Ryan's swimming awards

Thursday night the swim team held their awards "banquet." ("banquet" meaning everyone just brought whatever food they wanted so it was mostly treats on the table)

Last year Ryan earned a varsity letter for swimming because everyone on the team did (I can't remember why now...I think it might have been because they earned the Sportsmanship award for their league). This year, the swimmers had to "earn" their letters individually. They earned them either by getting enough points during regular season swim meets or by qualifying for Regionals. Ryan qualified for Regionals in the 500 freestyle, so he earned his second letter (and he might have earned enough points, too--he had 27, but I don't know the cut off).

Ryan shaking Coach Davis's hand while getting his sportsman letter

But he also earned another award. Coach Steve Davis doesn't like "Most Valuable Swimmer" since he considers all his swimmers to be valuable, but he did have a Most Inspirational category. Originally, it was just going to be one award--boy or girl, it didn't matter--just whoever earned the most votes from the team. Courtney earned the award, but Coach decided that Ryan got almost as many votes as she did, so he decided to give 2 "Most Inspirational" Awards this year.

(do you see his grin in this video? He's usually a happy kid...which, if you knew him only when he was younger, might surprise you as he didn't always appear to be happy back then)

Everyone also earns an award from the team captains. Mostly silly. They said Ryan's award was because he has so many nicknames (Studmuffin--given to him by his cousin Michael, Queso--because he loves cheese so much and queso is the Spanish word for cheese...but since he took French, shouldn't his nickname be Fromage?, and some other nicknames that I can't remember right now).

Anyway, Ryan's award from the Team Captains was:  The "Razzle Dazzle" Perazzo Award. Cracks me up since his cousin's blog is titled "The Razzle Dazzle Perazzos!"

And congratulations to Coach Davis who earned the Coach of the Year Award for the Region! It was well deserved.

By the way, looking east from our house, this is what we see this evening (thars snow up in them thar hills)(photos by Eric):

Eagle Court of Honor

Eric, Ryan, cousin Brent, and fellow scouter Jacob Card had their Eagle Court of Honor last night. We are so proud of all of them for their great achievement.

The evening started with Alex's Pack Meeting. He earned his Webelos badge. Then we got to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Following Pack Meeting was the Court of Honor.

(Karl Marsh and Uncle David on the left)--Cousin Michael during part of the ceremony

Eric, Jacob, Brent, and Ryan take the oath led by Karl Marsh

Eric putting the mother's pin on me and Ryan waiting for his turn to do the same

Me pinning Ryan's Eagle Pin on him

Eric pinning Glen's father's pin on him

Jacob, Aaron Marsh, Cousin Daniel, Ryan, (Gavin Sorensen), Eric, Uncle Alan, Cousin Michael

In the Eagles' Nest, shaking hands with the Eagles who attended the ceremony.

Hannah "liked" this on facebook...

Dear parents, Jasmine was in a relationship with a dirty homeless boy named Aladdin. Snow White lived alone with 7 men. Pinnochio was a liar. Robin Hood was a thief. Tarzan walked around without clothes on. A stranger kissed Sleeping Beauty and she married him. Cinderella lied and snuck out at night to attend a party. You can't blame us. We were taught to rebel since a young age. 

 So I wanted to post that I'm glad she gave me a heads up and now I know I need to screen her TV viewing even more strictly. There just isn't anything good out there, is there???

Glen's birthday and Andrew's package home

Glen had his 48th birthday on Thursday. He's, of course, still younger than I am, but I still tease him about his age a bit. From us he got a new hammock (which turns out to be too small for our hammock frame, so we are going to have to find a way of lengthening the ends), a pair of jeans, and new pajamas (so he'll look nice for all our summer traveling). His parents gave him some (much needed) work pants. You know you're an adult when you are happy to get pants for your birthday. And he was.

On Friday, which marked 6 weeks until Andrew will be coming home, I received a Mother's Day gift from him:

Apparently he took one of his shirts and cut out the area around the front pocket and he framed it, put in the missionary planner from the beginning of his mission, his name tag, and a pen. Quite funny, if you ask me. It reminds me of the Christmas stocking I made for him out of a white shirt...

Anyway, last Wednesday was Andrew's last transfer day in the mission field 'cause next transfer he gets to fly home (July 1st 10:20 am into Reno...you're all invited to come and welcome him home). As we guessed, his companion, Elder Ray, was transferred out, and Andrew will continue on as Zone Leader with a new companion. We'll find out in Monday's email who his new companion is and where he's from. Six weeks, ladies and gentlemen. I've begun my countdown... hopefully Andrew hasn't and is able to keep his head in his mission.

Eric had 5 finals this week and turned in his last English paper at 10:30 last night. Done for the semester. Phew.

Glen, Ryan, Hannah, and Alex (and I) have 2 weeks left of school...we are so ready for the school year to be over (especially Glen and me). Then Ryan will be a Senior. I feel like freaking out a little over that one.

And to finish up today's post, a little info: at this point it looks like Glen should have the same teaching schedule next year as he does this year...first 4 classes teaching theatre at the High School then 2 at the Junior High.

Hannah and Eric happenings

So, I find out this morning that Hannah spoke at last night's Encore Fireside in Fernley...and since she hadn't told us that she was going to speak, I was here in Fallon chauffeuring Eric around (he had a Young Single Adult fireside). So, true to Hannah form (she doesn't want us at her sporting events), she opted not to tell us. and she's known for 2 weeks that she was on the program...but Glen was there (he had attended a Scouting Court of Honor just preceding the fireside), so at least one of us got to hear her.

Apparently she just finished reading the Book of Mormon on her own (yea! for children who set and accomplish such worthy goals). She said that we probably thought that she was doing something illegal locked up back in her bedroom....funny thing is, I didn't really notice since she is often in her bedroom when she's home--and she's often not home, so it's just kind of normal not to see her about.

As for Eric, will he still need to be chauffeured around? He had his driving test in Yerington this morning. For those of you who don't know, it takes up to 2 months to get in to take your driver's test here in Fallon as they are so booked up. So they will check available dates in surrounding counties for you. As it was, we waited over a month for today's appointment. We don't have to wait as long for his next one...

He said he stopped at the stop sign, saw the other car, but it was going really slowly, so Eric went ahead and pulled out. It was considered a "failure to yield" and was an automatic fail for the driving test, so he still doesn't have his license. But that's OK. Next time we get to travel to Hawthorne and visit the DMV there.

Right now Eric has 5 finals to concentrate on this week. Should be done by Thursday evening.

UPDATE: Eric had his English final tonight. He made a 95% on it...I told him if he was going to pass one test today and fail another that he picked the right one to pass...

Ryan's swimming update

Scores are in.

In 500 freestyle, Ryan was 24th out of 27:

24 Perazzo, Ryan                CHURC                           7:05.49 REG    
       35.54  1:15.20  1:57.47  2:39.94  3:23.83  4:08.45  4:53.00  5:38.60
     6:23.79  7:05.49 

The 35.54 is his time for the first 2 lengths, 1:15.20 is for the first 4...
(he beat the guy from Galena who placed 25th by only .28 seconds)

In the 200 freestyle relay, they placed 11 out of 17:

11 Churchill  'A'                                        1:46.32           
     1) Burger, David                   2) Perazzo, Ryan                  
     3) Davis, Stephen                  4) Grimes, Keith                  
       24.92    54.32  1:21.93  1:46.32 

And lastly, in the 400 yard freestyle relay, they placed 13th out of 13:

13 Churchill  'A'                                        5:20.09            
     1) Perazzo, Ryan                   2) Orolfo, J.C.                   
     3) Jones, Mike                     4) Oviatt, Colton                 
       33.60  1:08.87  1:43.41  2:29.77  3:11.17  4:04.71  4:39.51  5:20.09

For team rankings, Churchill County men came in 13th out of 18 (1st was Reno,

2- Galena, 3-Douglas) and the women came in 12 out of 18 (1-Galena, 2-Douglas,

3-Reno).  

Ryan's swimming and Glen's award

Yesterday was a full day.

Hannah met Glen and me at the Junior High after school so that we could quickly jump in the car and drive to Carson City all the while hoping we weren't going to miss Ryan's 500 freestyle race at Regionals. We made it with about 10 minutes to spare!

Ryan cut 14 seconds off his time (which he says was easy because if you just shave 1 second a lap you come close...easy? I don't know about that). The 500 takes 20 lengths and Ryan's time was 7:05.49. It was great fun to cheer him on.

and he's off...

one length almost done, 19 more to go (Ryan's on the left)

 Since this is such a long race, there is always a team member at the far end with a large board with numbers on it and every time a swimmer approaches, the teammate waves this sign underwater so the swimmer can see how many lengths he has finished. For the last length, they post a red square instead of a number so the swimmer knows this is the final turn.

The nice thing about swimming in Carson...automated timers that post to a score board

Final times for Ryan's heat

Final scores and standings have not been posted yet (we know Ryan came in last of his heat but don't know how the other heats went), but when there are, they will be found at:
http://nevadahsaquatics.com/resultspage.htm

After we returned home we had a short breather before Glen and I went to the CCEA (Churchill County Education Association) awards banquet. Glen was awarded the Community Service Award for the High School. Two years ago he had earned the HS's Teacher of the Year and has a nice Golden Apple award. I like the community service award better as it's functional and cute:

The mug has his name in school colors on one side...

...and a nice quote on the other.

The best way to find yourself...is to lose yourself in the service to others. -M. Ghandi

So, congratulations to Ryan and Glen.

Ryan is currently back in Carson because the relay team he is on is in Regionals...his heat should be starting soon...

Hannah...

So, I'm told that after the mock disaster, Glen took Hannah and Ryan to Jack-in-the-Box for lunch. Of course, Hannah was still dressed like this:

As they are waiting in the ordering line with others, Hannah says something like, "After we get our food, then can we go to the hospital???"

Silly girl. She said people had been giving her funny looks.

Fallon's Mock Disaster

Glen and Hannah and cousin Michael got to participate in a mock disaster Friday. Glen's drama students got to be victims when a Navy jet "crashed" into the student parking lot. The makeup jobs were fantastic. Here is one of Hannah after she returned home:

The Lahontan Valley News also had some photos on its website. Hannah is in photo 47 (laying on the ground) and 71-73 (being loaded into an ambulance which took her to the hospital). Michael is in photo 49 (laying on the ground) and he was also one of the lucky students who got a free ride in an ambulance to the local hospital.

Click here to go to the beginning of the slide show at LVN's site and see the 144 photos posted.

If you don't want to click through 1-46 to finally reach Hannah, click here to see the first photo of Hannah.

Click here to see Michael's.

Click here to see Hannah being taken to the ambulance.

A friend took a photo of Glen going around and adding more blood to the victims just before the drill started.

Click here to see Channel 2's coverage. There is a video clip.

I missed the fun because I was Glen's sub over at the Junior High. Oh, well. Glen seemed to have a blast preparing batches of fake blood (dish soap and chocolate sauce being 2 of the ingredients for the non-edible kind and then he also made an edible kind to have dripping out of people's mouths).

Yep. Memories in the making...and hopefully some good lessons learned along the way.

a few items

Hannah had a track meet at Spanish Springs High School yesterday. It was her last for the track season as she did not qualify to move on. She really had a great time and even though we didn't get to see her compete (the one time we were here, she wasn't competing and she didn't want us to go watch her anyway) we were really glad that she got to participate in such a great thing.

She mainly did shot put and discus with a little running here and there. A few weeks ago she was on a relay team and they placed 2nd! 

Ryan passed his writing proficiency. BIG yea.

He's hoping to increase his swimming speed a little on... don't know which stroke...this Saturday so that he can qualify for regionals in a 2nd category. It's exciting to see him aim for a goal and work hard to achieve it. Really great.

Andrew will be home in less than 2 months now, and I get to speak to him on Sunday.

Glen has 2 more plays plus some one-acts to go, but the end is in sight.

I have learned my crafting skills (gluing in particular) need some improvement. Well, my mom will like her gift (I hope) regardless of gobs of hot glue.

Eric has just 2 more weeks left of his semester. I think he's enjoying his classes and going to college.

Alex did really well on his MAPs testing and is a happy boy.

Looking forward to the next few months.