Chemistry is cool!

I think Jake has really enjoyed his honors chemistry class this year. As a fun end of the year lab, they made tie dye t-shirts...all that pH and dye chemically bonded to fabrics stuff is a fun way to apply chemistry to everyday life. I think it turned out totally awesome. We are thinking of having him teach us as a family project. I love the spiral pattern...mine was always the rubber band circle method and this is so much cooler! What do you think...

Saturday is a special day...

It's the day everyone catches up on sleep I guess...no wonder the bathrooms always seem like they didn't get cleaned, everyone is sleeping instead of cleaning!

Bubba Baseball

Anissa is playing "bubba" baseball right now and she just loves it. They play with a whiffle ball and a plastic bat, but they actually pitch to them. They get about 10 or 15 pitches and if they don't hit the ball then they break out the tee. She doesn't usually need the tee, in fact, most of the kids don't...and these little guys range from about 3-6 years old! She has played lots of different positions and has really had fun. Next she wants to try soccer and hip hop dance! (Not combined of course...)

Lacrosse

At this point in the season he was actually the tallest one on the team (#98). They have since added a few more players and have enough for a couple extra, so they get to rest a little bit.

Well since Aidan is about to play his last game this week, I thought I'd better post a few pictures. He started playing lacrosse this year and he's really loving it. It's a pretty fun sport to watch. When he first started he was telling me all about all the ways they get to hit each other and I thought "Oh Yeah...my baby will get beat and broken. It's a contact sport with the added bonus of a stick to hit each other with!" It is pretty rough, but he's survived his first season and wants to continue next year. Jonah even wants to give it a try when he's in middle school next year (yes, I know... Jonah is going to be in middle school next year!)

A shout out for Redbox!

If you haven't tried Redbox yet , you should...It's great. Only one dollar per night for each movie and you can find them all over. Walmart, McDonald's, Albertson's, Smith's, etc. It's really great when Anissa is dying to see Barbie Fairytopia or some such thing and we don't want to waste our Blockbuster rental on it. Speaking of Blockbuster, we are thinking of cancelling and maybe going with just Redbox or even netflix because in this world of ultra convenience, it seems like such a hassle to have to drive clear up Charleston to get to our closest Blockbuster (aren't we spoiled). Redbox is totally awesome for road trips too. You can rent and drop off the movie at any other Redbox along the way. Rent. Watch. Exchange. Las Vegas. Cedar City. SLC. Awesome. Then you don't have to pack up a bunch of your own DVD's and risk leaving them in the hotel like we did a few years ago...and of course when we called, they had no idea what we were talking about...obviouslly the maid didn't find them and think she'd hit the jackpot. Yeah right, but that's another story...

Spring Break

Well our passport situation didn't turn out as planned. Our order of 4 passports must have been split up between two different people because we got two applications back saying the print quality of the photos wasn't acceptable (I printed at home), so I had to send in new prints and then later got the other two passports, so I guess the person doing those two thought the quality was just fine. Instead of leaving the poor two kids with no passports home, we planned an alternate vacation. We went to Hearst Castle, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Sequoia National Park. We put quite a few miles on the car, but it was a great trip. The weather was beautiful and the scenery is magnificent. The kids loved it (even a certain 16 year old said it was one of our best trips so far!) Here's a few highlights. I won't make you look at all 446 pictures we took...no joke, we had to buy a new card for the camera...love that digital photography!

PS...I'm still waiting on one more passport...

11 Year Old Scout Camp

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

And the band played on...

Some of you may not know that we do have one musically inclined person living in our home (the rest of us are a sad lot...) Aidan plays the trombone in the Johnson Jr High Symphonic Band. They had a big music festival at UNLV last week. Here are a couple of pictures courtesy of his friend's mom... BTW he also plays a trumpet on loan from his Grandpa Vance and he has a guitar he "picked out" (that's a funny story) in Mexico when he was about 2 years old. We bought him a PC lesson kit so he can finally learn to play that, too! Wow. That's pretty great. He almost makes up for our lack of musical ability.

My Super Sweet Sixteen!

Jeff and I are NOT actually old enough to have a 16 year old, are we?! I can't believe my firstborn baby burrito is 16 today...

So cute in his Disneyland hat..Reading the map at Sea World...leadership qualities already showing

He said it, not me...

He loved everything about dinosaurs as a kid. He knew anything you wanted to know about any kind of dinosaur...I think he gave lectures in Nursery!

If you look closely in this picture you can see his "tail". This was part of a halloween costume and he wore it EVERYWHERE. He would have worn it to church if we let him, but we had to draw the line somewhere. All of his shorts (because thats all he would wear at this age...even in winter) had worn marks in the back of the waste band from the safety pin!

The young paleontologist at work...

Money was a motivator even at this young age...

The sign he's holding (and wrote himself) says: "I am a turkey" ...I think that's pretty self explanitory.

This is his great Tata, Emilio... his middle namesake

Fourth of July...I think its a cool picutre showing the duality of a teenager (listen to me, my its getting late. I need to go to bed!)

Happy Birthday Jake...I hope it was a super sweet sixteen!! We love you tons!

Passports...

It feels like its time for a new post, but I'm at a bit of a loss. So, I thought I 'd share some info I just learned about passports. We are planning a trip to San Felipe Mexico for Spring Break and we now need passports for the kids with the new laws in effect. So I've been working on that and found out you can get a "passport card" for land and sea travel into Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. It only costs $35 for kids...that was good news. Then I found a website to help us all fight the passport photo rip-off conspiracy. It has a helpful template so you can make sure your photos are exactly the right size. You just upload a picture you've taken yourself, get it adjusted just right and then print it at home. I'll let you know how it goes when we turn in all the applications (which you can fill out online and print out right at home too). Fingers crossed, I hope everything is in order. Here's their photos...at least when you take them yourself, you only have yourself to blame if you don't like how they look!