AMAZED AT THEIR TALENTS

I am so amazed at the talents my girls have. I watched with amazed this last week at the differences in each of them. Mike since she was a just a little girl of about 2 years old has always wanted to be a dancer. She is well on her way to becoming that. She danced at provita night with her 9th grade class, and she also danced with her Emotion in Motion Dance Company. She did a great job. In about a month she will be trying out for the drill team. Our fingers are crossed! Sam right now is loving basketball. She is more the sporty girl. She tried dance and tumbling for awhile, but sports just came natural to her. Since it is basketball season, that's what her passion is right now. She has been playing so well this year. She amazed me with her abilities that just come natural. She defiantly didn't get this talent from me. I was alwayss the last picked for sports growing up...LOL. But not Sam, she has talent. Steph too has become quite a sporty girl too. And with basketball going on she is right in there also with her Dad coaching her team. She too is becoming another little natural. I have been sitting through all these games all these years that my girls have been playing, and I still don't get the rules and regulations, but these two girls just pick right up on them. WOW... it amazes me! Below I have posted some of their movie clips from their activities. Pause my music and I hope you enjoy....(probably not as much as the proud mama enjoys LOL). Mike is on the far right most of the time. Sam is number 5 and Steph is 10. Check out the huge girls that Steph has to guard! WOW!

My..how we have evolved with communication!

I have to say, I do love all the modern technology we have today. There is so much good to be done with it. But on another note.....is it making us better people. Well let me tell you some of my thoughts about communication and the world of texting. First of all we recently received our bill from Verizon which showed that we only had a few "shared" minuets left.......Well where did they go????? We mostly only communicate with Verizon to Verizon.....hmmmmm come to find out, one of the girls with her friends help (just being girls might I add) spent about 3 hours talking with boys who weren't part of the Verizon network. Also on that bill one of them had over 6,000 text in less than a month period. Ok mom and dad......time to take control of this situation! The cell phones are mine between 8:00 at night and 7:30 in the morn. This is out of control. Ok.....Got a hold on that one (Ya right). Any hoo....if you think about it, this texting thing is a good thing, but it can also be a very destructive thing. Texting allows you to say things to people that you would not normally say to someone face to face. You feel a sense of courage. Well, over the weekend Sam was invited to two different parties. One party I would not let her go to because of conditions I didn't approve of. Not sure how to tell the girl no she told her that she was going to a party at her Grandma's and went to the other party. Well you know lying doesn't ever work cuz somewhere down the line you get caught in that lie....and she did. The girls at the party found out where she was and used there texting abilities to call her some pretty bad names. Swear words of all kinds and taking the Lords name in vain. (which just reaffirmed why I wouldn't let her go to that party). But this upset Sam pretty bad. Of course she has to face these girls on Monday. But tell me, would these girls had said these things to Sams face if texting wasn't available. I don't think so. Sam also awhile back had some pretty obscene photos sent to her phone by an adult. Luckily because me and Kurtis do monitor their texting and phone calls, we caught the text photos before she could see them. But how horrible now days that we have to worry about pornography and foul language coming over our children's phones. Wouldn't it be nice to go back many years ago when to talk with your neighbor you had to hop on your horse and ride 30 miles just to have a conversation. At least then you know it would be a worth while conversation because you had to travel so far just to have it. Now days....it's at the tip of our fingers. Where will technology go next? PS----my comments have been turned back on.

Christmas Vacation

Well what a wonderful Christmas Vacation we had. I spent alot of the
time running around in my PJ's and watching Christmas movies. That is my favorite thing to do. Kids did about the same. They must get that from me. My vacation started out with alot of Christmas parties. My first one was our Nebo View Faculty party. We had it up at the Steak House. I had the Halibut. It was yummy. This year instead of doing white elephant gifts we did service gifts. The service I received was 2 weeks of hot chocolate when I get to work. Yummy! I actually had my first cup of it yesterday. How neat to come to work to a nice hot cup of cocoa when the weather is so bitter cold, and snowy! Our next party was the Juab District party. We had this one at the High School. We had a wonderful dinner and watched alot of employees win prizes. Great prizes too. We didn't win...booo hoooo, maybe next year LOL. Then we had Kurtis family Christmas party. We had a huge dinner and got the great anticipated guest .......SANTA!. Then on Christmas Eve we had 2 parties. We had one at Mom and Johns with us and Johns family. Had another great dinner with so much great food and lots of fun. Then from there we had another Christmas Eve party with Kurtis family again. Yes another dinner and lots of food. I think at that point I had gained about 50 pounds. When we got home on Christmas Eve we do the traditional Christmas Pj's. The morning was great. We cut back some this year, but the kids seemed happier. Not so many distractions with to many gifts. Mike and Sam asked for Ipod touches, and Steph asked for hmmm well EVERYTHING! LOL. But the main things she was asking for were a Nintendo DS with the cooking trainer, and a karaoke machine. All got what they wanted and were very happy. We were suppose to go to my Grandmas in the morning for breakfast, but with the storm we got we didn't want to battle it. So we stayed home in or pj's until we had to run to Kurtis Moms to open presents there, and to Melba's. The rest of the vacation was kind of a big blur of what we did, but we had a great time. We went sleigh riding at the church ground with the Howards. We also went Sleigh riding with another time with us, Mike's friend Jake, Sams friend Madie, and Steph took Kloie and Deveny. We went up to the dam with them. We also did a little sledding on Grandpa hill with Mike and her friend Mckenzie. Me, Patrica, Mike, Mckenzie, Sam, and Maddie went and seen TWILIGHT and shopped at Wal-Mart. We had a movie night and watched The Mummy 3 that we got for Christmas. We rented GET SMART and watched it. We did a little shopping. Me and Mike took Mom and John up to Salt Lake for Johns Granddaughters baptism. And I some what got my house back in order......which didn't last long. But hey, I'm now back to work again, kids are back in school, and Kurtis has one more week of vacation. So sad to see the holidays gone, but the thing about holidays....they always come back. Here is some pics from our fun vacation.