Old man's still got it

We went out to watch Kurt play hockey Saturday night. I haven't actually been to one of his games in quite a while, but he still moves around pretty well out there.

Senior Portraits

Chris is a senior this year, so of course that means senior portraits. We spent an afternoon out shooting with Johnny Wilson, the same guy that did the reunion pictures 2 reunions ago. We have around 200 pictures to sort through and then send back to him for editing, but here are some of my favorites.

Catching Up On October

Well, I'm only a little over a month behind, but here was our October:

We started out with the Coronado High School homecoming parade. Chris has marched in this every year and then, the last 2, they have run the robot for it as well. This year, Justin hopped a ride on the sophomore float and, since Nate goes to one of the schools that feeds into Coronado, he got to ride a float as well.







Next, a big milestone; Chris turned 18, is now officially an adult. We had both sides of the family over for pizza and cake.




And finally, what would October be without Halloween. We let Nate carve his own pumpkin this year. Unfortunately, that ended with a nose that was so huge the whole face collapsed before I got a picture of it. He dressed up for school and then we always invite my brother's family to Trunk or Treating. Nate is the skeleton.

What's the point of having a blog if you can't brag about your kids?

Chris is in his senior year, so lots of AP tests and college entrance exams this year. He took the ACT and PSAT at the end of his junior year. Kurt and I have been telling him that he has to beat our scores on the ACT if he wants bragging rights. The only person I know who beat my score in high school was Art, and I think Kurt and I had the same score. We're thinking we each scored 32.

Well, Chris gained bragging rights with a near perfect score of 35 on the ACT test with a 36 being the highest you can receive. He also received a letter from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation that runs the PSAT and SAT tests congratulating Chris on scoring in the top 50,000 students out of some 1.5 million who take the PSAT test, so the top 3.5%. In September, approximately 30,000 if those 50,000 high scorers receive Letters of Commendation, which he has now received as well.

Way to go Chris! You earned your bragging rights.

Catching up on June

I knew when I started this that I would have a terrible time keeping up with it, so here is June in a nutshell.

June boiled down to pretty much one week, June 19-26, which is when Kurt and I went out of town, Nate went to cub scout camp, and Chris and Justin went to Zion's camp.

June 19 was just crazy with me working, trying to get the all the camping stuff together for Zion's camp, and trying to get Nate packed to stay with my parents and have the things he needed for day camp. We finally dropped the dogs off with my parents about 9:00 and then took Nate to stay with John and Rachael for the night since my parents had just gotten back in from Arizona the day before and were still trying to get caught up from their trip. Kurt and I finally left for Crested Butte around 11:00 that night.

Twenty years and counting:
Kurt and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on June 22. Kurt arranged for us to go away for a few days in Crested Butte. I think this is the first time we have spent any real time away from our kids ever, so it was kind of nice, especially with Kurt working 6 days a week with his training schedule and running bike tours on the side.

I have to say that it didn't start out well as we got into Crested Butte at about 3 in the morning and found we couldn't get into our condo because we didn't have the code for the lock box the key was in. Kurt had set up the condo through a guy John knows at ReMax, so many thanks to John for getting up at 3 in the morning and helping us figure out how to get in.

We didn't get a whole lot of rest as we spent most of our time hiking the area. I probably got more exercise in those 3 days than I normally get in a month. The first day, we hiked around Crested Butte and saw some scenery.

The next day, we were up early to drive to the Maroon Bells, where we hiked around and saw more scenery.

Kind of all looks the same, huh?

Crested Butte is known for their wildflowers and we saw a bunch, but mostly lots and lots and lots of these yellow ones that seemed awfully familiar:


Though, okay, we did see a few of these as well:



















Saw some critters, too:


But mostly we just got to spend some time together.

Zion's Camp:
Chris and Justin left Monday morning for a week at Zion's camp. This is basically a missionary prep course up in the Colorado mountains. They camp out all week, along with scripture study and a lot of outdoor activities, like high ropes courses, rappelling, and canoeing. We went up Friday night for parents' night and were met by all the boys singing (Justin is in the middle behind the kid in the camo coat).


The boys then served their parents dinner. I had to have pictures because you know this is the only place it will ever happen :) (and, no, that isn't Chris's tie - he had to borrow one because he forgot his).
















All the boys then put on an after dinner show where they went through some of the things they did over the week. Chris's group sang and Justin's group sang and signed (they do a lot of singing at Zion's camp).






We then came home and the boys stayed until Saturday and came home very, very dirty, cleaned up, and went to bed.

Cub Scout Camp
Nate spent 3 days at cub scout camp. I am a bad mom and don't have any pictures, but he had a great time.

And that was all the exciting stuff for June.

Kurt's new job

Everything always happens at once, so when I have something to put here, there is a whole lot of stuff and no time to do it, so it will all just have to wait, but this one is quick, so I'll go ahead and put it up for everyone who hasn't heard.

Over a year ago, he interviewed for a tech position and was told he got the job. However, Atmel then went into a hiring freeze and they couldn't actually hire him for it. Then, a few months after that, they laid everyone off. So now, a year later and after being re-hired, he got the position. He has been training for the last month and will probably stay on the day shift for a while, but then will have to move back to nights, so nights=bad, but extra money because he is working nights=good. Hopefully, he will eventually be able to move back to days, though, or everyone will get laid off again and we'll start over.

So, yay, more money and a job he likes a lot more.

Sometimes exciting things happen at work

I'm jealous. I get these guys:

Eating my bushes and upsetting the dogs.

However, the area where Kurt works gets a lot of wildlife. They have seen deer, bears, wolves, etc., in the area.

Kurt called yesterday to tell me that they had all just watched a doe give birth to two fawns. She picked the courtyard that is surrounded on 3 sides by windows, so everyone has been spending a lot of time watching her and her babies. She looks like she has something pretty wrong with her leg--broken or dislocated, so we hope she makes it.

So anyway, I get stupid deer destroying my landscaping and barking dogs and he gets to watch fawns learn to walk.

He is going to make it up to us by taking us to see them on Saturday, though.

These are all taken through a window, so aren't the best.

She looks like she is a good mommy.

The best one for last. Isn't he absolutely adorable?

Justin - Jujitsu tounament

Justin competed in his second jujitsu tournament yesterday. Jujitsu is all submission holds, so you get points for taking the other person down and for different pins. His first one was in Denver several months ago and he got one match that he lost and was done. This one thankfully was in Colorado Springs and he did much better, taking third.

What's the point in having a blog if you can't brag about your kids?

Chris is in his senior year, so lots of AP tests and college entrance exams this year. He took the ACT and PSAT at the end of his junior year. Kurt and I have been telling him that he has to beat our scores on the ACT if he wants bragging rights. The only person I know who beat my score in high school was Art, and I think Kurt and I had the same score. We're thinking we each scored 32.

Well, Chris gained bragging rights with a near perfect score of 35 on the ACT test with a 36 being the highest you can receive. He also received a letter from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation that runs the PSAT and SAT tests congratulating Chris on scoring in the top 50,000 students out of some 1.5 million who take the PSAT test, so the top 3.5%. In September, more than two-thirds of the approximately 50,000 high scorers on the PSAT receive Letters of Commendation, which he has now received as well.

Way to go Chris! You earned your bragging rights.

What Justin got for his birthday

Our other milestone this in the last couple months was Justin turning 15 on May 14. That's right, he can get his driving permit. I'm really not sure if I'm ready to go through another student driver or not. I'm still getting over Chris.

Justin's birthday wasn't going to be very exciting here as Kurt and I were both working until late, so we let him go over to a friend's house who was also having a birthday that weekend. This particular friend is in Justin's quorum at church and his dad is our home teacher and the Priest Quorum adviser, so I felt pretty safe sending Justin over there for a party and to then spend the night.

At 1:30 in the morning, I got a call from Justin saying that I needed to come get him because they got in trouble. He then called back to say that I should pick them up at the park and not at his friend's house. It was 1:30, so I was too tired to really think about it while I was on the phone, but it kicked in after I got off--they're at the park at 1:30 in the morning and in trouble. Yep, I was betting the cops were there.

I got to the park and was met by the scene of four police cars with their lights going and probably 12-15 boys. They were at the park having an Air Soft war and apparently a couple kids decided to go ring doorbells and run not to mention that they were out way past curfew.

I found Justin getting his police paperwork done and asked him if his friend's dad knew where they were. His answer? "His dad drove us here." Ok, so was his mom home? No. It turns out she was in Utah. For all you mothers out there, this whole thing is now explained. It turns out they had already broken something at the house and I'm guessing the chance to get them out of the house was just too tempting to turn down. I suppose that if the kids had to go to court or we had to pay a fine, I might be more upset, but the kids were just issued warnings, so no real harm came out of it. I really, really feel for the dad, though, as he is a really good guy that made a mistake, but there were a lot of kids there and several from our church, so it made the gossip rounds pretty fast.

So, what did Justin get for his 15th birthday? Yes, a police record.

Chris - Wind ensemble and Star Wars a capella

Chris spent the first half of spring break in New York, where their wind ensemble played a performance with several other high school groups at the Lincoln Center. They also got to spend a few days touring the city and were on TV while standing outside the Today Show. One of their group even got to ask his girlfriend to the prom on TV.

Typical of Colorado in the spring, they left in a snowstorm and came back in a blizzard. We drove up to Denver to pick Chris and one other boy up and then heard that the plane had been diverted to Colorado Springs. We called the other boy's parents and started to turn around. The other family called back and said, no, they won't let them off the plane so stay there. We then spent somewhere around an hour waiting to hear what they were doing for sure as Chris called us from the plane in Colorado Springs to say they would let them off, but not their luggage; no, they were going to try to get their luggage; no, they couldn't get off at all. The last thing we heard from Chris is they couldn't get off the plane after all, but then the ticket counter in Denver said they were trying to get the band kids and their luggage off in Colorado Springs. Since Chris wasn't answering his phone anymore, we decided they had probably taken back off. Their plane got in about 3 hours late and that was long enough for the storm to close the highway between Denver and Colorado Springs, so we ended up spending about 2 hours getting as close to the south end of Denver as we could and then finding a hotel (a drive that should take about 20 minutes).

Chris's final performance for the year was May 13. After their first song, their teacher announced that he had a group of boys that were going to do something extra. My jaw dropped when Chris got up. He hadn't mentioned a thing about it. They performed an a capella John Williams tribute. Kurt said it was the best thing he had ever seen in a band concert. Every now and then Chris really surprises me, but it was great. However, since Chris didn't tell me he was doing this, I had to download this off of YouTube instead of having my camera with me.




If you want to see where this comes from, the original is at Star Wars (John Williams Is The Man) medley - Corey Vidal and Moosebutter - a capella tribute on YouTube. It is much easier to hear, has the song titles they are using, and has the lyrics.

Robotics

Chris's robotics team competed in the Denver regional March 25-27. They didn't do quite as well as last year, but did make it to the quarter finals and took the entrepreneurial award for having the best team organization, the safety award for how they organize their shop and how safely they conduct themselves, and the animation award.

The competition was basically a soccer game and then they could score points at the end if they could successfully suspend their robot from a pole. There robot is the red one. The 2 white arcs pop up and grab the overhead bars so it can hang.



The tournaments have a real party atmosphere. Lots of teams bring mascots and props and dress up in different ways. There is always lots of music and kids dancing. Apparently one of the kids (our old bishop's son) taught all the kids the dance they all do at EFY. The film was shot at the social the first night they were there. You can't see Chris until the very end on the left side of the group with a black jacket. He says there was a group from Texas who got up and matched them move for move, so he is guessing there were some Mormon kids in that group as well.

Nate's baptism

Couple of milestones in the last couple months. First, Nathan turned 8 on March 30 and was baptized on April 11. It was great that Mom, Dad, Grandma Kidman, and Don's family were able to make it out from Utah for it. And I could not have pulled it all together if it wasn't for the help I received from everyone putting people up, feeding them, and helping with the various parts of the program. Don was kind enough to do the music. Rachael did our programs for us and led the music while John did the opening prayer. Mom and Dad did awesome talks, and Grandma did a wonderful closing prayer. Truly a family affair.

Everyone kept busy on Saturday by visiting Focus on the Family, which apparently has a great place to play, though I still haven't been able to go (one of these days) and geocaching in Palmer Park.

All right, I suppose if Mom and Dad have one...

We talked to Mom and Dad last night and they pointed out that we were the only ones (except Mike) to not have one of these things that Chris derisively calls a Mommy Blog. Of course, he only thinks it is a worthwhile blog if it has the word tech or robotics in it somewhere. I go kicking and screaming into the blogosphere, but here it is. It will probably be a work in progress for quite a while and it will probably not be updated very often, but it seemed like we had some things happening for a change these last couple months, so I'll get those up at least.