Ethan's (and Jared) Summer Adventures

Being 14, brings some definite advantages over the siblings. Ethan (and Jared) got to go on High Adventure Camp.  For 3 activity packed days, they got to mountain bike, hike, horseback ride, climb up and repell down a cliff, kayak, and basically completely exhaust themselves everyday. The total mileage of the high adventure added up to 50 miles. Jared said one night they didn't even get back to camp before midnight, most too tired to eat dinner and just went straight to bed.

Ethan will admit that he was more than a little nervous. He was one of the youngest, the boys ages were 14-18. Ethan told me that he said a prayer and the Holy Ghost really did comfort him during the different activities. He kept up and even did more than some of these "older" boys. Definitely a new, exciting experience.

The following week, Ethan left for Trek to Martins Cove, Wyoming. He honestly thought that it would be a cakewalk after the 50 miler the week before. For 3 days they walked, pushing/pulling a handcart with their "family" and group. Again, being the youngest in his group, his "Ma" and "Pa" said that he kept up with the rest of the group and they were very impressed.  We are still getting bits and pieces of the journey. I think it is one of those life experiences that takes reflection to really see the benefit of all that walking...37 miles of it.

 Can you see Ethan's little eyeballs?? The wind during the Trek was brutal.

 He makes a handsome pioneer, right?!!

This was his "family" for Trek

I took Ethan to see the movie "17 miracles" about the Willie/Martin handcart companies, before he left on trek, hoping to give him a little wisdom before the journey.  After Trek, we picked him up, he was EXHAUSTED. He even fell asleep at the dinner table, knocking over his glass of water.  He could only repeat how long the journey was.  But as the days past, he has been able to share more with us. Again, we took him to see the movie "17 miracle" and this time he had more perspective. It changed from "WE WALKED 37 MILES" to "we walked only a speck of what the pioneers walked."

First church dance

 With Ethan turning 14, another big milestone had occurred--he is now old enough to go to church stake dances. Honestly, I think Ethan couldn't have cared less. Girls definitely get more excited. Case in point, that weekend, Josee (my niece, on the left) and Sheridan (my cousin's daughter, on the right) excitedly decided to come with Ethan for their first church dance too. Living in Utah means it isn't just one stake, its a multi stake dance with 500-600 kids, at least.

 Jared and I gave Ethan a challenge to actually ask girls to dance, including buying him a container of "Tic Tacs" that he could only share with those girls he danced with. Jared tried to get him to commit to coming home with an empty container, but seeing that was a deal-breaker and this was his first dance, we decided to not go that far.

Part of the night that I thought was particularly hilarious was listening to my brother give his daughter instructions on staying with her cousins. He was really nervous. He kept telling me to waiting until it was Rachel going to the dance, its different when its a girl...

I was the designated driver to pick the three teenagers up. Boy were they talkative! Luckily all of them had a great time. The girls informed me that they had to dance with a boy that had bad breath, so score one for Ethan having the tic tacs. During the fast songs, everyone just dances in a big group. Ethan informed me that they had 7 slow dances and he asked/danced with 5 girls. Way to go, that's my boy!

Ethan turns 14!

It's hard to believe that Ethan is now fourteen. He is truely enjoying giving me heart attacks by saying such things as "I start seminary next year" or "...in two years, I'll be driving!" or " I'll be on a mission in 5 years!" Life is passing too fast.

 We have our family traditions...this one isn't one of Jared's favorites but I like it, it's unique! We wake up the birthday person with cake in bed!!!! Start the fun day with a complete sugar rush....

The part I didn't get pictures of was Ethan using his Christmas and bday money to buy lots more Lego. We ended the day with having cousins over. They pulled a great trick on him.  On the dinner table, one of the cousins had put a small gift. They then told Ethan that his present was on the table. He excitedly went over and picked up the small gift and unwrapped it.  Josee, his cousin who is only younger than him by 3 weeks is trying to hold in the laughter. He looks at the unwrapped gift, not quick sure of it...it was a lipgloss watch. We all busted up laughing trying to get him to "try on" the watch. Not able to hold it in much longer Josee told Ethan that his real present was downstairs under the bed. A few seconds later he comes up with a big grin and a nerf sword/shield in hand...and a big sigh of relief! It didn't take long for Rachel to confiscate the gloss watch and make it hers.

School Project - alone in the kitchen!

Ethan has a CTE rotation (Career Technology Education). He has already had entreprenuership and computers. Now it is cooking & sewing. Of course, back in my day we called it Home Ec, but Ethan adamantly defends the title CTE. I have some fun memories from Jr High Home Ec, pizzas out of biscuts, etc. I did get A's on table settings. I don't remember the sewing part which could explain my "straight" line sewing!!!

One of Ethan's at home assignments is to cook something from scratch, no box mixes and no parents in the kitchen helping. So I must admit, before Ethan officially started cooking, I gave him one last mini lesson about our kitchen. I wasn't far off for the cooking fun, just close enough to answer any questions and hear all the funny comments between him and Brady, the assistant.
The mixer got some good use yesterday. A couple of times, it got set on HIGH speed by accident.

One of the funniest statements I heard, I was not technically in the kitchen, was from Brady. He was "helping" Ethan. It came time to crack the eggs and Brady really wanted to do it. Ethan told him that he didn't know how. Brady quickly responded, "Yes I do, all you do it crack it and then quickly hand it to someone else!"

Clean up is important. In fact, the questionaire that I had to fill out and sign for him to take back to his teacher asked if the kitchen was (a) worst than before, (b) about the same, (c) better than when he started.... Kudos to Ethan for cleaning up from his cooking.

With the other kids home, Ethan had a hard time keeping everyone's spoons out of the batter.

The recipe said it would make 4 dozen cookies. Ethan figured that would mean the cookies would have to be tiny. As you can see, he opted for BIG cookies instead.

It was definitely a trial and error on the baking time. The first batch wasn't cooked quite long enough so he put it back in. The second batch was more on the crispy side. The last batch was perfect.

Success! Not only did we have some cookies to eat right then, but we also now had our treats for FHE! I'll just say, the cookies didn't last long. Overall, I think Ethan had a fun time and realized he knows more about the kitchen than he thought.

Ingenuity of a 12 year old

Last week, Ethan came home from school. As he got off the bus, (I was sitting on the porch) I noticed that he didn't have any socks on. What? I know when he left this morning that he had socks on...

"Hey Ethan, what happened to your socks?"

"We were supposed to bring an old sock today to make puppets and the teacher said that if we didn't bring one she would dock our grade. I had forgotten to bring one and I didn't want a bad grade so I took off the ones I was wearing."

Ethan said several other students had forgotten to bring socks and asked if they could use his other sock. A couple of them, girls even, put the extra sock on their hands to use for puppets, but... one sniff and the sock came off. At one point, someone threw it into the center of the room and declared that it was "stinking" up the room. Ethan, still very proud of himself for his quick thinking, didn't let it embarass him at all. In fact, he couldn't stop laughing about it while he told us the whole story.

Ethan's piano recital

I wanted to post this, mostly for the grandparents. Ethan's piano recital at the end of March. He plays 3 songs. He did a great job. During a recent discussion because of his reluctance to go to his lessons, he assured me that he really enjoys the piano and the face to face lessons, the part he doesn't like is the computer theory lessons. Whew, I was worried that he wanted to give up too early on this natural talent. Like his dad, Ethan can sit down at the piano and pick out a song he heard somewhere else. His teacher says that he picks up new skills very quickly and naturally. I'm still trying to get used to playing with both hands, multiple notes at one time, much more difficult after playing an instrument that only requires one note at a time.

Ethan's Lego/Bionicle Creations

Ethan is our master lego builder. He usually builds the kit he gets once and then takes it apart to build bigger and better creations. Luke and Brady bet to let them come into Ethan's room and build with him. Here are some of his latest creations.

Soccer - Ethan taking one for the team!

Soccer season is now in full swing. I just got a new camera and didn't realize I hadn't set the date stamp. So these picture was taken today 3/28/09 not in January. But it was cold enough this morning to feel like January. Originally Ethan wasn't going to be playing this spring because his club team disbanded at the last minute a few weeks ago. He has a good friend that plays on a comp team and asked if he wanted to practice with them. So yesterday, they called and said that one of the players wouldn't be able to play this season and wondered if Ethan wanted to fill the opening...Yep!!! He is also helping Jared coach Rachel's soccer team too.

Back to today's game, great game...we won 7-0. Big difference from last season. Anyways there was a moment before halftime that I realized that some of my traits I have truely passed down to him...one in particular I would not have wanted to. My face, growing up, was like a big target for any kind of athletic ball -- soccer ball, tennis ball, racquet ball, softball - my first black eye, you name it. I got knocked off my feet in the MTC from a stray volleyball hit from another court right into the side of my face. Anyways, last fall season during one of the last games, sure enough Ethan got knocked off his feet from a ball hitting right square in the nose. I was clear across the other side of the field and trotted over to see the damage. Didn't look too bad.

So today, here I am with my new camera, trying to take photos. I just took a couple of shots and was putting the camera down in my chair, when I looked up to see the assistant coach helping my son over to me with blood dripping down his nose and out his mouth and all over his hands. I thought he busted his lip too because of all the blood. He had just thrown in the ball, another opposing player got to it first so Ethan quickly ran up to get it back. Less that 2 feet away, face to face with the other player, the other player tries to "chip" the ball over Ethan's head. We'll just say that he misjudged.... Ethan took it like a trooper. He started the second half and played the entire rest of the game. When the game was over, his teammates started mentioning how cool it was to have "war wound marks - aka blood streaks" on the front of his jersey. Believe it or not, he actually tried very hard to not let me wash it out so it could be on there for the rest of the season.

Funny part is that I still don't come prepared with tissues or something...just his jacket. Way to go Ethan - taking one for the team!!!!

Ethan's photography merit badge

Ethan has been working on his photography merit badge for scouts this week. He had to come up with a story, take at least 20 photos representing the story and then mount and present the story to his class. He decided to do his story on "a day at the park" starring Luke with a small role for Rachel. Here are some of his favorite photos that he took.

"Hey Luke, do you want to go to the park to play?"

"I'm ready to go"

Let's shoot some hoop...actually Luke shot and made 2 baskets during the photo shoot.

"Tetherball - how to get hit every which way by a ball on a string -- probably my least favorite playground sport growing up.

Time to go home.

Across the bridge....

This is our backyard....huge....and even better, the playground is right behind it.

Ethan liked this shot because you can see his reflection in the windows.

And a final wave goodbye from Luke!

By the way, Ethan ended up taking over 70 photos. Thank goodness for digital cameras. I've come to find out that in order for scouts to earn enough merit badges, that community centers and city offerings are the only way to go. I have Ethan signed up for 4 more merit badges during the next couple of months. There is no way that he would earn enough if I waited for just the leaders to do it all. Plus they can't be certified in every merit badge that they need anyways. I think he did a great job and he did really like learning about photography.

Temporary ULO up the nose!!!!

To my surprise while I'm on the phone (doesn't it always happen then?) I hear Brady crying in the distance. I think to myself, I wonder what happened between him and Ethan, who was downstairs with him at the time...I quickly answered myself, "O they will figure it out.." and went back to my conversation. However, quickly the tone changed and Ethan yells, "Mom come quick...Brady has a lego stuck up his nose!" Panic sets in, before I even get down the stairs my mind is racing, "Should I take him to the pediatricians office or the instacare?" Brady is still crying and has a little blood coming out his nostril. First I try using my superhuman vision to see up the nose, past the blood to see anything...wait a minute... something kind of plastic...could it be, maybe.... I tried to get him to blow his nose and he tried to hard but no luck, that little ULO -- unidentified lego object -- wouldn't budge. My superhuman clear thinking quickly sent Ethan to grab the twizzers. I thought I was composed enough to send a "calming" message to Brady but once he saw the silver twizzers in my hand, all composure on his part was gone. Luckily between me and Ethan, we gained enough control over a freaked out 3 year old to have me stick it up Brady's nostril, not once but twice, just enough to dislodge the ULO. Then with one good nose blow, WHAM - that tiny little round lego piece came out. Ethan looked at me and in all seriousness said, "Mom, now I know why they say legos are for ages 8 and up only!"

The Deacon Shuffle

How many of you, when listening to the radio, have a sudden flashback to way back when and think, "That was a stake dance song" or "That song was popular when I was a freshman in high school".... This video of Ethan at his first "dance" should bring back the memories of the Deacon Shuffle. Love it!!! Our ward had a mutual activity and learned the triple swing (quite an ambitious dance to teach new dancers).

Luckily for us, Jared was there to video this monumental moment. Ethan, as you can see in his face, is not too thrilled about dancing with girls. But he puts on a brave face and gives it a go with Zoe, our next door neighbor. They switched partners often. Eventually his confidence builds and look what happens later on with a different partner, Danielle, who also lives a few houses down from us....

Ethan's magic feet rips up the dance floor, almost too fast for his partner and the song!

Ethan's 12th birthday

Here are a couple of photos from Ethan's big 12 bday!!!! I still can't believe he is 12.

Can you tell that Jared thinks this is the coolest cake ever!!!! No thanks to me, my mom baked and decorated.

Rachel made the "Happy Birthday" sign.

Ethan just wants to blow out the candles and eat the cake.