Halloween Piano Recital

A few friends and I teach our own children piano. We try to organize recitals a couple times a year to give the kids a few performing opportunities. We decided to have a Halloween Recital last Friday, and it was a hit! The kids dressed up in their costumes and each family brought a treat to share afterward. This is our 3rd official recital, and it is so rewarding to hear how all the kids are improving! I was very impressed. We recorded Morgan and Aubrey, but we will keep you in suspense until Halloween to see their costumes! They both played VERY well!

Aubrey played "The Queen's Royal Entrance" by Faber and "Old German Dance" by Praetorius. Morgan played "Theme by Haydn" (excerpt from a sonata) and "Midnight Creeper" by Vandall. Good job girls!

Donut Daze

My cute friend & neighbor Wendy invited us to her family's annual
"Spudnut Day" a week or so ago. This is a serious operation! They make donuts for all of their friends and neighbors and give them out for a fall treat. We were excited to be along for the ride. Wendy and her mom got up early and made the dough. By the time we showed up at 9:30 a.m., all 11 batches of dough were rising and ready to be cut. The kids were good cutters and tried their hand at the glazing, bagging, and even helped deliver. How many donuts did we make, you ask? About 1000!!! They were so yummy! Savvy has thanked Heavenly Father in her prayers each day since for being able to make donuts and dough!

Brock's contribution was eating probably a dozen donuts. He could just barely reach to the edge of the table and became quite adept as the official sampler. He was very happy!

Family hike to St. Thomas

We took the kids on a little hike today to see the remnants of a town called St. Thomas. This was originally and LDS settlement in 1865 just about 15 miles down the valley from where we live. But when they filled up Hoover Dam to create Lake Mead in the 1930's, the town was submerged and all the residents had to move. Because of the drought of the last 6 years, the lake level has decreased enough that the footings of the old buildings have revisualized. It was about a 2.5 mile round-trip hike down to the old town, and the kids had a lot of fun. We got to see the remnants of the old school house and several other buildings. Of course we forgot to take our camera with us, but I snatched a few pictures off the internet that show the same remains we visited today.

The new ride gets injured!

So I was driving home on the freeway a couple nights ago and the car in front of me ran over a piece of shredded semi tire debris that was lying in the road. It flipped up and landed right in front of me too close to swerve out of the way. This was a HUGE piece of semi tire; it looked like most of the tire, just minus the rim. It blew out my front left foglight, a few other pieces of trim, the corner marker light, and several pieces of plastic undepaneling that protects debris from getting up into the motor and radiator. Fortunately, I was able to buff off the marks from the painted surfaces of the bumper, so nothing will require repainting. However, I had to order a whole bunch of replacement trim and protection panels as well as new lights. I can't believe I have only had the car a few weeks and already damaged the front end...

Some new shoes

After almost 4 years and 87000 miles the mighty Honda Civic has found a new home. One of the guys I work with is an avid car nut and knew a fellow member of the local BMW club who was selling his '96 BMW M3. My co-worker has the same car (a '95) that is built to be a track car, and he let me drive it before we test-drove mine. I've always heard that the M3's are fun cars to drive, and it is true. So I picked up this one and sold my car on the base lemon lot. The previous owner had done a bunch of upgrades to improve the suspension, engine, exhaust, intake, etc. Now Marquessa is trying to convince me that we need a supercharger and an onboard fire suppresion system so that we can take it to the race track.... It's a little noisy and the body style is 2 generations old for the M3 now, but it is a lot of fun.

S and Q go to see the Foo

Once again Craigslist comes through for us. The Foo Fighters were playing at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino this past Thursday and Friday in a venue called The Joint, which is a small 1400 "seat" room as opposed to the large arenas that a lot of the artists play. Both shows were sold out long ago, but we were able to score tickets from some visiting British tourist who had an extra pair at the last minute. The show was great, and it was very cool to be so close to the stage. The venue is set up really well, and the music wasn't too loud or distorted like at some of the other shows. The band sounded great of course and they put on a great show. It's nice to be close to Vegas where there is a steady stream of shows and concerts coming to town. Pardon the poor quality of this picture; it was dark and my Blackberry camera didn't work well in this setting.

Brace Face!

Are we old enough to have a child in braces?

Morgan got an expander on her top teeth and braces on the bottom on September 5th. She was pretty excited at first, and chose purple bands because that is her friend, Rylee's, favorite color. The novelty of wearing braces has worn off quickly, but she is trying to be a good sport.

I Didn't Do It!

Brock is into EVERYTHING! We thought our girls got into a lot of things, but nothing in comparison to this little tornado. I was in the garage for about 3 minutes the other day and came back in see Brock and his little friend with all the crayons dumped everywhere. He always gives me the denial look first, then a huge laugh because he knows I can't be upset looking at his smile! Just as I was finishing putting the crayons away, I looked over about 5 feet and he was ripping baby wipes out of the box at a furious pace. He is especially talented at "rearranging" the pots & pans, bakeware, cutting boards, and anything else within his reach. He is a pacifier addict and generally has a few lying around in various hiding places around the house. A couple of weeks ago, we couldn't find any of his pacifiers, so we went on a family search. We found 4 of them in the blender. Makes sense, right?

Mommy's Little Helper

We got an early Christmas gift this year--Sam's parents bought each family a Nutrimill wheat grinder while we were in Idaho this summer. We tried it out a few weeks ago and it is awesome!!! Thanks for a great gift, yet again! We have been using Sam's grandma's wheat bread recipe (thanks Gma Arave), and it is delicious! The girls have loved helping to make it, especially Savannah. She loves to add the flour and especially turn the Bosch mixer on and off. The recipe yields 5 loaves, and of course, we always wolf the first one down when it's hot out of the oven!

Fall Garden

Our stake president encouraged everyone to plant a garden this year. Since we live in sunny Nevada, we have more than one growing season. We planted a garden in the spring, and let's just say we learned a lot! In the last couple of weeks, MANY hours have been spent tilling & leveling the garden better, designing a new watering system, and planting fall veggies. We'll see what comes up!

Getting Started

So we have decided to start our own family blog, separate from the Aikele family blog started by Alison last year (Aikele Family Tree). After struggling to come up with just a name for our own blog, we have come to the conclusion that we are not very creative. One of Marquessa's (who will be referred to as simply Q from here on out) New Year's resolutions this year was to start a blog. Now it is September, but at least it is occurring this year.

We took a 3-week vacation to Idaho this summer and spent time camping with both sides of our families. Aside from losing our kids a few times, everything else went well and we had a good time. Since returning to the kiln, we have tried to spend as much time as possible at the lake. The water level has been too low to launch the boat at our usual ramp for the past 6 months, so we have to travel an extra 14 miles to Echo Bay to get to deeper water. We have been out with several friends and even taken a few trips out with just our little family. The water was glassy all day yesterday, and hardly anyone else on the lake to mess up the water. It is unbelievable how warm the water gets here; the water temp yesterday was 87 degrees, with air temp of about 105. Morgan has finally learned to wakeboard at the ripe old age of 8. Aubrey loves getting tossed off the tube. And Savannah, our only child who has been afraid of the water, finally started swimming on her own in the lake yesterday and even rode the tube twice. What a breakthrough. We have been riding the Sky Ski and surfing more lately as well. Marquessa needs a smaller surfboard to learn on, though. My surfboard is meant for large dudes and it is a little too big for her. All Brock cares about is the snacks.

I'm not sure how to add pictures to this blog yet, but we will give it a try.