Black and White Photo Challenge

So there was a thing on facebook to put up seven black and white photos, one each day for a week, to show your life.
Here are mine.

First Day of School 2017

Jessica 2nd, Andrew 3rd, April 5th

Krista 12th (Senior Year, Woot!)

Kylie 8th

Krista and the junior prom

Aren't they cute? Her date is Nate, a friend she's known for years, he came up from Orem. He's a foot or so taller than when I last saw him. They had a great time.

Keeper of the Privy Purse

Jared just started a new job and it's sort of at Burger King.
Yup, I had that same reaction when he came home one day and said he needed his white shirt clean for the next day's interview at Burger King.
This is actually kind of a cool job.
Jared is working for a corporation that own hundreds of restaurants all over the US. Many of them are Burger Kings, a bunch of them are Chilis, Popeyes, and some other ones. He's one of their corporate accountants so he does audits, payroll, etc. for the company. The corporation has a head office here in Ogden.
Jared has been working for them for almost two weeks now and he's very happy with the job and the people there.
You may be asking 'what happened to the ski resorts?', well, one ski resort was unable to get the financing they had been planning on for their expansion so they gave up the plans and let the people involved go. Jared did a bit of bookkeeping for them but they no longer needed a CPA. He switched to another ski resort that was trying to straighten out some problems in their finances and spent a few months fixing them up at which point they thanked him very nicely and sent their nice tidy accounts to an accounting firm on the east coast somewhere.
Jared then got a job working tax support for Intuit (Turbotax) as a sort of dial-a-CPA that you get sent to if you've got issues with your taxes. It paid well and was interesting but they only keep people on for this job for a few months of the year.
I was just starting to look for a part-time job myself when the King came through for us.
This week Jared was able to go to the opening of a brand new Burger King in Heber City, UT and he got a kick out of it.
So, after moving up here to work at a ski resort, then staying to work at another ski resort, we are pretty much settled in for a job at Burger King and feeling pretty positive about it.

4th Grade Puppet Book Report - April

Went to Grandma for lessons on sewing and design. Look how cute they turned out!
 They look just like in the book.

Krista - Sweethearts Dance at WHS

I saw SLEEZE triangles and other 4th grade geometry

Thank You to April for this awesome piece of homework humor. I'm not sure how to spell isosceles triangle either.

The Turning Point - SNOW 2017

It's supposed to start warming up and we're getting some melting so here are some pictures to entertain us with memories of the snow this year.



The driveway pile was up to the top of the car, it's just starting to shrink. It will be nice to see what's coming as we back out.



The tall thing is the mailbox. The orange bucket is the approved substitute mailbox. To be approved it just has to be labeled "US MAIL" some of the things people are using are pretty entertaining. Delivering the mail at this point has got to be a struggle.



The mail carriers aren't the only ones struggling. This is what the fire department did so they can find the hydrants if they need to. Red paint on the 5 foot+ tall pile of snow. The hydrants here actually have little poles with flags sticking up from them so they are visible under a normal pile of snow but this is apparently Plan B.

Dear 2017 Deer

There's a small herd of maybe 8 - 12 dear showing up to hang out in my backyard most nights.

SNOW this year is getting serious

One of the neighbor's driveway piles. Height on the lawns is somewhere above my knees.

Sledding Weather

 

April lasted the longest

Eugene, OR ice storm picture

I shamelessly stole this picture from a friend (wow, Nikole) I've known since back in the day.  She lives in Oregon and posted a few pics on facebook.  I couldn't stop staring at them so I made a blog post as it lasts longer.

Christmas Parenting Humor

Andrew's Baptism - Family Picture

Updating some pictures...

Went on a cruise to Alaska in July of 2016 with this crazy bunch.
We used the excuse of my parents having a 40th anniversary but mostly we all just wanted to party :)

Here are the pictures from the formal night.  We payed enough for them, I'm going to get a little use out of them!
            
In no particular order there, that's the lot of us.  I'm also going to use these for the side bar of the blog for this year.

Dancing In The Library

Enjoyed this video so much I'm posting it here.

Uptown Funk - Library Books

Kudos Weber High students

This morning, after dropping off my 15 yo at the high school, I found a place to park and went in to pay her AP Physics test registration fee.  I was in line at the office when the bell rang.  I was just leaving the front doors when the announcements started.  I was half way down the stairs and a few feet from the flag pole when the announcer asked everyone to rise for the pledge.

What happened next made me so proud of these kids.

Kids were literally jogging towards the school from the parking lot because they were running a few minutes late, but when the pledge started, they froze in place, saluted the flag, finished the pledge, and then jogged on. The announcer rattled the pledge off so maybe 20 seconds of brilliant freeze-frame that made me super impressed and a bit misty as a Navy brat from a proud military heritage.

I stood there with my hand over my heart quietly saying the words to the pledge and thinking about higher standards (no pun intended).  Students and their parents get two thumbs up from me.

Scared of Lady Fitness

Across the street from the dance school my kids attend is a Lady Fitness.  When we first moved up here to the north of Ogden a few of the ladies in the ward (neighborhood) told me they went to LF to do classes together and encouraged me to join.  I looked into it online but decided with Jared's job situation being a little shaky and having just moved I didn't want to add a fitness membership to the budget.

Here I am, two years later, and I'm still coming up with excuses not to go join.  Sadly, the excuses have devolved to pathetic and pitiful things and the occasional "maybe after I finish this piece of cake".

Also, in the two years since we moved up here I've put on more than ten pounds.  Lots of factors to this, mostly eating my feelings type factors.  I am working on my eating habits and need to get more serious and scheduled about my exercise goals.

40 is only a couple of years away now and it's been 10 years since my hip/pelvis reconstruction.  I'm slowing down metabolically and physically and it's not making me feel good about myself.

I'm driving at least one of my kids down to the dance studio and back every single day and sometimes sitting in the car or the lobby for up to 45 minutes with a book while waiting for classes to finish.  I drive past that Lady Fitness over and over and have even been in the parking lot a few times (the train stop is next door).  Finances are okay, schedule is okay, I need to exercise, my husband thinks it's a good idea....

Now to quit sitting in the car staring at the gym across the street and actually get up the willpower to walk in.

Grand jete - ballerina picture

One of my friends had a t-shirt with a similar saying for her gymnast daughter and I tried to find the author of the quote/poem but couldn't.  I used an image from Google that was on someone else's blog.  Yup, just all kinds of internet borrow and use without citing a source.  But it came out kinda cool in photoshop and I'm not claiming any rights to any of it.  :)

Boxing Day Bowling

Minny = April

Crusher = Jessica

Christa = Krista

Kylie

Pikachu = Andrew

Jared

Krista

April and the watermelon ball

Andrew with the watermelon ball

Jessica/Crusher she's giving you her 

"fierce look" in case it wasn't obvious.

labeling the drink cups

Me

Jared, Andrew, Jessica

Jared

Yes, those scores are pretty bad but they're

 about normal for

this crowd.  Also, proof that a great bowling

 name can only take you so far.