Mother/Daughter Lemonade Tea Party

For the girls Activity Day Recognition Night they had a mother/daughter lemonade tea party. It was a fun night and I wish I had taken a picture of the serving table. Maureen and Heather went all out with the food. It was delicious as well as beautiful!After dinner the girls got awards. Calissa got the best hat award.

(You can just barely see Calissa's BYU shirt in the picture. BYU was playing in the Sweet 16 that night and we left to head over to the event when the game was tied. Unfortunately, they ended up loosing, but we were supporting them even at our tea party!) Activity Day Girls and their wonderful leaders. (Holding up their pinkies like ladies)

They also got to pick a tea cup and saucer. Calissa loves hers and is very proud of it!

Panic

I've been subbing a lot lately ... like (almost) every day. (Don't know how you mom's that work full time do it!) I've also been in the same class in Kindergarten this week for two days and have two more days to go, so Calissa should know where to come after school, right?

Every day I'm subbing I remind Conner and Calissa in the morning as we are getting to school where to come after school. They also come with me to the classroom before the day starts. Occasionally, Calissa will forget (but hasn't in a while) and I'll find her in front of the school wondering where Conner and I are.

Today was an early out day and Conner came in to my class after school as I was eating my lunch. Calissa didn't come in, but I just figured she had decided to go to the library to check out a book for a book report and was hanging out with Mrs. McDermont in the library. I headed over to the library with Conner to see what she was up to. She wasn't there and Mrs. McDermont hadn't seen her. I didn't worry ... just figured she was chatting with a friend somewhere or stopping in a classroom to visit with a teacher. After another 5 minutes or so I decided to go looking for her and after checking classrooms and not finding her, some wonderful teachers joined in the search. We found Calissa's sub for the day who didn't know where she was, but had said that as they were standing in line to leave she had said how excited she was to come hang out in the classroom I was in because she was going to get to watch a movie. We walked down the halls, checking all classrooms 3 or 4 times, checked all the bathrooms, office, even the day care. The office was asking if she could have been picked up by someone else (no), could have walked home (no ... live to far away), or gone home with a friend (no). They did 2 or 3 calls for Calissa over the loud speaker at school. I even called my mom to see if she had somehow picked her up because she was sick and they forgot I was at the school. I headed back to the classroom to pick up my phone to see if anyone had called. As we were scouring the school one last time 30 minutes after the bell had rung I was wondering how I was going to tell Travis that Calissa was missing. I was just heading towards the office to talk with all who had been looking for her to tell them we were going to have to call the police when she showed up! She was crying and I was trying hard not to cry when I gave her a hug!

She had walked her friend to her car (since her friend was on crutches and she carried her backpack). Her friends mom was helping with the carpool and she invited Calissa to sit in her car and have a snack while they waited. Calissa lost track of the time and figured since she was going to be at the school for 2 hours waiting for me, that she could have a snack and chat with a friend for a few minutes. This is not something that Calissa would usually do which is why we were so worried. I don't think I can convey the panic that I had felt (and some of the other teachers admitted to feeling later).

I was so grateful for the wonderful staff and friends that helped look for her. Still have a sick feeling in my stomach 4 hours later! Not something I ever want to repeat, but I'm grateful for a happy ending. Conner was so worried about her too as he was helping us look. (I could tell because he was so nice to her after we got back to the classroom!) I called my mom back and told her that we had found her shortly after I had talked to her. She said as soon as she got off the phone she had said a prayer and we found her soon after. I know that helped! I told Calissa tonight that she stayed "lost" long enough for me to get past being mad and I was just grateful that she was OK.

Maybe I should have titled the post "grateful" because that's how I'm feeling right now!

New Cast

Calissa traded in her long arm cast for a short arm cast. The colors were switched this time ... instead of pink with a green stripe, she opted for green with a pink stripe!She freaked out getting her cast cut off! Then, she freaked out during the x-ray and again when the doctor was examining her. It was not fun! Two more weeks and then it comes off! I can hardly wait!

Eagle Peak Hike

(Posted by Conner)

We did a 5 mile hike on Saturday for 11 year old scouts. It was hard but I had fun. We hiked from the bottom of Mt. Diablo to Eagle Peak.

This view is from Mitchell Rock. I saw the view of the city and I had to take a picture.
This is another picture of Mitchell Rock. The mountain doesn't look good now because the grass was dug away for miners.

The last picture of this view shows the land and the city so it looks pretty cool.

This was our first resting place. The view was so good I had to take a picture. It was hard to get up there but that was nothing compared to the rest of the hike.

This is our 11 year old scouts group. We made it to Twin Peaks! That was nothing compared to the final destination. In the back of the picture there is a trail to the cave in the back of the Twin Peaks.

We are in the cave. It took longer than we thought but we made it. On the right is our scout leader. His name is Brother Berry.

This is a picture of the sun setting. It looks cool but I was to late for the actual sun on the horizon. We were close to the top now.

We made it to Eagle Peak!!!!!!! We still have to go back down though. 2369 feet!!! We yelled our patrol yell which is Rough, Tough, Rock and Roll. We're the Rad RoadRunners and We're on a Roll. Beep Beep Vroom!

Finally, we ate a snack and took a last picture up there and then we headed down.

This is to late for a sunset but it looked so good I had to take a picture of it.We went the rest of the way with flashlights and I got hurt almost right after we got them out. That was fun but it was probably the most exercise I got for a while. It only took about 3 hours to do it so we made good time.

CALL Opening Day (Is it here already?)

Really ... are we starting baseball again already??? It comes so fast each year and I don't feel like we're ready yet! Conner is on the Major Braves this year. He stayed on the same team but added six new players, all new coaching staff and they changed the name (which meant I needed to go shopping for more baseball stuff)! Parker decided to not play baseball this year. He's doing golf instead (and wrapping up basketball). I was a little sad at first, but have gotten over it and am now happy that we have only 24 games to attend instead of 48!Here is Conner's team in the parade and his coach, Coach T.

Conner is the 4th one.


Start of another season!

The team

After Opening Ceremonies, they have carnival game, inflatables, food, face painting, etc. Calissa and her friend Kaitlyn decided to do some karaoke.

They chose Bon Jovi, "Livin' on a Prayer."

Isn't that the song that you thought they'd sing?

Great job girls!

Here's hoping for a great season!
Good luck Conner!

Calissa Update

This update is a little late (I subbed 7 days in a row ... I don't know how working mothers get everything done!).
Here is her original x-ray. Don't look at the x-ray if you get queasy. (Her bones are not supposed to look like that!)

When I took her back in after our trip, we saw a Physicians Assistant who was very concerned about the severity of the break (and seemed to not quite believe Calissa when she told her what happened). I didn't panic and she eventually backed off, but it's still scary! Her bones were off by 11 degrees after they re-set them in the ER. After the x-ray on the 1st, they were of 15 degrees which is as far off as they can be without them doing something about it. She told us no PE, or any activity for 3-4 months! Yikes!!

They cut off her plaster cast after they had put her in the finger traps and strapped down her arm to stabilize the bones. Then after much indecision about cast color, they put on the pink cast as they pushed on the bones of her arm to try and straighten them out a little more. Poor little girl! She cried and screamed. (It had to of hurt a lot!)

Since she did so great, they decided to give her a stripe on her cast in another color. She decided on bright green! I grabbed a quick picture of her cast as I was dropping her off at school since I figured she was anxious for her friends to sign it. Sure enough, her cast was COVERED with signatures when I picked her up!

I took her back to the doctor last Wednesday and saw a different doctor. He didn't seem concerned at all about the severity of the break, or how it happened. He thinks she should be fine after 2 months to go back to normal activity. Wow ... two completely opposite opinions. Trav and I decided to be somewhere in between. Can go back to PE after Spring Break and then back to gymnastics on June 1st. Hopefully she won't break it again!!

Look Out Nascar!

(Posted by Parker)

A few days ago I had to make a balloon car for a project in science. The only instructions were that you couldn't use a pre-made car or real wheels. Also, your only source of power was the balloon. So I thought that this project was going to be really easy. Well, I was wrong. It took 3 tries and late nights messing with the car to actually get it moving. My final car looked like this. Pretty awesome right? Well, all it had to do was go 5 meters and then the car would pass the test. At home it was working fine. Then came the day to try it at school. My first attempt, the balloon popped. So thinking ahead, I had brought 2 extra balloons. The second balloon was a failure also. The car would go forward, the start turning and end up going backwards. I fiddled with it a little bit and then the balloon popped again. So I was down to my last balloon and the car still hadn't gone 5 meters yet. So, I put the final balloon on and blew it up, and it worked! The final distance that it went was 7.5 meters, 2.5 meters past the distance that it was supposed to go. The spools of thread, skewer, box, and clothespin car actually worked! So I'm retiring while it's still ahead. Goodbye Nascar.

Lindsay Wildlife Field Trip

March 2nd was Calissa's 3rd grade field trip to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum. It was a little rainy, but we were inside for most of this fast field trip. I was lucky enough to chaperone. It is an easy trip to chaperone since they are mostly all together and moving around a room in groups. We started off outside saying hello to the turkey vulture who is just a few months younger than me!
Then, we went inside and went to six different classes all having to do with adaptation and change. This class was about birds and their beaks.

Calissa's beak was a spoon (there were chopsticks, clothespins, etc.) They needed to pick up different kinds of foods (toothpicks, marbles, straws, etc.) They were showing how different bills where adapted to different kinds of food. Calissa's group had a hard time with the toothpicks.

They also got to see live snakes, lizards, tarantulas, birds and quite a few stuffed animals as well. It was a fun trip (and not all day)!

Monique

It's taken me a while to get to this post. Not because I didn't want to, but because it is hard. I tried to decide if I should post this here, but decided to since we want to remember Monique and it's a part of our life.Trav's oldest sister, Monique passed away suddenly at the age of 45 on February 15th, 2011.

We had a display set up of things that she loved, pictures of her and some of her amazing talents.
She loved doing jigsaw puzzles and brain puzzles.

She had an amazing talent in woodworking.

She love to read and loved the colors red, black and white.

She was also an artist.

She loved children and was so good to them.

My kids and the other cousins gravitated to her.

The service was beautiful and all her siblings talked (RK played the piano) and the nieces and nephews sang "I am a Child of God."

Tey, Kaisen, Jarom, Kennedy, Calissa, Jami (Jami's brother) and Kylee.

RK, Azure and Rob

Kaisen and Logan

Conner, Jordan, Kylee and Calissa

The church provided a nice lunch after the burial.

Melanee and Robert

Trav, Jami and Tey

We'll miss you Monique!