Seminary Graduation

As a senior, Maddie graduated from seminary this year.  It is hard to believe that I have been getting up at 6:00 in the morning to go to seminary for 4 years now!  I only have 6 more years to go.  I have been very proud of Maddie and Jayd's seminary attendance.  Our stake sets levels of accomplishments to earn a gold, silver, or bronze medal.  Maddie has earned 4 gold medals, and Jayd has earned 3 gold medals.  I am so proud of them for earning these medals.  They have to work hard memorizing scriptures, reading personal scriptures for 10 minutes nearly every day, and most important, having 90% attendance.  I have been so impressed at how willing they are to go to seminary.  It is a part of their lives.  I don't even remember them asking me to stay home.  I am grateful for this program and I am grateful for the wonderful teenagers in my home!
At the graduation, the seniors are asked to make a display outlining a few of the things that are important in their lives.  Below is Maddie's display.  Among the things displayed, butterflies, personal progress, AP books, Toby, music and lots and lots of books!

Another year, another season, but what a season!

Jayd’s volleyball team had an amazing finish this year.  As they approached the last 4 games of the season, their record was 3-10.  We were pleased with that record, last season they were 1-15.  So three wins was feeling like a huge improvement.  The last four happened to be a string of games, all squeezed into less than a week. 

On Wednesday, they played the Aggies at home.  At their last contest, we had won the match.  They were able to live up to the expectations and swept the match. 

On Thursday, they were in the gym again matched up against the untested Donteros.  This was a hard fought match.  Midway through the fourth game, it appeared to be over.  Donteros was leading 2 sets to 1 set, and commanding a multiple point lead in the game.  But we didn’t give up.  Point by point, we caught up, surpassed the Donteros lead and won the fourth game to force a final fifth game.  In the fifth game, we came out on fire, and easily won the game.  Jayd had a solo block to capture game point and end the match.

On Friday, we travelled to our opponent’s arena.  I was not able to attend that game, but once again, our team triumphed by sweeping them in 3 straight games.  In that three day string of games, they had doubled their win record to 6-10.  In our minds, this was a winning season.

On Tuesday, we played our rivals at home.  This was the season ending game for our boys, and for some, their high school career.  A win would have been an elusive taste of ambrosia for the departing players and create a hunger in those that would return next year.  But alas, we had never beaten this team before.  The match started in a similar fashion to the Donteros game.  They won the first game, we won the second game.  Already we had earned a laurel wreath.  For as long as Jayd has played this sport, we have not even won a game against our rivals.  We were proud of this single win.  They dispatched us easily in the third set and were ahead in the fourth set as well, when the unthinkable happened.  We started to catch up.  We tied the game, then we went ahead.  Could we possibly force a fifth game?  We could, and we did!!  You could feel the tidal wave of momentum shift throughout the gym.  Our team was pumped, theirs was frustrated.  There was further evidence of this frustration as the yellow cards against their team began to fly.  In the end, they received 5 yellow cards during the match.  The fifth game started.  We came out of the gates ready to play.  We quickly gained a 5 point lead.  But they weren’t willing to give up yet.  They fought and came back to tie the game.  Undaunted, we refused to give up the fight.  Jayd was given the opportunity to hit the ball several times and he prevailed.  We pulled ahead to a 14-12 score.  Just like history repeating itself from the Donteros game, Jayd had a solo block to win the game.  We couldn’t believe it (and neither could our rivals).  It felt like David upsetting Goliath, although in this case Goliath was more of the size of an NBA player instead of a real 15 foot giant.  We were so happy.  It may never happen again, but it was worth the win for all of the players.  That game will not be forgotten for a long time.

In addition to a fabulous ending to the season, Jayd had a personal amazing season.  He lead the team with 200 kills, 37 aces and 18 solo blocks.   He was named to the 3^rd team all-miramonte league.  This is quite an honor.  At the end of the season, the coaches from all the teams get together and make “dream team” from the league.  They voted that Jayd should be on the 3^rd team.  I thought that was impressive that the other coaches knew who he was and recognized his efforts on his team’s behalf despite their less than stellar record.

Victory Ball

Maddie and Jayd headed off to the "Mormon Prom" last night.  Every year, our region hosts a prom for the LDS youth.  The requirements are a little more stringent than the school prom.  There are modest standards for the girls and boys.  The girls must have their dress checked by their Young Women leader prior to the dance.  Boys are required to wear suits or something appropriate for the dance (for example, this was a WWII theme, a couple of boys wore military uniforms).  They must have a date.  This year was a girls preference.  The girls were encouraged to ask the guys.  The price for the evening is very reasonable, less than $100 for dinner and the dance.  The dance is often at a nice location, this year it was at a WWII museum. 

The kids love it.  They all get together at a park before and take pictures, then go to the dance together.  They all mingle with their friends and have a great time.  The prom is gaining a reputation.  Many of the kids at school know about the Mormon prom.  They ask our kids questions about the prom and are excited for them to go.  This year, I know of two non-member girls that asked Mormon boys to the prom just so that they could go to it.  One of them even has a boyfriend.  I am so impressed with our youth, and grateful for this opportunity.  Not only are they able to have a fun, clean prom experience, it is turning into a great missionary tool for them.

 Maddie went with Ryan Blomquist.  Ryan has been a family friend for many years.  It was fun to see them going together to the prom.  Jayd went with Sarah Ribble.  She is a friend of Maddie's.  They had a nice time.

The Grotto

Easter Weekend we went for a family hike.  We were originally going to hike up to a nice view of the ocean, but the family took a vote and wanted to try going to "The Grotto" in the Santa Monica Mountains.  It was a lovely hike.  It went up and down through groves of trees until we finally arrived at the Grotto.  It was a portion of the creek that was crowded with large boulders.  After scrambling up and over several large boulders, we found a emerald green serene pool with an enormous boulder in the middle.  It was very pretty.  Allie and Gabe enjoyed exploring for a bit and climbing on the rocks before we headed back to the car.  It was a nice family time.

Easter Rises Again

Another year, another Easter.  This one was a little bittersweet, since we know that next year we will only have 3 children at home for the traditional easter egg hunt.  Gabe was enthusiatic to join in the ranks of Easter Bunny Helpers.  He was particularly interested in helping this year, since Maddie and Jayd have been helpers for him for years.  He wanted this last opportunity to assist so that his older siblings could be allowed the pleasure of the true hunt.  Even Toby joined the fun.

Sea World

Allie's Girl Scout troop has been trying to go to Seaworld for years.  This doesn't sound too difficult, but they wanted the girl scout sea world experience.  They wanted to spend the night there.  Sea World has packages for girl scouts where you can spend the night at the park in one of their animal habitats.  Allie's group was able to secure a night with the penguins.  Allie and her troop took the train down to Sea World on Friday morning.  They were admitted to the park and saw a few things, including feeding the manta rays, before settling in for the night.  They slept in the penguin habitat.  Allie said it was a little chilly, but I don't think that she minded.  She loves penguins and wore her penguin pajamas to prove it.  The next day, they had breakfast with Shamu.  Then they spent the day at the park before boarding the train to return home.  It was a wonderful experience, and I am very grateful to her leaders for making all of the arrangements.  It is very difficult to secure a reservation for these experiences, and they had the added difficulty of getting one on a Friday night so that Allie would be able to attend.  I am very grateful for their respectfulness towards our preferences.  Allie really enjoyed going with her troop.

Sweet and Savory Conference

Today is General Conference Sunday.  We love the semi-annual occurrence at our house.  We are able to sit in our home and listen to our prophets and apostles speak to us about the things we need to be doing.  Every year we make a conference pool, we try to guess which apostles will speak during which sessions.  We cheer when we get one right!  We take notes and enjoy being together.  But the very best part is conference cake.  Between the morning and afternoon session, we have a great brunch, filled with foods that we do not normally have in our house.  The star of the show is the conference cake.  It is basically a coffee cake that has been renamed and repurposed.  It is delicious and we love it.  A close runner up is bacon.  Since I do not enjoy really anything about bacon, I do not like to touch it, cook it, or even eat it, it rarely makes an appearance in my house.  So the Conference Sunday bacon is a very anticipated event.  We throw in a great batch of scrambled eggs and some orange juice to make our meal special.  We look forward to this meal every year where we can enjoy good food and talk about what we need to do to stay on the right path back to our Father in Heaven.