September

We took a couple friends with us to the Minnesota State Fair.  We had fun riding rides and eating our way across the fairgrounds.

Megan, Steven and David with friends Shekinah and Scotty

Just one of the yummy foods we sampled at the fair.

Fish hats-it's a Minnesota State Fair thing.

September 6-the first day of school

Megan and Steven's first day of school in front of Megan's ride

Marissa's first day of Middle School

David's first day of 1st Grade

David's birthday was also the first day of school.  He wanted to celebrate by going to Burger King!

Steven ran cross country for the high school and did very well.  

Stake Dance Festival

Our stake had a youth dance festival this weekend.  I was asked to organize our youth to present a Broadway show.  Since we have 17 young men and only 9 young women involved I chose "Newsies".  It was fun to work with the kids and choreograph again (it has been 22 years since I did that in high school!)  It was great fun and the kids were amazing!  Here are some snapshots of the fun. David performed as well (he was at every rehearsal so he might as well have a part and do some tumbling, as well!)

 Hanging out in the hallway waiting to perform.

October 2011

Snapshots of life here in October

 David and Marissa made a huge pile of leaves to jump into.

 Megan and her friends Laura and 

Deanna had fun jumping on the trampoline in their new homecoming dresses from the thrift store.

 Amber and her cousin Nicole at their cousin Mackenzie's wedding.

Zombie Marissa and the Phantom of the Opera (David) on Halloween.

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.

Megan's voice recital

Hopefully this works.  This is a video from Megan's recent voice recital on June 2.  There are three songs.  The first is an Italian Aria, the second is a song Rizzo sings from "Grease" and the last is a song from the movie "A Beautiful Mind" called "All love can be." The last one is my favorite.  They are all different and show a range of her abilities.  I hope you enjoy it!

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! 



Two more days in Orlando

Our next park was Epcot.  It was educational and fun.

Mission Space



French Acrobats



Gelato-Yum!

Our last day we visited Sea World. 

The Shamu show was exciting.

This dolphin was playing peek a boo with us!

The kids loved petting the rays.  They got good and wet while doing it, too.



We kept singing "Barbara Manatee" here (a Veggietales song)



 We enjoyed the hotel pool on our last night.