2-0 this week

No, I'm not talking about the BYU basketball team this week, (Although I expect them to beat San Diego St. tonight and go 2-0 this week.) I'm talking about my soccer and basketball teams.



I've been playing on an indoor soccer team with some people from work for the last several weeks. We signed up for an intermediate division, but most of the time it has seemed like we've been a little out matched. The other teams were usually a little faster and better at controlling the ball. The result so far has been 0 wins and combined scoring of 11 goals for us and 37 for our opponents. It's been a little discouraging, but we've still had some fun. Thursday night our game started at 10:45 PM (and that's not even the last game of the night). This time we were playing against the second to last place team (We're in last.) and we managed to open up a 4-0 lead. Unfortunately we only had one substitute and we started to get a little tired. With about 5 minutes left the score was tied 5-5. Fortunately we managed to turn up the intensity and ended up winning 7-5. I even got credit for a goal. I was playing defender and stole the ball and was passing it to a teammate near the goal. One of the defenders tried to hit it with his head and it bounced over the goalie and in for a score. A bad pass turned into a goal for us.

This morning at 7 AM (Who schedules these things?) our ward had our last Elder's Quorum basketball game. We've been playing for the last month and a half, but our team has been pretty inconsistant. Sometimes 5 people show up, sometimes 9 or 10, and there have probably been at least 15 people who have played in at least one game. Unfortunately, we haven't played very well as a team (or individually for that matter) and have lost all our games. (Except the one when the other team didn't show up and we won by forfeit.) Most of the time it has still been fun to play but it does get a little frustrating. This morning we only had 5 players, including one who had never played on the team before. Fortunately, the other team also had only 5 players. We started out as usual, falling behind 9-2, but we managed to get back into the game, and with about 2 minutes left in the game we got our first lead of the season at 41-40. We hit another 3-pointer and it was time for the other team to try to foul us. They hadn't fouled us much the second half so they had to foul us 4 times before we would shoot free throws which meant that there were only 4.2 seconds left on the clock. The free throw missed but after 2 time-outs they weren't able to get a shot off in time and we had our first win of the season.

Tickets, Police and High Stress

I've been stressing all this week dealing with tickets. The radio station announced last week that The Police were coming to SLC in July. So all week they were giving tickets away. Of course it's always good to get free stuff so I tried calling in whenever they played the Police song of the day (which they would play once, so I listened all day to make sure I didn't miss it.) And then I wouldn't be able to get through anyway. But the reason I wanted to win them was because I was afraid when they went on sale today they would sell out fast and I wouldn't be able to get tickets. But it was no problem, I bought them online and now we just have to wait five months to go to the concert. I've been a big fan for years and this is their last concert tour ever (or so they say) so I figure this is my last chance.

In Loving Memory

My mom died twenty years ago yesterday. I was thinking about her much of the day but didn't think about writing a post about her. I don't think I'll ever forget that day when I was in my sixth grade class and a student from the office brought a note to my teacher and as soon as he started to come towards me I knew what it was about. This was the first and only time I ever remember being taken out of class. I remember walking down the hall shaking and I think hoping it wasn't what I knew it was.

The past twenty years have seemed like so long. So much has happened, finishing school, getting married and having children. But it also seems crazy that she has been gone so long. I didn't get the chance to know her as a person. At 11 years old, she was just mom.... the person who cooks you food, cleans your clothes and tells you to clean up your room. I'm grateful that she was very good at writing in journals so I can get to know her a little bit better. I don't think about my mom that much in my day to day life but I did think about her, especially big events like when Josh and I got married and each time we had another baby. I feel bad that she didn't ever see her sons return home from serving missions or see her children married or have a chance to be a Grandma during this life.

I am very grateful for the knowledge the gospel gives me that I know I will see her again. We will be together as an eternal family and she will get to meet the people I love.

Home Improvement

We have been doing some home improvement in our house. I have been wanting a new bedroom set for years. None of the furniture we had matched and most of it was handed down from other people.

Before

Plus we had painted some rooms in our house in Kansas a few months before we moved and then this house had all white walls and we were wanting to change it. We already redid our master bath and this past Saturday we worked on our bedroom. We bought a new bedroom set and Josh picked it up on Saturday (minus the dresser which is backordered until May.)

We spent the day painting and putting the bed together. I ironed the curtains and bedskirt to the new bedding I'd bought. We also decided to get some curtains for the kitchen while we were at it. It was all pretty much put together by 10:30. After all of that work Josh needed a long nap which he took Sunday afternoon.

(If anyone wants an 8 yr old bed that's in very good condition let us know and we'll get it to you somehow.)

Happy Valentine's Day

I went and helped with Matthew's class party this morning. They have all of the Tues./Thurs. kids there, morning and afternoon. So there were a lot of kids! I was planning to take some pictures to post here but that didn't happen. They had all of the helpers be in charge of one game and the groups of kids would then rotate. I signed up to be in charge of Zingo because out of the ones that were left it was the one I knew how to play. (Thanks to Grandma :) So I sat at this little table on a very hard bench for about 2 hours. owwww! So needless to say but there was no picture taking. The only time I saw Matthew was when he was at my table. Katie managed to keep herself occupied, once she saw that I wasn't going to let her play the game like at home she crawled under the table and sucked her thumb. Matthew had a fun day and came home with a bag full of Valentines.

Julia's First Piano Recital

Recently Julia performed in her first piano recital. She did a great job showing off her piano playing ability. She has been taking piano lessons for about two and a half years now and really enjoys being able to play some fun songs. She does have to be reminded to practice, but who doesn't.

After Julia's succesful recital, Emma has decided she's ready to start taking lessons as well. She'll be starting in the next couple of weeks. This will make next years recital quite a bit longer since that will make five performers instead of four, of course the audience will probably be the same size with all the performers coming from the same three families.

Jordan, Julia, Sam, McKenna

We had a fun evening at the recital and have enjoyed having some beautiful piano music in our home.

May the force be with you.

As I mentioned in the previous post the kids have been enjoying the new Gamecube we received for Christmas. (Did I say the kids? Josh is pretty heavily involved as well. Even I've played a few times, but only when Matthew really begs me to help him:) The most popular game by far is Lego Star Wars II. It takes you through the original Star Wars movies with different levels and things to accomplish. It follows the movies pretty closely. Matthew would play it all day every day if I let him.......oh wait I do.

When they are not playing the video game they are running around the house acting out the movies, luckily there are several versions of Princess Leia so the girls can both be her. Katie is even learning about all of the characters like Sleepio and 2-2 (C3PO and R2D2) but of course she likes Princess Leia the best, she is a princess after all.

Let it snow!

We have had so much snow this winter. It has been a lot more than last winter and I thought that was a lot.....compared to what we would get in Kansas. Josh overheard people at church today saying that there hasn't been a winter with constant snow on the ground like this year in several years. The first few times it snowed our kids were out playing in it but now they are more interested in playing the video games we got for Christmas.

Yesterday during President Hinckley's funeral they commented that it was a beautiful day, one of the few days without snow and not even cloudy! Before we left for church Josh shoveled the driveway and when we got home it didn't even look like he had shoveled at all. And now it has started snowing again. The girls have early-out from school all week for Parent, Teacher conferences so I'll have to get them outside to play in this wonderful? snow.