WEDDING TIME!

Everyone is getting married!  This weekend we were privileged to go to Katie Koeven's reception on Friday night, Connor Phelps and Mandy Bennett's sealing Saturday morning at 8am in the temple and then to their reception from 12-2pm and then to Vea Fakahua's reception from 3 -5pm that same day.  It was one celebration of a day.  After we rushed back from the temple we went straight to Josh's swim meet at the Rec Center that went until noon which was what time David's basketball game started.  Somewhere in there I managed to make a corsage for Josh for his Winter Formal Dance that was later that night.  BIG  DAY!  Anyway, This blog is only about the weddings.  Here are the invitations and a couple to some that are coming up.
Katie met her husband up in Logan at school.  She is a 1st grade teacher now and isn't out for Christmas break yet.  So she came down here to get married, has to go back up for 1 week of school, then can go on her honeymoon.  It was pretty funny.   Katie got into an extremely bad car accident a couple years ago, had some brain damage and had to learn how to walk and do everything over again.  But to see her on Friday, you could never tell that it happened.  She was gorgeous and talked eloquently.  She didn't skip a beat. We are so happy for her.Her reception was at the Dixie Academy on Main Street in St. George.  It's where Brad and Ashley had their reception.  Except now the bottom floors of the building are the children's museum.  Katie Koeven's family rented out the museum for all of the children, who either came to the wedding with their parents or who where little nieces and nephews of Katie and Nate to keep them out of the way.  It was BRILLIANT!  I personally had never been in there because it costs too much to take my kids there and i figured it was for smaller kids.  WRONG!  We had Ben and David with us and they LOVED it.  We would have stayed there forever if they weren't shutting down at 9pm.  We stayed as long as we could.  It was great!

 Even Joel enjoyed deep sea fishing.

 I wish we had an extra hour there.  I guess we'll have to go back some time.

Connor is Brian and Edie's son and Mandy is in the 8th ward and we have known her family since they moved in a couple years ago.  I went to school with her uncle Tracy Shock in Lehi WAAAYY back in the day.  Connor and Mandy have only been dating for about a month and a half but her sister Ciera was giving her farewell speech in church on Sunday and in order for her to be at the wedding they had to have a super short engagement.  So, 3 months from start to finish!  And their first kiss was in the temple after he pulled her through the veil. Cute.

 Vea is Nale and Kim's, who I went to college with, son.  They are dear friends to us.  We consider them family.  We tried to set Shayne up with Vea when they first got home from their missions but it didn't work out.  Angela is perfect for him.  They are darling together. Of course there was a ton of Poly food, dancing and the Haka.  It was so much fun.

These next two are coming up.  Both guys met their girls at college.  Too cute.  So happy for them all!

John Beckstrand - LVPD

On Thursday Dec. 14th John graduated, 3rd in his class, from the Las Vegas Police Academy Corrections/Detention Department.  He was awarded the Leadership award from his class members and was Class Sargent so he was the one who barked out all the commands at the graduation.  We are al very proud of him.  Here are some picture's that Grandpa took of him.
This is them as they walked in.
 

  You can see him sitting there at attention as others got their diploma.

 Being sworn in.

Piano Party X2

We have had a Christmas miracle at our house this year.  Our friends, the Condie's, posted on Facebook that they had a piano that they were getting rid of for free to the first person who wanted it.  So I hurried and told her that I wanted it.  Yes, we have a piano but, some of the keys don't work and I figured that it couldn't be worse than what we already had.  Plus I could give ours to Shayne and Konnor.  Well, it just so happened that it was about in the same condition as ours BUT...I like it a lot more.  It is much shorter and it really opens up the room.  It also turns out that Kevin has always wanted to learn how to tune piano's!  So he is going to practice on theirs and ours!  It's a WIN, WIN, WIN situation!  So we will see how it turns out.  Right now they both really need to be tuned BAD.  So Kevin needs to get on it. 

Old Piano on top.  New piano below.

 I used my flash so you could see the detail.  It has roses on the tops of the legs.  It is a 1977 Schafer and Sons Classic Spinet Piano.  It's a super shorty but it's beautiful. 

So I guess what I'm saying it, Merry Christmas Sophie!  We got you a new Piano!  Kevin will have it in perfect condition by the time you come home.  You're Welcome. 

Thanks Condie's!

Ben's Basketball

This year Ben decided to do PVMS 8th grade Basketball instead of WCCC basketball.  He is now with all of his friends Monday and Thursday nights for practice and Saturday for games.  Except this week.  This week they had games on Wednesday because they had a tournament on Friday and Saturday.   Wednesday his games were at 6 and 9pm.  Gross huh?  To far apart to actually go all the way home.  The games are held at the old Green Valley Spa way out by Shayne just off of Dixie Drive.  So it takes us 20 minutes to get there.  So in between games we went and got pizza than went to the Phineas and Ferb house.  When we got there the rest of the team pulled up.  It was pretty cool.  They all just hung out for a half an hour messing around with Phineas and Ferb.  We were tending Chase and Logan Miller so they were with us too.

 

 Our first game on Wednesday we played against the Beckers team.  Since there are so many 8th graders that want to play we have to have 3 different teams.  PV Silver, Ben's Team; PV Black, Becker's team and PV Maroon, the other team.  We won by 4 points.

 Then we played another team and lost.  Then on Friday we played some team from Salt Lake and then a couple local teams.  It was pretty good.  There were about 8 teams and we took 3rd.  

 

 Ben is pretty proud of this one and the broken ankles he gave that Hurricane kid.  Hahaha!

  Look at the Becker twins, Dillon and Ian.  Dorks, aren't even smiling.

 The first half of the season is over.  Now they are going to change the teams up a little bit for the rest of the time and see how they do.  Ben is just glad to be spending time with his friends again.

David's Christmas Band Concert

David had his 2nd band concert.  It was excellent!  It always amazes me how these intermediate school teachers can teach 60 kids 12 different instruments and make it actually sound like a song.  They played, then the 7th graders played.  The 6th graders did much better.  Then the High School Jazz Band played a couple songs.  They were just there to have fun and to get the little kids excited to continue on to high school band.  It was a great little concert.  I think David is really getting into the trumpet.  He practices all the time.  Ben never did.  But Ben was amazing at it and never needed to.  He also had braces and didn't like to play which is why he stopped. 

David is doing a great job and making some excellent memories a long the way!