Grandpa's Pirate Party

Its becoming an annual tradition to celebrate my dad's birthday by holding a pirate themed party. We gather everyone together for food, then there are a variety of pirate themed activities for the kids, then Grandpa's birthday presents and cake. Then we watch a movie in the back yard projected on to the wall of the house.  Here's a few cute pics from the night's festivities.

This is how Conni bows.  So cute!

She didn't want to wear her princess dress, so this is as close to pirate clothes as we had.  Love the attitude?

Conni and Bridger

The full pirate gear - she wore the eye patch for quite a while!

Every grandkid got to build a pirate ship.  This is some of the proess.

Sunday afternoon Conni wanted to wear her pirate hat again.  Aren't they so cute!  

My two favorite people in the whole world!

Arggh!

Remembering 9/11

I have been reflecting along with many of you today where I was when the Towers were hit and fell 10 years ago today. Here's my day:

I was driving to work and I turned on the radio to hear Chunga and Mister talking about a plane crashing into a tower. (Yes, I remember the station because it caught me off guard to hear Chunga so serious!) I was going to stop and call my mom to see what was going on, but I was late for work so I figured I'd call her later.

Driving in, I was in complete shock! I could not believe something like that was happening in our country! I remember when I got to work, we had turned on the tv in our conference room. We didn't have the best reception, but I remember watching the second tower fall. I felt sick. I honestly was in shock and couldn't understand how that was happening.

Shortly thereafter, my boss gathered all of us in the conference room and turned off the news. We all thought he was going to send us home for the day. No, he laid off an employee, and then told all of us that we needed to get back to work.

The other things I remember for that morning is being on the phone with my older sister. My younger sister was a senior in high school, and my mom had gone to the temple that morning. We couldn't get a hold of mom, of course, but we figured the temple was a good place to be. My older sister's building was secured, so if they released my younger sister from school she wouldn't be able to go get her. We were trying to figure it all out and we kept dropping calls because of all the chaos with the cell coverage. Soon enough we heard from Mom and got everyone straightened out.

Dave and I had just decided a few days before that we thought we should get married, so once I got my sisters taken care of I called him. He was at SLCC and they had cancelled all classes. Dave had gone over to the institute where they were all just glued to the news. He said that there was a different feeling in the institute building than on the rest of campus, but it was still so awful.

After work, I headed to the institute for my class. A friend of mine was teaching and he gave a great lesson about facing our fears and forgiveness and faith in the Lord. I still remember the feeling of shock that followed all day long - for everyone.

Ten years later, my heart still breaks for those who lost loved ones. I am brought to tears with the memory and photos of the firemen and policemen rushing in while everyone else rushed out. I am grateful for their bravery and the bravery of those called to military service to fight our battles. I am grateful for the unity that it brought to our country, and I pray that I can help Conni understand what happened that day. I hope that I can also help her understand all the good that came from such a tragedy. I pray that the Lord will continue to take care of those who lost loved ones that day and in the days that followed. It is an awful tragedy that I pray we always remember.

Dance

Conni had her first dance class yesterday.  This is when I picked her up at mom's house, all ready to go.

She was so excited!  We had talked about it the night before, and she was ready to run out the door when I got there.  At dance class, we got her shoes on and she went in and found her friend Lydia and they ran around together.  Then class started and Conni found her square and did really well following her teacher Jamie.

After about 25 minutes of class, however, Conni decided that she was ready to go explore and didn't want to participate anymore.  (Class is 45 minutes long total.)  I got her and brought her back into class and started to do a little bit of the dances too.  Then she told me, "No, this is my dance class" and sent me back to my seat, and then she was ready to participate again.  This happened a couple of times, but then they pulled out the tumbling mats.

Conni got all excited again for the tumbling.  Then class was over, and she didn't want to leave.  She really didn't want to take off her ballet shoes!  In the car she asked to put them back on and of course I said yes.  She said, "Mom, dance class was fun. I want to do it again."  I told her we would next Wednesday and she was pretty excited that I said yes. 

Hopefully the next lesson goes more smoothly and she keeps her excitement.  I was too busy watching with a huge grin as she did the dances to take any pictures.  Jamie is great with the little girls and was so patient.  I'll let you know how next week goes!

Go Team!

Due to our recent stake and ward boundary realignments, I got the lucky task of combining two young womens closets in to one. I've made it thru the first one - and most of it is now sitting in my front room at home!

One of the treasures we found were some pom-poms. Two sets of red and two sets of blue. Conni immediately went for the red. Dave taught her how to use them (I was knee deep in the closet at the time - I'm so sad I wasn't paying more attention or had a camera on me at the time!) But, to Dave's dismay, Conni will only use the red ones! I tried to convince him that Conni could be a cheerleader for Halloween, but he was against her cheering for any "red" team.

At least she's cute, right?

The Zoo

We went to the zoo yesterday. The weather was a little muggy, and it got busier the later we were there, but it was so much fun! We told Conni Sunday night that we were going to go, and she woke up bright and early Monday morning (ok - around 8) but she asked right away if we were still going. We got up to the zoo around 10 and headed over to see the elephants.

We didn't take a ton of pictures but we sure had fun sharing the experience together. We rode the carousel (twice) and the train. Conni was so excited to see the animals from her books. She would run from one to the next and tell us what sounds they made and everything.

The funniest part was the map. (There's pictures below.) Conni would see a new animal for a minute or two, and then look at the map to decide where she wanted to go next. The one animal she really wanted to see was the tiger. We had a hard time finding it in the enclosure, so Conni asked for the map. She was so involved in it that she missed the tiger! Oh well, she had fun with her pink tiger anyway.

I love her face! She is trying to tell Dad where we should go next.

A few cute minutes with her pink tiger: