Henry's video, Hannah's subbing, Alex is a math whiz, and my new adventure

Last week Andrew posted this video of Henry talking to his blog. He used his new editing program to make it. Love it. So precious!
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Hannah has now subbed twice in the Washoe county school district, once was a 1/2 day kindergarten job and the other was a 1/2 day in a middle school music class. There's a chance she'll have a 4-5 week long term sub job in that music class since the teacher was in the hospital. The kids weren't too well behaved, but since the teacher hadn't had time to made lesson plans before being admitted, we're hoping things will go better if she does get that job. Good luck Hannah!

In other news, Alex and Thomas went with other students to Reno on Saturday to participate in the Northern Nevada Secondary Mathematics Contest. Alex went for Algebra II and Thomas was there for the Comprehensive (pre-calculus or higher) contest. The contests are based on individual and team efforts.

There were 3 tests (two individual and 1 team) divided by breaks. First there was a 10 question free response exam. Alex said no one thought that they did well there. Then there was a 30 question multiple choice exam (Alex beat the next highest score by 3 correct answers). Following that, there were 5 questions for the teams to answer.

Alex came in first place in the individual contest, which earned him a $50 gift card! And his team also came in first so that was a bit more money. Alex had just mentioned to me last week that his math class was too easy. I guess he has the math gene and math just comes natural for him.

Thomas's team wound up coming in second in their category. They had tied for first, but they lost the tie breaker. Way to go boys!!!

And as for me, I signed up to be a Stampin' Up! demonstrator yesterday.  My stamping group, which has now been meeting for about 10 or more years, lost its demonstrator (the person who handled our orders) and I decided I might as well fill the spot. I am not planning on actively looking for orders other than for my group, but if anyone wants to order anything from Stampin' Up, let me know!
 

Way to go, Alex!

Report cards came this week. Congratulations, Alex, on an outstanding report.

Friday marked Glen's and my 29th anniversary of meeting. We met while playing Bunco at church. I think maybe next year for our 30th anniversary, we might have to hold a Bunco party to celebrate.

Saturday was our 28th wedding anniversary. We managed to spend most of the day together.

We drove to Reno in the morning for my seminary training meeting (which was so inspiring and fabulous, by the way. I love my calling to teach seminary), went grocery shopping, got home in time for Glen to get dressed to go into church, then met up after his meeting to eat a quick dinner before going to the adult session of our Stake Conference. We had the concluding session of Conference this morning, which means Glen did not have extra meetings today, like he does most Sundays, and we could spend even more time together. Being together is the best. Happy anniversary, Glen!

a photo of a photo from our wedding day

Great weekend. Great week. Great 28 years.

New car, old men dancing, and UTA

It seems when we buy a car, it's not a long and drawn out affair, but it's a spur of the moment thing.

One of our cars died a few months ago. Glen sometimes borrowed my car, but mostly he's been using his truck. However, his truck has many quirks and I was afraid he was going to get stranded some day. He carried an extra battery around just so he could jump his own truck when needed without bothering others. We were hoping to get the Camry fixed, but that hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, early Tuesday afternoon Hannah mentioned her friend was selling a 1996 Saturn. After school Glen went for a test drive and bought it that same afternoon. None too soon as Wednesday morning (before we had registered the Saturn), he was again having trouble with his truck on the way to school. We are excited and hope it proves to be reliable, but we mainly need it to just get him back and forth to school, so we think it will be perfect.

One of my favorite musicals is "The Slipper and the Rose" with Richard Chamberlain as the Prince. It's a Cinderella story. Anyway, I finally broke down and ordered it on Amazon during the holidays, only I didn't pay close enough attention to the description as it turns out my copy is not configured for US DVD players.

Our computer has come to my rescue and changed its configuration so I was able to watch my movie this week. One of my all-time favorite scenes from any musical (which I think I posted to my blog years ago) is when the king and a bunch of older men sing and dance about protocol in the library.

This past week was our annual trip to Utah for the Utah Theatre Association's conference. This year it was in St. George. Due to all the bad weather, we were happy we were traveling south.

Anyway,  we always see 2 plays, and then, of course, there are workshops. This year we saw The Diviners (which is a slow moving story that reminded me, because of its slow pace and lack of a major problem to solve, of the movie The Whales of August). Dixie High did a great job. The fact that so many fell asleep during it was just because they were exhausted ... and it was slow paced. I loved it.

Our second play was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The Desert Hills High School did a fabulous job with Joseph. My favorite song from that play is Close Every Door.

I rode down with a mother of one of the students while Glen rode the bus with the kids. Glen arrived home last night around 2 am. I am currently sitting in a hotel room. It's almost time for church and then I'll be heading home (thankfully the weather should be good). It's been a fun weekend.

And can I just say that Golden Corral has the best buffet!

The road to Rexburg...

The road to Rexburg...was long, snowy, and thankfully, now behind us.

We had a wonderful Christmas with everyone here, but when it was time for everyone to travel back home it was a little nerve-wracking due to the weather. My parents had to leave a day early (and take a longer route) because of it. Andrew, Heather, and Henry also had a longer trip than usual due to having to drive slowly in the snow.

We thought we had found a ride for Eric and Ryan to get back to Rexburg 3 different times, but in the end we had to take them. And then get back home again. We left Monday around 12:30 pm and we got as far as Wells (about 1/2 way), where we decided it was safest to stop for the night due to the snow and slick roads. It was only 5:30 pm.

Tuesday morning, with the roads a bit better, we headed east for Salt Lake instead of north for Twin Falls. We figured that the roads would be in better condition, even if the route was longer. We made it to Rexburg, dropped the boys off, and headed straight back home since worse weather was due in on Wednesday. We arrived home 3:50 am Wednesday morning. There had been snowy patches and some rain, but it wasn't nearly as stressful as going to BYU-I. Glad to be home!

Hannah had been in Reno, so Alex enjoyed being on his own for 2 days. We asked how it went. He loved the fact that he could turn up his music and then go into another room to work on something. I don't think he missed us.

Hannah tried to make it home from Reno this week and had to turn around in Fernley and go back to Reno because the road was so bad. Glen and I had to cancel our plans to go to the temple and do some shopping. And then today, church was cancelled due to icy roads. We are so grateful, though, for we need all the water we can get.

Glen and I had a date yesterday! We saw "Rogue One" at the old movie theater. It turned out to be a private showing since we were the only ones in that theater. It was great because then we could make comments and not worry about disturbing others.

Alex and I have been playing games. I've only won two out of ten games. And when I lose, I don't just lose, I get creamed. But it's been fun.

Alex and I have 2 more days to play games before school starts up again for him. Glen goes back to work tomorrow.

Rexburg Temple

I love this photo that Glen took with my phone while I was driving

Thursday 5 Jan 2017 our yard

walking Perazzo Lane

using my zoom

our yard later that day

Games Galore, fitbit family challenge, and mannequin challenge

I mentioned in my last post that we had been playing a lot of games. In case you didn't believe me, here are some lists.

Our new games:
Clubs, Viticulture (seems to be Alex's favorite), The Rose King, Tenzi, Imhotep, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Fresco, Alhambra, Caverna, Castles of Burgundy card game, Puerto Rico, Treasure Hunter, Kingdom Builder with 2 expansion packs, My Village, and a Small World expansion pack.

Andrew's new games that aren't duplicates of ours:

Hey That's My Fish!, Code Names, Code Names: Pictures, Istanbul expansion pack, and Mystic Vale.

Other games we played owned by the Jamiesons, Andrew, and us:
Spector Ops, Cover Your A$$ets, Xenoshyft, Sushi Go!, Scotland Yard, Shakespeare, SeaFall (intense 15+ game series), Pinochle, 7 Wonders, 7 Wonders: Duel, Castles of Burgundy board game, Summoner Wars, Oddly Obvious, Terra Mystica, Timeline, Five Tribes, Nerts, Ashes, Zooloretto, and Steampunk Rally.

We've been keeping a master list of all games played, who won them (Alex is in the lead with 37, Andrew has 35 wins, and I'm in 3rd place with 12 wins), what the score was, and how many were playing the game. We are up to almost 100 wins on that list. My favorites of the new games I played are: Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Treasure Hunter, Kingdom Builder, Hey That's My Fish!, Cover Your A$$ets, and Shakespeare. We are having a blast.

This next week will be a big let down. My parents left this morning. Andrew, Heather, and Henry leave tomorrow. Eric and Ryan will leave on Tuesday or Wednesday (we are still looking for a ride for them, but Hannah and Alex might wind up having to take them back to Rexburg).

One way we'll be keeping close over the next while is through our Fitbit Family Challenge.

We all got fitbits for Christmas and have come up with a competition of sorts. We need to average 7,000 steps/day each month. Everyone who reaches that goal will have their name entered into a drawing, with 3 extra entries for the one in 1st place, 2 extra tickets for 2nd place, and 1 extra ticket for 3rd place. Three tickets will be drawn. The first one drawn gets $5, then $3 for the second one drawn, and the third one drawn will get $2. A name can only be drawn twice. They would then get $7 and the other name drawn would get $3.

I love that the fitbit tracks my number of steps each day, but I love even more that they "track" my sleep. I'm averaging about 45 minutes of restless sleep and one awake time each night. I wonder if I can improve that.

New Year's Eve

One night Hannah made homemade fettuccini and bruschetta!

playing Ashes (one of Alex's favorites)

Hannah and Glen made a play fort for Henry

SeaFall!

Castles of Mad King Ludwig

Sarah contemplating a move in Hey, That's My Fish!

The high school's 1st block video production class made a mannequin challenge video, then challenged the other blocks and also the school to make their own videos. Alex's class won the block challenge (the one for the video production classes) and Glen was in the school-wide challenge winner (the challenge for all classes but the video production classes). He was subbing on his prep and the sub plans had them doing this, so he got to be in it. The winners got doughnuts!

Glen's video:

Alex's class's winning video (can you spot him?):