Music and Water Polo

We had a busy week.  Evelyn got the part of Scuttle in her school play so she has play rehearsals after school a couple days a week.  She also had her band concert on Thursday evening. It amazing to hear these kids and how good they are - especially when you consider that most of them learned their instruments during COVID with most of their instruction being virtual, and then last year the teacher situation was a bit crazy, so the have overcome so much and learned so much and they did amazing!  

Anna had two swim meets this week - one on Thursday during which I helped out with timing and one on Saturday evening.  She did well and it's crazy to think that the swim season only has a couple more weeks left in it.  

Eileen had a friend over on Friday night to cook and play games with.  She was teaching him how she makes rolls and mac and cheese.  They had a fun time together.  Eileen was so fun to watch - confident and teaching something she enjoys.  

Saturday I had "Peter The Rock" rehearsals in the morning - but Anna didn't since the instrumentalists weren't practicing that day.  We were preparing to sing for an audition so we worked on the 2 pieces for that.  Don - the music director - asked me to be the assistant director, specifically working with the women and to act as a back up for him in case of emergencies.  I'm pretty excited and looking forward to helping fill Don and Brad's vision for this show!  The music really is beautiful and it's a great group of people!  

Saturday night, I took Aaron and Evelyn and 2 of her friends to open polo.  We all had a great time!   I always enjoy playing and the girls especially had fun playing and chatting together!  

At masters polo earlier in the week - goalie Dan has been helping me and working with me to get better - and it's been awesome.  He's an amazing goalie and it's great having someone pushing me and helping me remember and do and practice.  

There has been mostly good weather after school this week so the boys have been able to play with friends after school and I enjoy getting to know the parents and just being outside!  

Fun with Friends!

 The weather here has been all over the place this week.  We've had rain, snow, sleet, hail, and sunshine - all within the space of a couple hours....  fortunately most of the afternoons had clear enough weather for the boys to stay after school and play with their friends.  James spent the whole week super excited about his birthday party on Friday.  He was counting down to it.   We made pizza and got a bunch of junk food and let the kids have fun.  The plan was to watch a movie, but they only got 20 minutes into the movie before they were unable to sit quietly any longer and began running around playing again.  James was in 7th heaven and everyone else just avoided them.  One of his friends was super sweet and polite - saying "thanks" for everything and cleaning up after himself.  I think the craziness of the other kids got to be a little much for him because after a bit, he came down and started cleaning the kitchen and playing games with David.  

James had Activity Days this week and he had a blast playing gaga ball and running around - as did David.  

Anna had a group date on Friday going bowling.  Evie had Acro and Aaron also contrived to escape from James' party.  I had water polo, the kids had school and it was a mostly normal week.  

Dan and all the kids had Monday off for the national holiday.  But we mostly just took it easy - I still had the work out in the morning, and David wanted to come too.  We still had to do laundry and grocery shopping, so it was a mostly normal day for me - just with the kids and Dan around to help out and hang out with.  

Dan and I went to the temple on Saturday night and ran into some friends from the ward there, so invited them to go out to dinner with us after.  We had a great time doing sealings and a great time chatting and eating yummy food with friends!  

Church today was wonderful - after we had choir and dinner and then I had a stake relief society fireside.  Then I got trounced in a game again.  :(  

Now we are getting ready for James' birthday tomorrow.  He's very excited to be turning 11!  

Happy 15th Aaron!!

This week was a mostly normal week.  The kids had school and activities, Dan had work, and I had water polo.  Weather wasn't too bad, at least good enough that the boys could spend some of the days playing at the play ground after school with their friends.  Evelyn was having fun Monday after school teaching David some math.  He loved it and was so excited to learn!  She was so patient an such a good teacher!

Eileen found a recipe for shrimp potstickers and spent a couple days making messes in the kitchen and experimenting with the recipe and seeing what she liked best.  Then she spent at least half the time they were making them trying to keep Anna from eating all of them.  Eileen liked some of her trials more than others - Anna just wanted to eat all of them...  

On Tuesday, Aaron turned 15.  This kid is amazing - he is one of the most chill kids ever.  He's gotten really into anime recently and has been experimenting with streaming his gaming.  He picked "whatever" for his birthday dinner - so we made beef stew.  And his cake choice was just as specific, so Dan made him a devil's food cake.  

Evelyn found a guinea pig crochet pattern and decided that she wanted to make a mini version of the guinea pigs.  This was her first one - and it game out really cute!  She is totally smitten with it and with her little guinea pigs.  

The kids had Friday off.  I still went to my workout in the morning.  Eileen still had classes and Anna took the other teens to the temple in the morning.  In the evening, I went to accompany one of the young women in the ward on an audition recording.  She is a wonderful kid and super talented and I had a lot of fun learning the piece to play with her.  

Saturday was a usual busy - Peter The Rock practice in the morning, water polo in the afternoon.  The usual Saturday library trip and dinner and family time, finally, I took Aaron to Open polo in the evening, and we convinced Evelyn to come with us next time we go.  :)  There was a nice girl there who was an 8th grader and didn't really know what she was doing, and Anna spent some time working with her and helping her out and teaching her!  It was cute to watch! 

Church today was wonderful!  The primary kids were a bit crazy - hopefully soon they will get adjusted to the new year changes and things will calm down a bit!  James and David got to go over to Lydia's house after church - which is their favorite thing ever - then we made the switch at ward choir.  We had the sister missionaries over for dinner and a lesson.  Then we spent the evening playing games together!  

Back to Crazy

The kids had Monday off - and so did Dan, but we mostly took it easy - grocery shopping and laundry and such.  It was nice to have an easy day and do some napping after the holiday weekend.  We had a pizza night for dinner and watched a very silly movie about soccer players and Weird Al and mutant monsters....  But we had fun! 

Tuesday it was back to school.  There was lots of rainy weather this week - but still some nice afternoons for playing after school.  We stayed a bit too long on one day and I'd forgotten umbrellas, so we got soaked on the way home and I finally caved and asked Dan to pick us up when it started pouring.  Of course with crazy Oregon weather, by the time he got to us, the rain had slowed back down to a drizzle again.  

On Wednesday James had his Activity Days activity.  It went really well and the kids all had a lot of fun!  David loves it when I stay and help because he can then stay and play too and he loves getting to go to the activities!  Wednesday was also youth activities and Evelyn had Honor Band rehearsal.  Plus for the rest of the high school swim season, Masters is on Tuesday/Wednesday, so I had masters that night too.  

Thursday is not open for Masters right now because it's being used for high school swim meets.  So I had a fun time watching Anna swim in her meet and had fun chatting with parents and recruiting for water polo and talking with friends and others there.  Anna swam well - she was pushed to the Varsity 100 Breast Stroke when her other event was cancelled, and got the top Mountainside time.  Then she had to turn around and swim the JV 50 breast right after.  

David is so funny - he LOVES the watch we got him for Christmas.  It was a fairly cheap one, but he loves to wear it and tell the time from it.  He's gotten better at recognizing his higher numbers because of it and he loves to keep track of the time and when things are supposed to happen.  He also wants to make sure the battery gets charged like mommy and Anna's watches.  So he either clips it into Anna's watch charger or puts it on top of my watch charger like below.  He told me earlier today that some times he watch needs to charge for a whole day so that he can keep wearing it after.  He's so funny!  

Evelyn had Honor Band rehearsals all day on Friday, and Anna had a friends birthday party to attend.  Note that the "Ate All The Cake" sign is probably accurate....  :)   

This weekend was rather nuts.  Evelyn had Honor band practice in the morning, then her concert at 3.  She did an amazing job and she had a great time!  

I participated in my first tournament in over 20 years.  I signed up to play on a masters team at the THPRD new years tournament.  We were kinda the B-string team, so we didn't win any games, but I had a blast and had a couple good blocks including a 5-meter shot block and blocking a 1-on nobody shot from a friend on another team.  It was two days with 4 games and tons of fun!  Somehow it all managed to fit.  I was able to play the games and still be at Evelyn's concert, church, and choir practice. Dan took a bit of video from one of my games and this is a still from one of them.   

Church today was wonderful.  The testimonies borne were so sweet!  Primary was a bit crazy, but we survived and the kids learned and had fun.  

We had some friends over in the evening to play games and now after a very long week, I'm very ready for bed....  :) 

Family in Town

We were so glad when Grandma and Grandpa Cox made it in to town safely.  So many other people had been having problems getting where they were going that we were very grateful that their trip went off with out a hitch.  They got in late Sunday and went to Sandi's house for the first couple days.  We met down at Sandi's house for Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa and brunch. (lunch)  I still went to work out in the morning and the delivery with Dan's smoker happened just in time for me to get home, shower and then we were all ready to head down to Sandi's.  The kids had fun opening and exchanging presents with family.  My parents found it amusing since both Sandi and I had gotten some power tools for Christmas, while the guys hadn't gotten any.  

Tuesday morning, we met up at Defy to have fun with the passes from Grandpa.  The kids mostly had a blast!  Anna's knees were bothering her after a bit so she sat down and it wasn't too long before Eileen was tired of the crowds.  All of my kids were sweaty and tired by the time our hour and a half was up.  We had a fun morning together though!  

In the afternoon, we made up Bagna Caulda again to have with the family.  We had lots of fun and lots of food and sang songs together and had fun.  Dan took Evelyn to go watch her friends in the Nutcracker and had a great time together.  Then in the evening, I got to go play water polo!  

Wednesday after working out, we met up with everyone for lunch at Sushi Hana.  My kids all LOVE sushi, and Eileen has convinced my mom, but my Dad and Taz and Kai weren't huge fans - all my dad wanted to eat was rice and all Taz and Kai wanted to eat was fruit. :)  After, the boys went back to Sandi's house and the girls went for pedicures!

James slept over with Taz for a couple nights and Kai slept over here Wednesday night after she went with Evie to an Ice Skating thing her friend had organized.  

Thursday afternoon, we had our Murder Mystery Dinner.  Sandi organized it and planned the menu and stuff.  The older kids and the adults had roles to act out and the younger kids got to act as waiters and servers and we all had a blast.  Those with roles got to dress up and we had fun being silly!  

In the evening, Eileen had a babysitting job and I had water polo.  My dad has been having fun taking the kids on walks to get his steps in.  They all love going for walks with him - even David who complains about walking to school....  lol 

Grandma and Grandpa headed home on Friday.  It was so great to have them come out to visit!  

Saturday was New Year's Eve.  There were lots of plans for New Year's Eve.  Eileen was babysitting again and was not really sorry to miss the noisy party.  We started out the evening at a party at a friends house.  The kids got to hang out with their friends and have a great time.  Then around 9, Dan and I took David and James home.  Evelyn stayed to hang out with her friends and Anna took Aaron and some friends to the youth dance.  David headed to bed when we got home and James immediately got on Roblox and started watching Naruto.  I pulled out my puzzle and got started.  The evening was quiet but nice.  We almost missed midnight!  Then Dan headed to bed while I waited up to make sure all the kids got home safely.  Eileen was the last one home at nearly 2am.  Then just as I was getting ready to climb in to bed, Evelyn threw up.  Something hadn't agreed with her stomach and it came up.  Once she got it all out, she was feeling much better, but there was still a bunch of clean up to do before we could get to bed!  

That made even our later church start time feel early, but we were so glad we went!  The talks and lessons were great!  I was subbing on the organ and things went well and I had a nice chat after with a visitor who was saying nice things and asking questions.  Primary was a bit crazy (which was not really a surprise after last night!  After church, quite a few of us took naps, since we were all tired after last night, but David was bright and chipper and happy!  We had fun playing our new Wingspan expansion and hanging out together.  Now I'm looking forward to bed!