Barbershop Quartet Day!

It is Barbershop Quartet Day!  My first Quartet was Spontuneous. I competed with them in 2013 at the final Region 24 contest (Boise, ID).

 Then my sisters decided they wanted to compete with me and we formed Sibling Rivalry.

We competed in Region 12 (Reno, NV) in 2014 and 2015. Then Keturah moved to Texas, so we did too.  Well, at least our competition did.

We learned "Happy" by Pharrell Williams and had in mind a Rock Star pose for the end of the song.

With the 4 of us living in 4 different states, which are a part of 3 different Sweet Adelines International regions, we decided in 2016 to perform in the Open Division in Region 13 (Spokane, WA)

We just competed in our 4th contest and placed 10th in Region 10 (Houston, TX).

Sunday Evening Walks

We like to go on walks on Sunday evenings. Sometimes the whole family comes along. Sometimes we walk around our neighborhood. Sometimes we drive to a location and then start walking. Sometimes the kids ride their scooters. Sometimes a parent will walk home fast and return with the van to pick up the rest. Sometimes we see ticks. Sometimes we take pictures. Sometimes we get mosquito bites. Sometimes we hear a rattlesnake. Sometimes we read the scriptures on our drive home. Sometimes we get annoyed with others on the walk. Sometimes we have brilliant conversations. Sometimes we return home ready to sleep. Sometimes we get chased by geese. Sometimes we see deer.

This week we all walked together along a damned up portion of the Boise River (we parked at Discovery Park and walked towards Sandy Point). Roderic offered to give Beatrix a ride on his back which was nice since Mom and Dad wouldn't carry her. Leo practiced his photography skills by taking a photo of Ryan and I (with Dash). Sometimes the kids drink all of Mom's water.

Cheering for Family

One aspect of family life that I just love is cheering on the members of my family when they are performing and competing.  I want my children to cheer each other on in all of their activities.  We attend concerts, recitals, plays, track meets, soccer games, baseball games, Pack Meetings, Courts of Honor and cheer for the family member participating.

This past Tuesday, Sabrina performed with a vocal ensemble "Off Topic" in the Acapella Fusion High School Vocal Contest.  We took the whole family. It was at the Morrison Center on the BSU campus. The contest was decided by popular vote of the audience.  Everyone in our family voted for Off Topic - they sang well and even had some audience participation.  When the results were read and Off Topic did not place in the top 3, Beatrix was sobbing. Loudly.  "But, I wanted Sabrina to win!" It took several minutes to calm her down.

Maybe we're taking the whole cheering for family to an extreme, but I'm glad Beatrix loves listening to her sister perform!

Here is Off Topic performing their set.  Unfortunately, the video camera ran out of space and stopped recording right before Sabrina's scat solo at the end of the second song. Happily I also used my voice recorder, so we do have audio of that solo.  However it is not the same quality or volume.

Overheard in Sacrament Meeting

Sabrina: "It is time to be quiet."
Beatrix: "But I want to be loud."

And that my friends sums up our experience with Bea at church and family SSP (Song Scripture Prayer). She wants to be loud.

We're working on guiding her to appropriate times for letting her voice be heard...

Am I An Exercise Fanatic?

Twice in the past week, Ryan has said that I am becoming an exercise fanatic (those may not be his exact words, but that is the tone I got from him).  Now it is true that in our 18.5 years of marriage, the ONLY time I have ever been consistently awake and moving before 8 am was the 12 weeks I worked the 0600 shift at Delta Air Lines in 1997. And now, since June 1, I've set my alarm to wake me up at 5:45 am every Tuesday and Thursday to join the Exercise Mommas at the church building. And I even went today, knowing full well that I'd be hiking up Table Rock (while toting Beatrix in the backpack) with the cub scouts at 8:30 this morning.

Beatrix fell asleep on the way down.

I have exercised regularly before. Walking with Lindsay Daniel (and Wendy Bushman and Stacy Smith) on the circuit around our neighborhood while pushing Sabrina in a stroller. I had a YMCA membership for a while where I did water aerobics while pregnant with Roderic and then did a personal training fitness regimen after he was born.  Pushing Roderic and Hyrum in the double stroller with Amy Mella around the circuit - and even up the hill to Albertson's on occasion. I even trained for and participated in a 5k race when I was expecting Leo.

But all of these times have been during his work day. Now Ryan is actually seeing me come back from exercise with my face beet red and hearing me complain about my sore muscles. A. Lot. Because the woman (Tiffany Hortin) who is coming up with all of the 'boot camp' torture exercises is spectacular at helping me use all sorts of long neglected muscles in my body. I am feeling stronger. I have more stamina - although I have been taking naps in the afternoon, but I think that is because I haven't been going to bed any earlier. I can do hard things (like completing 80 push-ups, 80 jump squats, 80 chair dips and 70 jump lunges in 10 minutes after already having exercised for 25 minutes).

So perhaps he is on to something...

Meet Dash

When I was off in Colorado Springs singing with my women's barbershop chorus the first weekend of May, Ryan and the boys went to an adoption event hosted by the Idaho Humane Society. (Sabrina stayed home to do homework.) And they brought home a dog. It was to be a surprise for me.

That is the way I like to tell the story. It sounds more incredulous that my husband would adopt a dog while I was out of town. And it really did happen that way, except I encouraged it a little.

Ryan has been wanting a dog of our own ever since we finished caring for Toto (Ryan's parent's dog) in 2012. But I was not interested in getting one at that time because we were expecting Beatrix. Then we watched Toto again in the summer of 2013 and Ryan really enjoyed having her follow him around when working outside. So we started (halfheartedly) looking for dogs online.

We knew we wanted a small dog that would be good with children. The majority of the small dogs listed on the Humane Society website were Chihuahua mixes, Jack Russell Terrier mixes and Pit Bull Terrier mixes - none of the breeds we were interested in. We also looked into Westie puppies, Cocker Spaniel puppies and Cockerpoo puppies, but I really wasn't interested in spending that much money and doing all the necessary training.

The week I was preparing to travel to Colorado Springs, I saw an article in the news (digital version on my Kindle Fire) about 90 small breed dogs being flown in from California that would be available for adoption that weekend. I told Ryan about it and sent him a link to the article saying that there may be a dog that would be a more desirable breed for us. So he went and picked out Nelson, who is a Cairn Terrier mix from Orange County, California born in April 2010. I don't like my animals to have human names, so we had a naming contest at home with votes for Sobaka, Skitters and Snowy. Skitters got the most votes, but I wasn't a fan. Then Sabrina looked up skitters in the thesaurus, found Dash listed and the name stuck.

Except Leo had a setback after we took Dash to see "the dog doctor who is not a dog" about Kennel Cough. We went to the Humane Society clinic and according to their records his name is Nelson so that is what the staff called him, so then Leo wanted to return to calling him Nelson. We have since decided he can be Dash Nelson and Leo is the only one who uses his full name.

Dash doesn't bark a lot. He does whine though, so if you ask Beatrix what a dog says (if she answers) she whines like Dash. He obviously wants to live indoors, but that isn't going to happen. He sits completely still when getting a bath. But if he sees a leash, he jumps around like crazy. So much that it is really hard to get the leash attached to his collar. He was trained to stand and beg. And he prefers the females in our family to the males.

I can call on the Power of God

This morning Roderic got to go to the dentist to have two teeth filled. We found out yesterday at his semi-annual dental cleaning that he has 4 cavities.  All on his left side, two upper and two lower. Two permament and two baby.

As I was telling him what to expect as we were driving to the appointment, I could tell he was starting to get nervous. The great unknown of having your mouth made numb and all. When we parked, I asked him if he'd like to say a prayer before going into the dentist office. He said yes. I asked if he would say it or if he'd like me to pray. He designated me. And so I prayed. Asking for the Comforter to be with Roderic throughout the procedure and in the lingering numbness afterwards. Asking for the Spirit to guide the dentist's hands. What a rush of the Spirit of God was felt in our minivan. It was amazing.