Pinewood Derby 3-peat

At the end of January, our ward cub scouts had their Pinewood Derby. Followers of this blog will know that our family has a strong Pinewood Derby tradition. Jessica participated one year, and won. Pepper did it last year, and won. So, Brad felt the pressure this year to keep the dream alive.

Adam is almost 8, so they let him build a car this year, which meant both he and Pepper were entered. Brad and the boys spent some quality time out in the garage, designing and building the perfect cars. Each of the boys decided the shape of their cars, Brad cut them, and then the boys each sanded their cars to death. After the sanding, the boys painted their own cars.

Pepper kept his car design simple. He wanted a traditional Nascar shape, and then selected a modest blue paint. He refused my offer to get stickers to spice it up - I guess "less is more" for Pepper.

Adam, on the other hand, had a little more flair. He liked this racier car shape, painted his car green, orange, and yellow, and added as many fire stickers as would fit. He could barely sleep the night before the derby because he was so excited about it!

After the cars were painted and stickerized, Brad added weights to the bottoms and spent A LOT OF TIME putting on the wheels and making dead sure the cars drove perfectly straight. He is convinced this is the secret to winning cars.

So after a tension-filled drive to the church, with each boy holding his car carefully with two hands to make sure the WHEELS DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING, we were ready to race.

You can see that Pepper's blue car and Adam's yellow car performed very well. The black car also gave them a run for their money.

After all the racing was done (and frankly, it took forever), Brad had his 3-peat. Adam took 1st place, our friend Gabe took 2nd, and Pepper took a very close 3rd.

Pepper took it all in a stride, but this was a major event in Adam's life. He walked around all the next day saying, "I can't believe I won!" over and over. I was glad to see him so excited about it all.

But when all is said and done, I really must congratulate Brad. Well done!

Hoops!

Well, it's Pepper's favorite time of year again. He is playing on his 4th grade basketball team and having a great time.

Pepper has made a lot of improvement from last year. He is much better at understanding the rules of the game and it is fun to see him getting a feel for how the game is played as a team.

Brad is helping coach again this year. You can see him giving the boys "what for" at last Saturday's game.

Pepper chillin' on the bench.

Waiting for the guy to shoot a free throw. I think Pepper was actually responsible for this foul. Most parents wouldn't be especially proud of their son getting a foul, but we were overjoyed! Brad has been working with Pepper a lot this year on playing with confidence and being assertive on the court, so this foul meant he was playing with some gusto!

Here is Pepper shooting a free throw. No, it didn't go in, but you can see it was close. Pepper is very good at accurate shooting and dribbling. It is harder for him to understand the movement of the game and reading the court. But like I said, he has made huge improvements this year and we are so proud of him!

Luker the Monkey Boy

New Year's Eve

For the last few years, our family has gone to an awesome New Year's Eve dance. There is a family here that hosts a big dance every December 31st, and we love to go. It is a family dance, so we dress up the kids and ourselves, and all go together. It is big enough that they have it in a church gym, and they go all out with a DJ, decorations, even balloons to fall from the ceiling at midnight.

Here is Luke ready to celebrate in his party hat.

Jessica is too cool to spend New Year's with just the family, so she invited her friend Braedyn to join us at the dance and then sleep over.

Jessica caught this moment with the camera - aaaawwwww...

Braedyn and Jessica trying out their 12-year-old flirting skills. I think they could learn a few lessons from suave Kyle there.

Pepper boogies (dance boogies, not nose boogies).

There were video games set up in one of the classrooms. You can see that Adam preferred this to dancing. We didn't see him for more than about 5 minutes all night.

It's almost midnight, and Jess and Braedyn are in full swing.

Happy New Year!

After the balloons fell, we all joined in a toast with sparkling cider. One of the hosts, our friend Dean, asked me what we are going to do next year when we are in Germany. I told him we will probably be sitting around our house, feeling sorry for ourselves that we can't be here at the dance. This has been a great tradition for our family, because it gives us something fun to do on New Year's Eve. New Year's is like Valentine's Day - you always think everyone else is doing something fabulous and exciting while you sit home watching the ball drop. We love going to this party because the whole family gets to go, and it feels like a real event. Plus, I get to dance with my dreamy husband, which is major for me. The DJ usually plays some old-school dance music, so I dust off my old social dancing skills and back-lead Brad through a few 180 moves. He is a very good sport.

Our family has a lot of changes coming this year, but we are excited to see what is in store for us.

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2009!

DWTS in SLC!

This year for Christmas, Brad surprised me with a plane ticket to Salt Lake City so I could go to the Dancing With the Stars on Tour with his mom and sisters. I had tried to get tickets for Jess and I to go in Detroit, but it was on a Sunday, so I let it go. I was very surprised to see the ticket when I opened my gift on Christmas morning, especially when I saw that it was a mini-trip to Salt Lake City! So fun! So, on December 29, I flew to Utah. I had a nice visit with Haley, who showed me the plans for her new house (so exciting!) then I drove down to see my family. My sisters Jenny and Jami were there with their families, and Bust and Josh, too.

I got to see Jami's baby Dylan - only 5 weeks old - who totally reminded me of Adam when he was tiny.

We stayed up way too late playing games, but it was OK because I was kid-less and got to sleep in the next morning (although, sadly, the time change screwed me up, and my sleeping-in only lasted until 7:30 a.m.).

After a delightful, relaxing day with my mom, Jami, and Josh, I met Lois, Haley, Becky, and Kate in Salt Lake on Tuesday night. We met for dinner, then walked over to the E Center for the show.

Here I am with Kate and Becky waiting for our table at dinner. Good excuse for a picture, right?

 We had good seats - front row of the top section - so we didn't have any annoying heads in our way (although, we did have to contort ourselves somewhat to see around the railing).

I felt bad for Jessica back home babysitting so I could be in Salt Lake watching our favorite show, so I took a bunch of pictures of Derek Hough. Jess used to say that Derek Hough was her husband until we saw magazine pictures of him smoking and read that he has moved in with Shannon Elizabeth (so gross). Even though he is dumb, we both still think he is very cute.

 Toni Braxton isn't much of a dancer, so I appreciated that the show's producers let her sing a few numbers instead.

The show had more all-professional numbers than star/pro numbers, which was good. I really liked this all-pro Paso Doble.

Another shot of cutie-patootie Derek Hough - for Jessica of course!


After the show, I spent the night at Bitners', then got up early to make an 8:00 a.m. flight back home. It was quick trip, but so fun! It was a totally unexpected visit with my family, and I couldn't ask for a better Christmas present. Thanks Brad - you are my favorite!

Christmas 2008

Well, I guess I ought to do what everyone does and post some pictures of our family Christmas. (I will try not to be too cute about it.)

On Christmas Eve, we had a Mexican feast with our good friends, then came home to open the "soft presents" from Grandma Larson. She always makes the kids pajamas that they open on Christmas Eve, and it is fun to see what her creative juices have inspired. This year, each of the kids' jammies were different, but as you can see, they still matched. Pepper's and Luke's were a bit large, but I'm sure they will fit them by next Christmas!



I love this picture of Luke. He was delighted that he could finally open something under the tree!

After the jammies were opened and put-on, the kids grabbed their stockings to lay out for Santa. When I was a kid, we always put our stockings somewhere in the living room where we wanted Santa to put our gifts, and that is what my kids do now. Luke was a little confused by the purpose of his stocking. As you can see, he took "stocking" very literally!

Christmas morning 2008 - quite a haul!

Later that night, Jeff and Jodi and their family came over for Christmas dinner. We agreed to keep it simple so we Moms could have a nice Christmas day, and it was perfect.

All the kids at the Kids' Table.

And the grown-ups at the Cool Table.

After dinner, a few rounds of Guitar Hero.

Brad and Jeff had a very intense round!

All in all, a fantastic Christmas! Merry Christmas to all!

How do you say "I'm Freaking Out" in German?

Yes, I am freaking out. We found out on Thursday that Brad's company has approved a promotion for him that will take our family to Berlin, Germany for the next 2-3 years. I KNOW!

We have known for a few weeks that he was being considered for the position, and that he was a top contender, but along the way we kept being told it probably wouldn't happen because it is so expensive for the company to have us in Germany. They will pay for our housing, car, and school for the kids, as well as various travel expenses for our family. It is not cheap for the company to have an American in this position, but apparently they have decided that Brad is worth it. Of course I am so proud of him, and he certainly deserves it, but I was relying on the lousy economy to keep me here in the States!

They are saying they want Brad to start in February or March 2009, so this will happen quickly. The plan for now is for me to stay here in our house until the kids finish school in June. Then, we will make our yearly trek to spend the summer with family in Utah. From there, we will head to Berlin. Of course, these plans may change as we get more information, but for now that is what we are thinking.

I don't know what we will do about our house here. The company is encouraging us to hold on to it, as we will be coming back after a couple of years, but we may try to sell it. We have been wanting to put it on the market anyway because we are starting to out-grow it, and this may be a good opportunity to let it go. Then when we return, we could get into a bigger house. Although, it is a no-brainer that whatever we would buy, it would have to be in the Clarkston Ward!

I can't even think about saying good-bye to our friends here. As soon as I start to go there, I can feel the bottom going out of my world, so I have to quickly start thinking of something happy. I plan on using this denial method for a while.

I need lots of chocolate.