Amber's Graduation

Amber graduated from Apple Valley High School on June 10, 2011!   She sang in the choir and was honored as a member of the National Honor Society, in the top 10% of her class and as the Visual Arts Student of the Year.  She got to wear a rainbow tassle as a member of the National Art Honor Society.

We are so proud of Amber!!!

Prom 2011

 Here are some pictures of Amber and her date, Matt, before Prom 2011.

Art recognition for Amber

We know how talented Amber is, but it is nice to see that other people recognize that, too.  Here are some of her recent artistic endeavors and some of the honors she has received for them.

This is a self portrait Amber made where she had to imagine herself as a character in a book.  This is Amber as "Meggie" in Inkeart, where she can read characters out of books.

This is a portrait Amber did for "The Orphan Portrait Project" through the National Art Honor Society



This is Amber's self portrait that she won an Award of Merit for.  It is on display at a local natural food store.



This is a mosaic Amber made to show "The power of man".  She won two awards for this.



Amber was awarded a silver key at the Scholastic Art competition at the Minnesota Institute of Art.



Amber was awarded the Award of Excellence at the South Suburban Conference Art exhibit.

 

This is the cutting of Christ in Gethsemane that Amber auctioned off at our youth fund raiser last week.



Amber finished this yesterday.  It is a pastel of detail from Michaelangelo's Pieta sculpture at the Vatican.


As you can see, we think she is pretty amazing! 



Amber is immortalized

Remember this poster that Amber made for her high school Broadway production back in January?

It is now on the wall of the theater in the school and her artwork is immortalized!

Our FIRST trip to Utah this summer

The day school got out Mom, Amber, Megan and David took a drive to Utah. It took 20 hours and 3 days to get there. Here is our last rest stop before our destination.

We spent our first evening visiting with Maria's sister Andie and brother Bryce's families.

Aww cousins!

Monday was the first day of Especially for Youth. Amber and Megan went with their cousins and good friends. Pictured below are: Truett, Michael, Amber, Megan, Nicole, Marinda, Zachary and Loren. To see more EFY pictures, you will have to check out Amber and Megan's facebook pages.

After the kids got dropped off at EFY Maria took David and cousins to the Taylorsville community pool.

Tuesday, after visiting a couple temples (here is the Oquirrh Mountain temple) David and Maria drove to West Bountiful to visit Aunt Lori and more cousins.

Drew, David, Matt, Mandy, Tyler

Kids rule at Texas Roadhouse, especially when you get a free t-shirt for putting a handprint on a paper for a parade float. The food was awesome, too.

Before the buzz cut (David decided he wanted to have a haircut just like his cousins and Uncle Brad was willing)

During the buzz cut

After the buzz cut (are they cousins or what?!)

Wednesday we toured the Tracy Aviary in SLC and cousin William and David tried to sneak up on a peacock

We also spent an afternoon at the Discovery Gateway children's museum. Here are Jordan, Aunt Andie, Aunt Laura and Kaylee making music.

Kaylee enjoyed getting rid of, I mean, burying a couple cousins!

Friday we toured the Conference Center and Temple square.

Here are Joseph, William, David and Hyrum with the First Presidency

David used his water bending skills on the fountain

It was a great week. We will get to do it again in July!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

We are so glad that we could celebrate Grandma's birthday with her. Amber presented her with a masterpiece of a cake, literally. She decorated the cake to look like Van Gogh's Starry Night painting. It was almost too beautiful to eat.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Stake dance time

This is a picture of the good looking bunch of girls that we took to the stake dance over the weekend. Three nonmember friends came. Now if we could only convince the boys to go!

Amber's newest wearable artwork

Amber made these for Megan for her birthday. She loves them! Pretty cool, huh.