Camden wanted to help his class earn the Chick Fil A party for the PTA Reflections competition. He entered something for each of the 6 categories. It didn't help that he waited until the last minute to do a lot of them. He worked on a poem with Ashley that ended up getting chosen to move on from the first round. (His class did end up getting the Chick Fil A party, by the way)
Imagine our surprise when we found out that he got chosen to move on from the second round of the competition, as well. We didn't even bother going to the awards ceremony so they gave him his trophy and a bag of prizes at school.
We helped clean the YSA building in October for the last time before Danny was released in the middle of November. We definitely cleaned their building more in the last 3 years than we have cleaned our own building in the last 14 years. We got donuts with them after finishing the cleaning.
Camden had a fishing activity with his activity days group. He was one of the only ones to catch a fish and he caught 2!
Ashley had 4 days of performances for "The Little Mermaid." Her part was technically maid #4 or something like that, but she was the head maid and had a couple of lines. I mean it wasn't what it would have been if she had gotten the part of Ursala, like she was really hoping for, but she still had fun participating in the play.
She was also a goldfish in the sea scenes.
She had lots of people come and see her, including her young women's group...
Our neighbors across the street...
Her grandparents...
Her friends that don't even go to the school...
And of course her family!!!
Danny and I went to "Some Like it Hot" at the Eccles. We don't usually get a picture, but there must have been no line during intermission when we walked past the backdrop this time. The play was funny with some likeable songs and dancing.
We enjoyed football season. This was the game where the fans stormed the field afterwards. I don't remember who they were playing, but I do remember that it was pretty exciting towards the end.
We also enjoyed basketball season at BYU this year. We were quite sad when Richie Saunders got injured and didn't enjoy the games much after that, but it was a lot of fun before that happened.
Tyler's school did the play "Puffs" in the fall. I didn't know much about it besides it being the Harry Potter story told from the viewpoint of the Hufflepuffs. Tyler really wanted to go see it so Ashley and I went with him. It was really funny and they did a good job, for being middle schoolers.
Camden had a wax museum at school and had to dress up like Milton Hershey. He did all the research on his life and came up with about 9 facts that he came to life and told us as we shined our flashlights on him. He took a Hershey bar as a prop, which got melted by the end.
Danny was in charge of gingerbread house making for his work Christmas party, so he found these cardboard houses online and brought 3 of them home for the kids to try out before the party to make sure they would work ok. We thought they turned out great and the kids were happy with their creations.
We got a new dinette set as a Christmas gift. I knew some basic things that I wanted, like darker wood finish, padded chairs, and a table big enough to fit 10 people. This was about the only one in the 3 stores that fit those criteria so it is the one we went with (even though it has some sharp edges that Ashley told us we should not have on our new table).
We were able to find a young and newly married couple in need of a dining room table to take our previous table. But we took some pictures of it before saying goodbye to it. Our kids were quite sad about not having it anymore.
Danny and I got invited to a Christmas party at this place called Dreamwalk. It reminded us a little bit of some of the lines you walk through at Disneyland and Universal Studios. But we were given blacklights to find hidden pictures on the walls as we walked through. They had food along the way (just for the party). We had fun, but we wouldn't pay to go on our own.
I took the boys to skyzone on one of the nights when Danny and Ashley were gone. They have so much fun there, but I think they would get bored of it if we went all of the time.
Tyler participated in another Ninja competition. He didn't do very well though, so we took off after he did his run. He bumped up to the next age group, so the obstacles are harder than they were the last time he competed and he is also going against mostly boys that are older than him.
We had an unusually warm and dry winter, so Ashley and I took Lula out on a longer walk one day. It was bath day, so we let her run a little bit wild on the trail and she decided to chase a bunch of geese and ducks through mud. Her paws, legs, and tummy were covered in mud and she left muddy paw prints on the path. We had good laugh when we went out on a walk a week or 2 later and saw the dried up paw prints still on the path.
Ashley had another short Christmas themed Improv show on the last day of school before the break. It was with the other cohort, too, so there were 16 on the stage this time. She didn't get as many opportunities to be spotlighted with so many on the stage. She did get a couple of good laughs, though, in the skits she did get to do.
Ashley had to defend her senior thesis on the Friday after school let out for the break. She was feeling really nervous and wanted to bring Lula. I didn't think it would ever get approved, but I sent a quick text to her principal about 30 minutes before we were supposed to leave to ask for her permission to let Ashley bring Lula. Her thesis was about service animals vs emotional support animals and what training and things can be done to allow them to be more recognized in public places. Lula was living proof of the kind of help emtional support animals can offer in stressful situations for people with mental health issues. Lula sat at Ashley's side as she did her 20 minute defense and actually helped her be more calm as she did it.
We went out for ice cream that night at a place of Ashley's choice to celebrate being done with that stress in her life.
