I don't want to hear it!

You do not have to tell me I am a lousy blogger, I already know. But you are going to appreciate this one because not only did I post a photo journal of summer 2009 but I also included a video that is truly for your entertainment. I almost feel bad posting it because everytime we watch it, we laugh hysterically at our little girl who has been living in LA for a little too long. Enjoy... Hope everyone is doing well.

Of course, life would not go on in our house without our visits to the see the Princesses...my children will happily wait in the 10 hour line it takes to get to them. (Cole is in love with Jasmine!) However, trying to get them to sit through a 1 hour sacrament meeting on Sunday is almost cruel and unusual torture.

We had some visitors this summer...My brother and his kids, Maddy and Luke and cousin Lydia came to spend a week with us.

Seth came too! He flew all by himself...we picked him up at the airport and after a few days of nonstop entertainment, we sent him back home to Utah. Brian says if anybody needs a little break from their kids, just send them up...we would be happy to take them.  Brian just told me not to write that...people might think I am serious. 

The animals at the LA zoo are really friendly!  

Are you kidding me?!   The apple doesn't fall far from the tree in this family.  Hopefully he gets Brian's temperament too.



So this is my one and only picture that I got from going to the finals of So You Think You Can Dance at the Kodak Theater...the sign says no cameras!? What!?  And I was so excited to get a shot of me and Nigel...how disappointing. But what really ticked me off is when I got into the theater I found out everyone except me had smuggled their cameras in and where snapping shots left and right.

Ella learned how to swim this summer thanks to Tami!  She loves her green googles.

The next series of picture took place within a time span of about 2 hours.

Ella's end of the year Preschool Party.

Owen, one of Ella's best buds...don't be decieved by the cute faces.  They are Bonnie and Clyde when you turn your back.

How we do weddings here in California.  After the ceremony, everyone was invited to strip down to their swimsuits for some sweet volleyball.  Awesome!

Our summer gym class...Superkids.  Cole's favorite thing to do was swing on the rings and give no one else a turn.  It was awesome!

So You Think You Can Dance!

This year's dance recital theme was "Toyland."  Miss Cari went all out as she does every year...her opening speech was done in a full sized barbie box!....it was out of control.  Definitely a crazy week but so much fun.  I was so proud of my students and especially little Ella who thought she was the queen of the recital.  The kids were so happy...it was a great night.  Thanks to everyone who came and supported me.  Here are some of the pictures.  

The "Wind it Up" dolls

Backstage at dress rehearsal...Ella got to watch from the side and get out of the kid's room for a couple hours...200 hundred kids...those poor volunteers...usually to never volunteer again.

p.s. This is the first picture I think we actually look alike??


This is Ella and Bailey...she was a jump rope girl.  I love her!

This is me attempting to take a picture with Ella and Cole after the show.



The teacher dance this year was Pinnochio's I've Got No Strings.  I was a dutch puppet with Miss Sabrina, Miss Carina was the russian, Miss Courtney and Nastasha were the can can puppets and Miss Cari was of course Pinnochio.  We laughed so hard choreographing this dance...Cari was hysterical.  She is now 5 months pregnant...is that carma or what?!!!!  Ella got to be the fairy who turned her into a real boy.

By the way, in case you are wondering, this is the lipstick I wear on a daily basis....



Ella awaiting her big moment.

This was the boys Power Ranger break dance.  They are actually really good...the little one is so cute...his name is Dunkin and I want to take him home.  I told Brian I wanted to put Cole in something like this one day...pretty sure that's not happening.

The Rainbow Bright girls

Ella was a Jack-in-the-box this year.  I loved this class and the song.  I got it off Party like a Preschooler...so funny, you have to check it out.

ALASKA

I had the opportunity to do a Humanitarian trip to Alaska with the Air Force this March. It was a great trip. We sent medical teams of 8-12 people to a lot of the eskimo villages on the coast of the Bering Sea. It was a huge change in weather from southern CA to say the least. It hit 50 below with the windchill at times. We flew in black hawk helicopters...a couple of times the pilots would fly about 20 feet off the ground so they could follow the snowmobile trails because it was so hard to see from the blowing snow. We rode from the gym to the hangar in this cool looking cat track mobile. It could go surprisingly fast in really deep snow. I wanted to take it out for a test drive but of course they wouldn't let me. The medical team I was on consisted of a Navy Medical Doctor, Navy Nurse, Army Dentist, Air Force Dental Tech, an Air Force Optometry Tech and myself. We had a good team. We were able to treat a lot of patients that really needed some care. Some common themes regarding their vision: glaucoma, excess sun exposure problems, and lots of uncorrected near-sightedness. Most of the patients hadn't worn glasses for 5-10 years and when I checked their vision they were 20/400 without glasses. (20/400 is Extremely blurry) The village I was in was Newtok, they are Yupik eskimos. Most of what they eat they hunt themselves and almost all the women wore really cool fur coats that they would make themselves. One of the pictures below is a fur coat made entirely from squirrels. The other coat below has a fur hood made from fox, wolverine, and raccoon. Eating MRE's on the trip got old in a hurry. Although, one day out of nowhere I got a package of cherry nibs in an MRE, I could have sold them for good money but I like them too much and ate them all myself. The principal of the village school took the kids out at recess and made them chase the golf ball (colored black with a marker) he hit with a 3 wood. He liked giving the kids exercise. In the picture where I'm golfing I'm standing on about 6 feet of snow. The golf ball just rolled right on top of it. Although the principal had never golfed on a real course he had a pretty good swing. It was Muskox season while we were there. I had an emergency patient come in with a bleeding/black eye. She had just shot a muskox and scoped the heck out of herself. I told her I would fix it for her only if she let me take a picture of her muskox.