December 21st – massive snow storm:
Anthony braves the storm to survey the damage:
Building gingerbread houses:
Category: James
2010 School Concert for UVS
The Utah Valley Symphony had their annual School Concert today. LaReita having injured one of her fingers with a knife was unable to play. So instead, she took James and Anthony out of school to attend the concert with her. After years of playing in the concerts she finally go to sit next to her boys during this one. Although cutting her finger so severely that she couldn’t play wasn’t the plan.
Some pictures from the concert: (not only was it for children but there were also children performing!)
Halloween 2010
Traditional Halloween didn’t really happen this year for lots of reasons. It was celebrated on Sat the 30th. It started hailing at prime trick-or-treating time, so there weren’t many that came. It was just plain miserable outside. We didn’t even get our traditional fire set up out front. AND we forgot to get a picture in all their costumes. Oh well.
One notable thing was that James bought his costume this year with his own money! It was $21.34 and was a Star Wars character – like Jango Fett, but something else. This year Samuel wore a different costume each day of the week. Ben finally settled on wearing the orange jumpsuit prisioner costume and a blue wizard-looking hat. So he was the “Prisoner from Azkaban”. Yeah. Nobody realized it until we told them, then they smiled. Pretty ingenious for a 6 1/2 year old (who just finished having the book read to him). Anthony was himself, which made costuming easy. And Jacob just stayed inside with mom while she made homemade tomato soup, grilled cheese and fresh apple cider. LaReita’s cousin (well, 1st cousin, once removed) Jonathan Mitchell* was the door handler. Dave drove in the car being the back-up for the boys and friends Carlos and Cesar as they ran through the cold drizzling rain.
*Jonathan works for Dave and LaMont in the Find-A-Code business. He and his wife moved to Washington this summer. He came back here this week to do some conferencing with Dave.
Lagoon in the Fall
We’d been promising the boys that we would go to the Lagoon amusement park all summer long and we finally found a free weekend. Mom took Jacob and Sam on the kid rides while dad had to endure the roller-coasters with James, Anthony and Benjamin.
Conference
James’ Court of Honor
Back To School
First day of school pictures with dad. James in 6th grade, Anthony in 3rd, Benjamin in 1st.
Larsen Elementary Playground
James as Clark
James’ 11 y/o Camp-Outs
On May 7th, James went on his first 11 year old Scout Camp Out with his patrol (scout troop). Dad (David) got to go with him and they went to the Palisades Park south of Manti, UT. James was feeling a bit sick on the ride there, and shortly after dinner threw-up. The other scouts nick-named him the “chunky monkey” on honor of his contribution to the campsite – a name James repeated with pride throughout the rest of the camp out. The next day we worked on knots and lashings and took a nature trail hike around the small lake that is in the park.
This picture is of the way NOT to pack your 11 y/o scouts for a camp out:
The next week, May 14th, was the Diamond Fork District Spring Camporee. Since the 11 y/o patrol had just gone on a camp out the previous week, just James and David went to the Spring Camporee. There James earned 2 merit badges Aviation and Space Exploration. David and James shared a tent and had trouble cooking their hamburgers that night because it was so windy. After a presentation about aviation, in the evening, they returned to their camp site and were able to cook their dinner – then went straight to bed.
There were more presentations and activities the next day to help the scouts complete their Aviation merit badge. James had prepared materials and done home work for the Space Exploration badge as well and was the only scout at the camp out (that we know of) who was able to get his Space Exploration badge signed off.
