Give it 20 tries, and THEN you can quit

Our darling girl Rhiannon left for her first Girls Camp this morning bright and early at 6:00am.  She'll be back on Saturday--we're going to miss her!   She's in great hands with caring leaders and some cute friends to hang out with.  The running joke is that Mom is going to have the hardest time this week, but it made me feel good to see Rhiannon get a little sentimental, giving lots of hugs to all of us, including Oscar!  She's really only worried that she'll get hurt (trip on something or break a bone), but if that happens she can just ask for a priesthood blessing and wait to get medical attention up there, right?   After helping with Cub Scout camp last week, I appreciate even more all those adults going up to camp this week, taking time away from their own families and jobs, to take care of MY daughter.  It means a lot!

Wade and I started the day with a bang by working on tumbling for his "Feats of Skill" section in his Wolf Cub Scout book.  Tumbling isn't something we've done a lot of--when Wade first tried it at a den meeting, he hurt himself pretty bad and didn't feel like continuing.  Well, he did a ton better this morning.  Maybe the twin bed mattress helped as our "gym pad."  Or maybe the fact that Oscar and me were the only audience members?  He wanted to give up on the backwards roll and I said, no, no, he had to give it 20 tries and THEN he could quit.  He did great!

Yesterday I was a busy beaver--today I'm going to tackle my very messy desk and try out the Pandora music site online.  So far it's kind of fun listening to different stuff, but I don't like the commercials!

More randomness--I can't stop listening to this song right now, hence the Pandora search so I could find similar music...  Do you think having a percussionist under our roof has something to do with it?  I don't know, but it's a fun song! 





Randomness #2--In my quest for healthier living this week, I tried both jicama and edamame.  Both were surprisingly delicious!

Kickin' it, summer style

This post is going to be kind of lame because I don't have pictures yet, but I'm going to try to paint some pictures of our summer so far with WoRdS.

Bright and early Monday thru Thursday, this week and last, we've been out the door by 7:30am for Rhiannon's tennis class.  We don't practice at all during the rest of the year (lame, I know), so it always seems like she's starting from square one for a couple days.  We'll have to work on that--we may pick a day during the week to get up early and go hit some balls around the courts before it gets too hot, and then maybe get breakfast somewhere.  Today it was close to 95 degrees by 9:30am.

While Rhiannon is at "class," Wade and I amuse ourselves around the park.  Most days Wade has chosen tennis on another side of the courts, which translates to me throwing balls to him over the net that he tries to return.  I don't know why I don't just grab another racket and do it that way...I'm slow, I guess.  We've also done badminton and football.  Today Oscar came along for the ride, and Wade and I walked him over to the skate park.  Wade raced around that place, trying to run up the "hills," while I practiced "Sit. Stay. Repeat" with Oscar.  Need to do that again--it was fun!

We've done a couple "friend dates" but haven't packed them in, yet.  And we try to hit the pool every day.  Wade LoVeS to throw this water bomb football back and forth with me, back and forth, back and forth, back and..."Oscar, NO!  Drop it!  Leave it!  OUT!"  Once Oscar gets the ball, we have to jump out and tag team him to get it back.  By that point I'm ready for a break.  Rhiannon is a good sport and spots me occasionally so I can take a break from catching water bombs.  We came up with water "baseball" the other day and love playing that, too.

The best weather thermometer turns out to be Oscar.  He's lively til 9am and then "wakes up" again after his dinner at 5pm when it starts to cool off a little bit outside.  That's how I feel, too--I try to get as much as is humanly possibly done by 11 or so, and then all I want to do is vegetate in the house for a while!  It's HOT!

Rhiannon picked up some Phantom of the Opera music from her piano teacher and loves banging that out, as fast as her fingers will let her.  She also bought some special Sharpie fabric markers yesterday and has been having a TON of fun "staining" her Girls Camp ball cap, old shoes, and old T-shirts with cute designs, sayings, scribbles, etc.  You can tell a lot about her from the hat she decorated:

Piano keys across the front
RC
"Why so serious?"
F.B.I.  Agentness
I believe I can fly (with wings drawn)
Awesome!
Samurai (with cute samarai ninja dude)
Revenge of the the Green Ninjas (her group name at Girls Camp next week)
Smiley faces
iPod
Picture of a snake
Queen of the Percussionists, and Percussionists rule the world!
I Am Fire Phoenix (title of a story she's writing right now)
Awesomeness
Piano-ness!
Wolves-Piano-Percussion, repeat...

She worked on it throughout the day yesterday and kept showing me new things she'd done.  I'm impressed, and she was SUPER excited about her "new and improved" hat!

Rhiannon was NOT excited about summer the first couple days.  She missed her friends at school.  But I think she's easing into it now, even though now she worries about whether or not she'll have any of her friends in her 7th grade classes when school starts up again!

The other thing we started up this week is Cub Scout Camp in the evenings for Wade and me.  I'm not in charge of this thing, but it's been the elephant in the room for me for a few weeks. I've been helping with lots of "little" things for it.   It was great to get it started this week because the sooner we start, the sooner we're done, right?  I'm den mom for 9 lively boys and they've been pretty good.  I did get some help with one crazy kid last night, and it was nice knowing I could do that and didn't have to struggle with him the whole night by myself.  That's hard to do when you've got 8 other boys clamoring for your attention!   We've got two more nights and then an "all-day" extravaganza on Friday.  Saturday I plan on recuperating!  The thing that keeps me going is seeing the boys' faces--they were so happy with all the activities, crafts, and games we get to do.  It makes it all worth it!

Courage

I've seen this picture floating around on Facebook the last couple days and absolutely love it.  Good stuff!

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow." ~Mary Anne Radmacher

Article by President Thomas S Monson:  Living the Abundant Life

Fellers Cake Bake

Tonight is the last pack meeting of the school year, and then we take a Cub Scouts break for the summer.  Wade will go to the Cub Scouts camp in a couple of weeks, but they won't meet for regular den meetings, etc. 

Jason is out of town on work travel this week--I should have grabbed a friend or hometeacher to help Wade make the cake, but I got lazy and decided to help him myself.  We had a good time!!!  I think I need to get Wade in the kitchen more!  Good job on your "Play Ball!" cake, buddy!

Bountiful

I enjoyed walking around in our backyard this morning taking pictures of some of the delicious things growing.  There isn't going to be a huge harvest, but what we've got is great!

More to come--these apricots aren't quite ready. The trick is to get to them before the birds do!

Banana peppers! with snap peas struggling behind them. The roma tomatoes and zucchini plants are doing great, too!

We're finally figuring out the term "two-year growth." We cut the grapevine all the way back last spring and were shocked to still get a nice growth of green vines and leaves that year.  This year the leaves and the vines came back along with a LOT of grapes! So fun!

Last post of the day

So, after almost 3 days straight of party prep and partying, what did I do?  I stayed up another 2 hours and watched this with the kids for the first time:

It was fantastic!

I think we're going to watch it again tonight! :)

Ragnar Party--GOOD times!

On Saturday night we hosted a swim/bbq party for the families of all of Jason's Ragnar teammates.  Man, everyone was so great!   Basically all we had to do was supply the pool and the hot dogs and hamburgers--everything else was taken care of!  The food was amazing, the drinks were plentiful, there were lots of camping chairs, and the kids, all 20 of them, were great!

You'll notice I didn't take any pictures of us in the pool, and that's probably a good thing because we were MAXED out, ha-ha!  Jason thinks we set a record for pool occupancy, since there were 35 of us and most of the kids and adults swam!    We all had a good time watching the video of pictures that Jason Allen put together, too (no, not Jason Allen Cushing, the other Jason Allen! :))

The funniest part of the evening was when Rob Tomlinson, the team leader, was presented with the slap bracelet that the entire team shared during the Ragnar race.  It was an inside joke--that thing was COVERED in everyone's sweat for 35 hours! 


Many, many thanks to the Tomlinsons, Kimblers, Trimbles, Hills, Winders, Allens, and Nick--let's do it again next year!

Our first-born celebrates a dozen

O Happy Day!  And in Rhiannon's case, Happy W-E-E-K of Birthday Celebrating! 

Last Wednesday, May 30th, we began the birthday extravaganza.  It was kind of a weird day because Rhiannon left for school at 6:45am and then only had a couple hours til we left for Wade's baseball game, BUT we still managed to recognize the significance of turning 12 on her actual birthday:

There were birthday balloons...

I played around with the pictures on Picasa--they have some fun effects you can try!  But what I really love are Rhiannon's balloon ears!

And Mickey D's for dinner before the game, with a McFlurry just for the Birthday Girl...

Then, after 5 hours at Wade's game, Rhiannon finally opened presents at 10:30pm, earning her the title Best, Most Patient Sister on the Planet!

Some of her favorites were a snare drum, a metronome, a book of Star Wars piano music, a fedora, LOTS of sunglasses, iTunes money, and a subscription to the New Era magazine.

NICE HAT, Rhiannon!  We loved helping her model her new sunglasses, too!

A day went by and then we started partying all over again Friday night.  At 5pm Rhiannon's girlfriends showed up for a swim/slumber party.  They were PERFECT guests, kind, fun, and FUNNY!  Britney, Sierra, Jasmine, JenAi, Janelle, and Sophia are welcome back ANY TIME!

The girls spent most of their time in the pool and then they watched The Princess Bride.  Many thanks to Dad and Wade who had a nightmare experience at Pizza Hut but hung in there to save the day with dinner!  (They were out of pan crust and breadsticks and hadn't even begun our order when Jason showed up 30 minutes later--it was CRAZY.)

Around 11pm, all the girls went home except for Sierra and Sophia--they watched Ghost Protocol for a bit, and then Rhiannon said her friends fell asleep on her.  She was the last one up and went to bed at midnight, ha-ha!  Now THAT'S an easy sleepover!!!

The next morning around 8am, all the other girls came back and joined us for donuts, and then all the girls  played card games until 9:30 or so, when we started kicking everyone out. (We had another "little" get-together we had to prepare for later in the day...) 

Rhiannon was over the moon and so pleased with how everything turned out.  Her friends are the greatest--she definitely knows how to pick good ones! :)

A birthday wouldn't be complete without having Howard and Sandi over.  After a crazy busy Friday/Saturday, Howard and Sandi joined us for a light dinner Sunday night and added the perfect finishing touch to a weekend of partying!

We Love You, Rhiannon!

Happy 12th Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!

A mini piano recital by Rhiannon

This afternoon I finally caught Rhiannon playing some piano--she plays ALL. THE. TIME. but I never think to capture it!

Enjoy!

This was her most recent piano recital piece called "The Matador..."

And this is her latest work in progress, the Star Wars song "Across the Stars."  She got the music from Grandpa and Grandma Sheen less than a week ago--thanks, guys!

Wade's 20 seconds of insane courage

We thought Wade's last baseball game in the playoffs was a couple weeks ago--his Red Sox team played his friend Nick's Yankee team and beat them by 10 points, BUT they had to play again because the Yankees hadn't been double eliminated.

So we played again.  On Rhiannon's birthday.

The game started at 5:30 and ended at TEN O'CLOCK at night!  It was crazy!  At 9pm the president of the league came on the field and said we'd played past the time limit but had to finish the game--the kids could keep playing or meet again the next night to finish the game.  Jason and I yelled and waved our arms--"KEEP PLAYING!  FINISH THE GAME!"  We got some looks from tired folks, but I think many of us just wanted to be DONE!

Hang in there, Wade!  He was tired, but still smiling!

Wade's team was behind but finished out the 6th inning and tied the game....so we kept playing!

Wade's team was "Home."  The game was tied at 19 after the 6th inning so we had to keep going!

Here's Rhiannon with our good friend Sophia--her brother Nick was on the opposite team.  It was about 9:30pm, and this is how most of us looked!  It was so sweet that these sisters stayed to see the game through--they were worried about not getting enough sleep for their middle school finals the next day!  Not to mention Rhiannon was spending 5+ hours of her 12th birthday at the ballpark! :)

And

then

something

AMAZING

happened.



Our team had burned through all our pitchers and then some.  So Coach Griffin called Wade out of the outfield, where he'd been the WHOLE game, and asked him to pitch.

Jason and I looked at each other, our jaws dropped and eyes wide, probably thinking the same thing--"this could be really BAD or really, really cool."

Wade practices some pitches and gets tips from his coaches

We woke up a bit when Wade walked out to the mound!

Wade got up to the mound and had to be taught how to place his feet.  Here was a kid who'd thrown a few "pitches" in the backyard with Mom and Dad and hadn't been practicing all season like the other kids.

A kid came up to bat, and Wade's first pitch was a beautiful, perfect STRIKE!  I went a little crazy and hooped and hollered a bit after that!

Wade kept throwing these awesome straight pitches--some were too high, but they were straight as could be.  He got two strike-outs and was able to get his team out of a painful first half of the inning.  The Red Sox weren't able to get enough runs to come back, but they made it through a nail-biter of a game!

It is very difficult to put into words how proud we were of Wade, but I think his coach put it perfectly.  After the game and pictures Rhiannon and I went home, and Jason hung out for Wade.  Jason thanked all the coaches for a great season and for helping Wade out so much.  One coach replied that he wished they'd had 12 Wades on their team--he worked hard and did everything they asked him to do, including stepping onto the mound for the first time in his life during a final championship game.

I'm thankful for Wade's "20 seconds of insane courage" and the wonderful way he carried himself--what a great kid!

There was one other really cute moment during the game.  I missed it while I was gone signing up Oscar for obedience classes.  Jason said Wade got hit by a pitch and went to first base.  As he touched home plate, he did this to Dad:

No one knew what that meant but Jason and Wade--they made a deal that everytime Wade got hit by the ball, he'd get a scoop of ice cream.  The "peace sign" from Wade was his signal to Dad that now he owed Wade not one but TWO trips to Baskin Robbins!  Too funny!!!!!!!!

Congratulations on a wonderful season, buddy!

2nd Place in Pinto Championships!!!

Thanks for a great game, Red Sox and Yankees!

Oscar and the girls

Rhiannon and I were being goofy on her birthday and took some fun pictures with Oscar.  It's a pretty fair presentation of how much love this dog gets!  (and how much he enjoys being on the couch with us!  It's the one place in the house we're okay with--most other places are OFF LIMITS.)

Many people ask me how "the dog thing" is going.  Well, it's going great.  Oscar does keep us on our toes and keeps us guessing.  He drives us crazy but we love him so much! 

Nailed it

Rhiannon had her last piano recital of the school year a couple weeks ago.  She was the first one to play and NAILED her piece--no mistakes, great tempo and dynamics.   We were so proud of her!  I'll get a video of her playing the song and add it soon!

Rhiannon with her long-time friend Ethan Bates.  I was glad to get this picture--Ethan and his family are moving to Twin Falls, Idaho in a few days--we're going to miss this goofy, fun kid!

Rhiannon's teacher Sister McDonald was so pleased with Rhiannon's performance--she says that Rhiannon is just FLYING through lessons!

Rewind: Polar Bear Club 2012

Time for blog catch-up! 

Jason opened up the pool at the beginning of May--the solar cover makes this possible and "heats" the water up really well!   

Both Rhiannon and Wade had a good time doing the Polar Bear challenge, but Oscar was content just circling the pool and trying to sneak drinks.  We did throw him in after a couple days, and he was NOT amused.  At least we know he can swim now--he just doesn't know how to get out, which is a little scary.   We'll work on it!

Enjoy the pictures!

Hmmmm...do you think the water is cold?

Dunk your head, Rhiannon!

Catching Rhiannon's jump on camera--cool!

Love these kids! :)