her best time and came in 2nd. Then the last event of the day she swam the first leg of the 400 Freestyle relay. Now when you swim the starting leg of any relay it counts towards your own personal time because they can time when you leave and when you hit the wall. All other legs cannot accurately be timed. So Shayne's 100 free was 1 second faster than her best. So, she ended up with 2 personal bests and 2 2nd places in a meet of 12 schools. AWESOME!
She only has 1 remaining home meet and it is this Friday the 14th at the Washington Rec Center and it's against Judge Memorial and Wasatch. So if you want to see her in action then that's the meet to go to. The meet after that is Region in Cedar City on the 20th & 21st. And then State is the first weekend in Feb at BYU. Joel and I are chaperoning again. I can't wait, it'll be so much fun! Thanks to my family taking the kids so we can be with the team. My kids love it too because they get to spend time with their Lehi cousins. This Friday's meet is the one where it finally hits the swimmers that the end is near. The last home meet for the Sr.'s and they get recognized and everyone cries. Shayne will be a mess. But not as bad as she will be next year. We'd all better enjoy it while we can. Time flies when you're having fun!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

More SNOW!!!







Here are pictures of our first snow vs the 2nd: Needless to say we loved having every flake. Now the little boys pray for snow every night.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!




Joel and I rang the New Year in twice once at 9pm and then again at midnight. Around 7:30 we went with JoEllen and Kyle to McArthur's RV Park to their Rockin' New Year's Eve Party! Surprisingly we weren't the youngest ones there. But if it weren't for the McArthur family we would have been. Ira McArthur's Dad started the RV Park 25 year's ago and now Ira is running it. He is amazing with the retiree's that live there and throws one heck of a good party. We danced and played bingo and danced and played more bingo and had a great count down at 9pm with balloons and glitter falling from the ceiling. It was really fun. I hope we get invited back next year. Then we went back to JoEllen's where we had left the kids up to no good and broke out a board game called Wits and Wagers. Joel won and I lost. It was Jillyn's game and I'll need to find it somewhere and buy it because it was really fun and the kids loved it. We ate everything you can think of and we even popped some popcorn that our neighbor gave us for Christmas. She gave us 3 cobs and told us to put them in a brown paper bag and microwave them and it really worked. But they were plain so Kyle buttered and salted the cob to see if it'd work and it did! It was so funny. Then we played Just Dance 2 on the Wii and made complete idiots of our selves. It was AWESOME! The next 3 hours flew by and we counted down again at midnight, popped poppers and went home. It was really the funnest New Year's I've had in a long time. Thanks McArthurs' and Wells'.