Fe Man! AKA Ironman!

Every year we have volunteered to help Burke Staheli out with an aide station for the Ironman.  This year Burke wasn't a captain and told me I could take over.  Well, I would have if I could have Bike Aide Station #1.  It is the only one in Washington, the shortest, and the easiest do and man.  You have 6 tables with 15 people per table and you hand out Gatorade or water or food.  You start at 8 and are done by 11.  It's the one we did the first year.  Then last year Burke wanted to do a run aide station.  Well, he picked the worst one ever!  It was the turn around point in the run and it went from 9am until midnight.  We needed over 100 people and never stopped!  It was the hottest day in May on record and athletes where dropping like flies.  It was horrible.  So Burke took this year off and so did I.  Someone had bike aide station #1 so I  didn't plan on helping until Colby "Baggs" Nielson - my friend and neighbor who is charge of the Ironman - called me and asked me to fill in at the last second.  His person in charge of the Special Needs Bike Station had dropped out and had NO ONE signed up to help.  I had 2 weeks and needed 100 people.  We could have had 30 more and it would have gone better.  The aide station is called the special needs because the athletes put their "special needs" into a bag so they can get it at the 55th mile of the bike ride.  It was horrible.  Very disorganized and we had 4 college girls show up and acted like they were in charge and started telling me and Joel what to do.  I wanted to kill them.  But I needed the help.  We had over 1800 bags!  As a biker would come about a mile ahead someone would call down on their cell phone and tell us the number.  We would then yell out the number to people who would then run around like crazy people trying to find the bag in hopes to have it for them by the time they came through.  For the most part it worked out great.  I know that if I had control over who volunteered and didn't have any strangers just show up and try to take over, then it would have been a 1000 times better.  Oh well.  Here are some pictures.  We started at 4am and went until 3pm.  It was brutal.

At 4 until 6am we were downtown collecting bags from the athletes before they got in the buses to take them to the starting line.

 We put them into boxes that were numbered in 50's and loaded them up to take out to Dammerron Valley.

 Once there, we unloaded the bags and put them in numeric order so they would be easy to find.  The problem was that the wind was blowing so bad that we had to chase some of them down.  It was a bitter cold wind and I never took off my hoodie.  Everyone was freezing.

 Then the bikers came, and they came fast and in full force.

I am so glad it's over.  And I am extremely grateful for all of my friends and family who helped me out by volunteering.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

End of Year Band Concerts

The end of the year always means band concert, parades, banquets and programs galore.  Well Josh and Sophie both had a great end of year performance.  It's always so great to see how far they've come.  Sophie even had 2 flute solos in the last song.  She did a great job!  Josh took over Shayne's trombone and I think likes it.  He may end up playing the trumpet next year.  We'll see.

  Here she is with her solo.  Josh had to take the picture because David fell asleep and I had to hold him up.  So that's why it's blurry and not centered. 

This is our Cotton Days Parade.  It's the last one of the school year.

We also had Shayne's Scholarship banquet where she was presented with a scholarship to Dixie and Snow College.  But she's only going to Dixie. Tonight we are going to Tuacahn's Closing Banquet.  It is always a tear fest.  This year will be the worst with Jan and Andy leaving.  I fear the headache Jan will have in the morning from crying so hard.  The end is near.  The end of school for everyone.  The end of high school for Shayne.  The end of Tuacahn.  But what fun it will be to start anew.  Start something you've never have before and to do something exciting.

TITANIC!

Jan and Andy resigned from Tuacahn!  YEAH!!!  We are so happy for them but sad for us.

Every spring Jan gets to do the last musical of the year outside in the amphitheatre.  This year she did Titianic.  She had over 100 kids in it with Sophie, Josh, Ben, David, George, Emily and Skylar Scott thrown in.  Ben ended up dropping out after the first read through when he found out that almost everyone dies.  He told me that he didn't want to drown.  It was a good choice for him because he would have complained 99% of the time.  He gets to bored to fast.  Anyway, they kids ended up being in almost every scene and part of the main characters.  I guess Jan figured since it was her last show she could do whatever.  It was AWESOME!!!  The students were awesome, our kids were awesome and we had huge crowds.  They sold over a thousand tickets the last night.  The Hafen Auditorium, inside the school, only holds 300 people.  330 if you use the balcony seats but the usually don't because they have to put lights in up there.  The play only ran for 4 days and made more money than if it would have been in the Hafen for 3 weeks.

The kids at Tuacahn have always been outstanding and so nice and considerate to me and my kids.  They truly have higher standards and are loving towards every single person they meet.  After the last show we went down into Andy's classroom to have cake and Jan and Andy had put together a slide show to tell the kids that they weren't coming back next year.  It was crazy.  Not a single person had a clue.  The kids thought that they were announcing something great and exciting and when the slide came up that said they had resigned there were gasps and instant tears.  I will never forget one kid who Jan and Andy had helped over come many obstacles in life as I watched his demeanor change from smiling to disbelief to collapsing on the floor into a sobbing heap.  It was horrible.  I just kept thinking, "please don't relapse.  Please keep moving forward.  I hope this will strengthen him and not break him down."  By the end of the night he was alright.  He understood and said that he will move on and how grateful he was to have them while he could.
 That was the overall consensus the next day after everyone had time to process things. 

I personally will hate to see them go but I know that one of the reasons they were here was so I could help Jan with her pregnancies and health problems.  I will be eternally grateful for that.  It made me a better person to be able to serve my sister in her time of need.  My life will be forever changed for the better because of Jan and Andy living here.  But it is time for other peoples lives to be changed.  All of the kids here will be forever blessed to have had Jan and Andy for as long as they did.  Tuacahn is a far better place because Jan was hired there and when Andy was hired it made it even better.  Jan was more available to help the students with life problems and they have helped hundreds of kids become better people.  I feel bad for the person/people that they hire to try to take their place.  They will not be able to fill the shoes that left, all they can do is try to use their own to further what's been started. 

This last picture cracks me up!  Paula, Katie and Abby came down and surprised us on Friday to see the show and Paula asked David to sign her program and he immediately lifted his knee to write on just like the star he is.

Soccer Season!

Soccer season always kills me.  4 kids in soccer means 4 different games on Saturdays and 6 different practices during the week!  AAAAHHHHHHH!  This was David's first year playing and he scored a goal in one of his games.  He is a good little striker.  It'll be fun to watch him improve over the years.  But Kindergarten soccer is 2 clumps of kids chasing a ball around until they get close enough to a goal to kick it in.  Mike Jensen, a good friend of ours, was David's coach.

His team got a penalty kick and coach Mike asked David to do it.  He was so happy.

Ben's first game of the season was AWESOME!  He had a coach from Uganda who really knew his stuff and those kids knew exactly what to do.  Ben was goalie for the second half of the game and drop kicked it so far that he almost made a goal.  He played all positions and loves to be a forward because that means he can go wherever he wants.  Basic Ben.  I have more pictures of him but can't find them right now.  I will post them when I find them.  This is Preston.  He's in our ward and a year older that Ben.

Josh had a good season.  We used to pray that his team would just score at least one goal the entire season and the next year we'd pray for at least one win.  This year we came close to winning the whole thing.  Josh is a great forward and loves everything about the game.  This summer he is in the Real Salt Lake soccer camp and is excited about it.
The kid in this picture was about 6'2" and a really good ball handler.  But Josh and Ethan - our smallest kid - both took the ball away from him during this game.

Look at the procession of these pictures.  This guy was twice as big as Josh.  Not only does he get to it first but after he kicks it he comes down on top of the other guys foot!

Sophie loves soccer too.  I don't know what it is about soccer.  I hate to run that much.  My brother Brad and I were goalie's in high school so we wouldn't have to run.  Sophie was goalie a lot this season but is a great defender and forward.

                                   

Her team took second to a team we had already beaten.  The fun thing about city league is that they are playing against the rest of the kids they know and are friends with from school so it's never super competitive and they always have a good time.

Happy 6th David!

My baby is 6 today!  Six years ago we closed the "having babies" chapter of our lives by completing our family with David William Beckstrand.  He is named after my father who's birth name was David William Shelton and latter changed to Joseph David Shelton.  My grandparents wanted a big family but my grandfather, Joseph William, died when he was only 33 and only had my Dad and Aunt Polly.  He always figured he'd have more boys to name after himself but on his death bed he changed my dad's name to Joseph and kept the David.  Get it?

 Anyway, that's my baby.  To bad he doesn't have dark hair and eyes to look more like his name sakes.  He is 6 years old and can scream and kick and hit and spit like no ones business.  I'm hoping he will grow out of it this year.  I looked for a picture of him but apparently I only have ones of him and his cousins.  Shayne has my camera with my most recent pictures in it with her in California.  That's a   future blog.

Happy Birthday Baby!