Sarah's Middle School Chorus Christmas Concert

Here's part of Sarah's Christmas Concert this year.

I'd post more, but the videos are fairly large & take for ever to upload.

--Christmas Bells--

A day at the beach!

The girls, Laura, and I spent a day at the beach on Thursday last week. We went to Wrightsville beach, which is right outside Wilmington, NC. It took about a 2 hour drive to get there, but once there it was a great day. Brennen doesn't necessarily like the salt water & sticky sand, so he opted to stay home & go to his drum-line rehearsal that he had that evening.

We had sunshine, and a little breeze the whole time. We took some boogie boards and road the waves. Sarah & Keri were naturals! They were able to catch quite a few & ride all the way into the shore - and by the afternoon when the tide rose a bit, they almost road waves right up to Laura & I under the beach umbrellas.

The girls had a great time playing in the sand and examining the shells that had washed up on shore.

After the two hour ride home, we were wiped out & started to notice the sun burns. Thank Heavenly Father for creating an Aloe Vera plant that could be used to make after-sun lotion!!

A chip off the old block...

Brennen has taken up drums!

Near the end of the school year, the percussion teacher at the high school, probably in a recruiting effort, offered to give after school group lessons to anyone that wanted to learn. Brennen jumped in and was a natural! After we talked to his teacher together & told him of my experience too (and that we would be missing band camp), he said it must be in the blood 'cause Brennen seemed like a natural and he wanted him to stick with it anyway.

He wanted to play the tennors (quads) for marching drum-line, but because we're going to miss band camp being in Utah, his teacher said one drum head was enough to worry about and put him in the snare line. When I played, snare was *the* coveted position where those with only the best "chops" played.

To say that I'm proud would be an understatement!

[He's on the left in the pictures]

The buckle of the tick belt!

Our skin has been crawling this week! This is something we didn't see or hear about when we were contemplating our move. Evidently, NC is "the buckle of the tick belt."

Yup, those nasty little bugs that attach & suck your blood are very prevalent here! And boy have we had our fill this week!

A couple of weeks ago, Laura found some strange little bug crawling on a pile of clean, folded laundry. She thought maybe bed-bugs (Laura experienced those on her mission) and we started looking out for signs of more. Since then though, I'm convinced it was a tick nymph.

Then, last Sunday right before the closing prayer in sacrament meeting, Keri had an itch on her hand. When she went to scratch, she started a loud whisper of "spider! spider!". When she tried to get it off... it was stuck & wouldn't come off. Panic set in. It was a tick embedded between her fingers. Laura calmed her down & someone in the ward had tweezers in their pocket-knife and pulled it off. After that, our skin was crawling for a couple of days!

Then, just a couple of days later, Laura finds some strange huge bug laying on the stairs. "What is it?" she yells (luckily, I was working from home that day). From researching on www.whatsthatbug.com that Sunday, I immediately recognized it as an already engorged tick!  (this is a picture of the real thing laying on our carpet!!!)  It had already had a feast on someone or something & had fallen off after getting it's fill. We hope it was from the dog! Needless to say, it's dead now.

Then just yesterday, Sarah found another tick crawling on her chest of drawers. It looked just like this picture of a Lone Start tick from the web.  We caught & killed that little bugger!

Needless to say, we're recording dates found & watching for flu-like symptoms very carefully now! We also went and bought a stash of repellant with DEET and are doing regular tick checks now!

I think Holly would love it here!!  :-)

Horses!!

We've started Sarah with some horseback riding lessons here. We found a place that is just around the corner from our house that does them. She loves it! She rides for a couple of hours every Tuesday. They teach them the tacking (putting on the bridle & saddle), grooming, and how to ride and handle the horses.

They seem to concentrate on equestrian style riding at that stable, though that's not Sarah's purpose for taking the lessons. Ever since she was very little, Sarah has loved horses. Her life's ambition (her dream job) has always been to work with handicapped kids and riding horses for therapy. She's planning to go to an agricultural college like Utah State to learn about how animals can be used for therapeutic work. We thought it would be good to get her some close-up exposure to the animals, and let her learn the basics of handling them, preparing them for a ride, and the care & grooming they'd require.

She has a blast at it, and is definitely the highlight of her week.

 

Keri has to go with us every week to pick Sarah up, and we can't drag her away from the stables.  She would love to do this too, but it would be WAY too expensive to have two kids in the program (it's really too expensive for one, but Sarah needs it for her emotional well being right now & for her future plans).

Keri's doing great in school (she's been recommended for the AG - academically gifted programs next year in a couple of subjects) and has a lot of friends there. Again, it's taking a while to find many kids right in our neighborhood to play with though. Maybe when the HOA pool opens next month they'll meet some more kids close by. We know both girls, but especially Keri will be living at the pool as much as Laura will go with her.

Brennen's in 7th heaven... if only he could wake up for it!

Brennen had a picture taken of his early morning seminary class her to send to his former class in Utah.

He loves getting up at 5:30 in the morning (lol!) to meet with his class at the church - oh, and I love getting up to take him just as much.

At least there's cute girls there ... but he's way too tired to care all that much that early in the morning.

Grandma Platt actually loves animals! ... yeah, right.

We got some very unique pictures of Grandma Platt while she was visiting. Who ever thought that she would be smiling while she had animals surrounding, and even sitting on her?

She actually volunteered for these pictures. I think she was really trying to fit in with all the animal lovers in our family.

She's actually petting Tiger! I think she probably got shivers all that night in her bed thinking about touching those icky things. :-)