Recital Time: Featuring Azia & Jenna the Ballerinas
“The Wizard of Oz...ish”
April 26. 2008
Arlee Dancers
Arlee High School
Baseball Begins
April 25, 2008
After some weather delays and a few months of anticipation (where Israel could often be found wandering the house in full Yankees regalia, carrying his wooden bat, pondering how skillful he was going to be once the season began) he finally had his first game.
It was a game against the other Mission team, though they really didn’t look like the same league. The other team was about twice as big and most actually had some baseball experience. Israel is one of the biggest kids on his team (which is already a bad sign since he is one of the smallest ones in fourth grade and hasn’t ever played baseball) and most of the others on his team are T-ballers from last year. They also seem to still be figuring out who might be best for each position because Israel played four this evening: pitcher, catcher (neither of which he’d even tried in practice), first base and third base.
They ended up losing 4-14, but I think they had fun. I think they’ll just get better throughout the season so hopefully they’ll get a few wins before the end of the summer.
April in the Mission Valley
Just because. . .
Time to start gardening
Life is good. My pickup made it all the way to Missoula and back without breaking down, so I got mulch for the flower beds. The only adventure was that the guy at Eko Compost driving the front end loader just dumped his whole bucket load in the truck--three yards I think. The rim on my right rear tire was only two inches off the road and I wasn’t sure I would make it to Cenex to put more air in. But I did.
The early tulips and daffodils are finally beginning to bloom, along with the fritillaria (crown imperial) which is barely beginning.
Hyacinths are growing quick--very fragrant.
I put new Canna lilies and dahlias in a few beds and mulched everything heavy.
A few hours later, it was all covered in snow.
I’m glad I didn’t get around to removing last year’s Autumn Joy Sedum. It looks good in winter.
Robinson Caruso--kind of…
The MCT was in town this week to work with the elementary students. The play was a very loose interpretation of Robinson Caruso. It wasn’t the best written play they’ve brought here, and I’m not even really sure what it was about. Still, all the kids looked cute and enjoyed their performances. They had a few lines, some song and dance numbers and great costumes.
Jenna & Azia were chameleons--chameleons that turned plaid and had some yoga moves.
Israel was Billy the goat.
I’m not exactly sure what Gage was. A member of the angry face tribe?
The whole cast at the end of the show.
Christa & Lex
Haircuts
Azia and I both decided to donate our long hair to locks of love. Azia just wanted to get a little trim at first (just short enough that maybe Gwen’s curlers would work to give her curly hair) but when she started looking at the haircut books she wanted to go shorter and shorter with each new picture she found. I was afraid she’d be sad once she cut it all of so I didn’t let her go completely shaved short in the back, but she actually still really likes it. I keep discovering new ways we fixed her long hair (braids for Powwow, bun for ballet....) but the short hair is fun, too and does take much less time to fix.
Before...with our long locks still in place.
Azia likes the haircut experience. She is a little jealous every time her brothers get haircuts so all the attention was fun for her, too.
And after the haircuts.
Azia cut off 11 inches. Christa had 19.
Sweetbriar Fountains
There’s a beautiful public plaza about a block and half behind our house, and since it hit the mid 80s and low 90s last week (hopefully hitting 90 in April is not a sign of things to come!) we were grateful for the beautiful fountains!
At the front of the plaza is a large, traditional fountain. The kids like to kick their feet, but is often a challenge to convince them that it isn’t a children’s swimming pool.
Dylan is arguably the biggest fan of the fountains. He’s sort of a maniac about water.
Keilana and Clayton enjoyed playing tag in the water.
Lex’s Blessing
March 29, 2008
Yaya got LexLandon a fancy white suit for his blessing.
Lex was blessed by his grandfather, Michael Umphrey.
All the LaFrombois Boys
Israel’s Baptism
March 29, 2008
Valerie gave the talk about the Holy Ghost before the confirmation. The boys made sure they had good seats (and the pennies were a big hit.)
Michael K. Umphrey, Michael L. Umphrey, Elders Boatman & Pututau, Bishop Griffen, and Clark Joy
Michael helped Israel out by learning a song the night before so he could accompany him on the guitar while he sang “ I was there when it happened” (Johnny Cash, of course...)
More Easter
Baptism! Israel and Michael take the plunge. . .
It was like a miracle! The blizzard stopped and the swirls of snow subsided. (However, the sun did not come out and the ice did not melt). March 29, 2008
Mission Dam in March is still more winter than spring. In fact, it snowed during the morning of the appointed day. The bishop said he would wait for us back at the church, although the Elders came out with us.
It would have been easy to forgive Israel if he got “cold feet,” but he didn’t say anything.
Although there was ice over most of the dam, the edges were thawed, so there was plenty of open water.
They both appear joyous.
Posted by Michael L Umphrey on 03/29 at 06:48 PM
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Getting warm
Semi-Impromptu Beach trip
Doug and his boss had to meet with one of the companies they’re working with on McDermont, and it happens this particular company is over on the coast, so we used it as an excuse to take an overnighter to the beach. Lots of fun!
Keilana’s favorite beach activity was building sandcastles. She was a little frustrated at first that “we don’t have any buckets!”
Dylan had quite a tone of urgency with this board, but it took me several minutes to figure out what he was trying to communicate to me. Eventually I figured out that he wanted me to show him how to surf--he thought it was a surfboard.
Keilana was much braver about the water this time. . . .
. . .even after suffering a nasty wipeout in her clothes.
In the evening, when it was much too chilly for the beach, we headed down to good ol’ SLO, where we enjoyed some pizza at their Thursday night street fair/farmer’s market.
Keilana loves swings no matter WHERE we are!
Easter Sunday 2008
no time for captions
Posted by Michael L Umphrey on 03/26 at 09:47 PM
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