Lagoon Season Passes

For Christmas, we got Lagoon season passes for the whole family. Lagoon opened up on weekends at the end of March, but our Saturdays seemed to have something preventing us from going up until the beginning of May. But that day was busier than we had ever seen Lagoon. All of the lines had to be at least a 3 hour wait. So we didn't ride anything that day. Then the girls got to each go for school events and still had long lines. We finally made it back right after school got out. We decided to get there right when the park opened. We made a mad dash for the new ride, Primordial, as soon as we were in the park. We had about 50 people in front of us, so we were excited to finally get to ride the new ride without the 3 hour wait that has been the norm since the ride opened in September. When all of the other rides started opening, ours remained closed. It finally opened up about 25 minutes after opening. It was a pretty short wait to get onto the ride and we were off. Primordial is a roller coaster that also has some virtual aspects with 3D glasses and shooting. As we approached the first screen, all we could see was blackness. Same with the second, third, and every other screen except the last one. Ashley told us that the ride is much better than what we experienced but we walked down the exit expecting that to be it for that ride for the day. Danny stopped and told the ride supervisor about the screens and she said we could ride again without waiting in the line. So we stepped into the child swap area to wait for them to get us on the ride again. And then they shut down the ride to fix the screens. As we waited, Camden pointed out his knee to us.

He had fallen down getting onto the ride and cut his knee. we didn't know until after we were in the child swap. And we didn't have our backpack or any way to clean it up. And with our spot at the front of the line, we didn't want to go out of line to clean it up. After about 20 minutes, they started letting people on the ride again. and then the ride stopped and people got stuck on it. So they had to shut down again. At this point, Danny took Camden to a bathroom to clean up his knee and then we waited and waited and waited. Long story short, we got to ride again with working screens, but we still had to wait over 2 hours to do it.

This is us in the child swap area. At least there was air conditioning, a bench to sit on, we could walk around our little space, and we could see most of what was going on with the ride.

The rest of our day went a lot better. The lines were short and we got to ride all of our favorites a couple of times. We left Alyssa at home because she wasn't feeling well. She had gotten a vaccination the day before and it made her feel pretty sick with fever and weakness. We wished she could have come with us. We went back (me and the 4 kids) a few weeks later and the lines were again pretty short. We are looking forward to a lot more fun at lagoon this summer.

Alyssa's Graduation

It's a strange feeling having your oldest graduate from high school. Alyssa has been looking forward to this day, but also feeling a little sad that she won't be seeing a lot of her friends ever again. 

The festivities started with Seminary Graduation. She almost didn't pass one semester because of how many tardies she had to class. The teacher contacted Danny and told him that if she had one more tardy that term that he would have to give her an incomplete. She shaped up though and made it to class on time for the rest of the term and graduated.

Grandpa Wheeler was able to attend.

I think Lehi had one of the very last graduation time slots in the area. 3:30 pm on Friday of that last week of school. Alyssa received a letter a few weeks before graduation informing her that she had made the top 20 for academics, ACT score, extra curriculars, etc. They were inviting her to audition to speak at graduation. She laughed it off and said "yeah, I'm not doing that." Then Danny wrote her a speech and she liked it and he told her she would regret it if she didn't audition. So she did, thinking "there is no way they will choose me." They chose 2 from the top 20 to speak and she was chosen as 1 of the 2. She claims that she was probably #20 on the list. She also said that she would tell them "thanks, but no thanks" if they chose her. However, when they called her in to tell her she was chosen, they said the programs were already printed and her name was on it so they hoped she was still willing to speak. And that is how she ended up on the stage for graduation.

She did great with her speech. She didn't even sound nervous even though there were 8,000+ in attendance. She was so glad to have it over. After the graduation, we found her and then took some pictures of her with her friends.

Leisel, Alyssa, and Kate

Alyssa will be rooming with Kate at BYU in the Fall. They are so excited for the next step in their lives.

This is her group of friends that she spent the most time with. From left to right is Jacob, Noah, Aiden, Leisel, Kate, and Alyssa. Kate and Noah are twins and the guys all played on the boys tennis team.

After the graduation, we went to dinner at Alyssa's choice of restaurant. It was not the best option for someone with a gluten intolerance, but she really wanted a couple of things at this Chinese buffet. She paid for it about an hour after we got home with the worst stomach cramps she has ever felt. She barely was well enough to enjoy grad night at FatCats. She went anyways and said it was okay, but it would have been better if Kate had gone.

We are so proud of Alyssa for all of her hard work in school. She kept her grades up while participating in 2 different sports, working, and being part of the National Honors Society. She also had numerous church callings through high school, including her class president. She is going to do great things in the future and we can't wait to see where life takes her.

Tulip Festival

We almost didn't make it to the tulip festival this year. Our Thanksgiving Point passes only allow us free entry to the tulip festival on Monday-Thursday. It opened in the middle of April and went through the middle of May. And we seriously had something every Monday-Thursday night for a whole month. But we reserved the night of May 16th to go and just hoped for good weather. It ended up working out well. Here are some of the pictures we took.

This one was funny. I don't know how Danny and Alyssa timed that so perfectly.

This one took a few tries, but it was a fun one, too.

It was a fun night together. The flowers were beautiful, although I think a lot of the tulips were gone by the time we made it there.

Some Random Things From May

The boys had a family art night at their school. I wasn't going to go, but then they told me that they were supposed to perform a song at it. We were late, though, so they both missed their performance. We walked around the school and found their artwork.

Camden's was a profile shot,

Tylers was a forward facing picture. Both were their own heads changed into a coloring page for them to design in their own creative way. Each grade had a different angle of the head.

Ashley went to Physics Day at Lagoon. In order to go, she was required to participate in one of the activities that they had going on that day. Ashley chose to design a ride for her activity because it looked like the most fun. We talked through some different ideas and then she drew the ride during classes in the days leading up to Lagoon day. This is what she came up with.

She called her ride "Banana Split." It was a drop tower and a short coaster ride combined into one. The name came from the yellow cars that split into the different directions when they get to the bottom. I helped her with a write up to explain the ride and the physics involved with the ride. We put it on a poster board and she took it with her to Lagoon. She said when she dropped it off, everyone else had 3D models of their rides and she felt like hers was really inadequate. However, when she met with the judge to explain her ride, he was really impressed with her presentation and the way she answered his questions. In fact, he was so impressed that he asked her what college she went to. She ended up winning third place! She said there were like 50 entries, too. I couldn't believe it! She got a prize bag for winning that included a shirt, a bounce back pass to Lagoon, a moon light, a small dome shaped thing that projects a floating image, and a ribbon. And the best part was that she suddenly became her physics teacher's favorite student.

I made a money lei for Alyssa for graduation. I just watched a couple of you tube videos to figure out how to make the ribbon lei and the folded flowers. Then I arranged it in the way I liked the best. She was not allowed to wear it to graduation, though, since she was on the stand. But she wore it afterwards for pictures.

The picture is a little blurry, but I went to a field trip for each of the boys. Tyler's was to the Orem rec center to swim, play basketball, play racquetball, rock climb, and play in the play area. He loved having me there and wanted me to stick with him in the pool for most of the time. Camden had a field trip to the bowling alley and a park. I didn't bowl with them, but the group of kids in my lane were pretty calm, so they were easy to supervise.

The boys had a choir concert. The theme was heroes. They had some fun props like these masks. It was a cute show.

The boys had their end of year dance festival. I went early to save seats and barely made it on the front row. The seats were perfect to see both of the boys. 

We gave Lula a poodle cut for fun. She looked kind of ridiculous. we almost had to leave her this way for a few days, rather than a few hours when our clippers stopped working. I had to make an emergency run to PetSmart to get a new set. She looked much better after it was all shaved short.

Camden had a job fair at school. He chose to research a chef. I was just glad that we had everything that we needed for his costume at home. He did a good job with his power point presentation.

The end of the school year is always crazy busy. Camden also had a piano recital, which I did not get a picture of. We were glad when summer break arrived, and we could all relax a little bit.

Hope of America - Tyler

Tyler got to participate in Hope of America this year. We have been hearing about this event for years because the 5th graders from all of the public schools in the area participate. Ashley and Alyssa did not get to do it because American Heritage does their own thing to celebrate America in the 5th grade.

The event takes place in the Marriott Center and is part of Provo's Freedom Festival. Most of the other events take place in July, but this one happens in May because that is when the kids are still in school. There are about 30 schools that come on each of the 3 nights, so getting in and out with the traffic was kind of crazy. Also, getting Tyler to the right spot and then finding him again afterwards was also made us a little nervous. But the teachers have a system and it worked really well. We went a little early and stopped by the convention center to pick Danny up. I think this also helped us to avoid some of the traffic both on the way there and on the way home.

There was a preshow that had some fun things. Danny's good friend manages the Marriott Center, so he was able to reserve us some amazing seats in the center and on the 2nd row. We had a great view. Tyler wore a blue shirt, so he is up in the stars section. He was hoping to be one of the lucky ones to get assigned as a star at the last minute, but that went to the kid sitting in front of him. I think he is 1 row behind and slightly to the right of the star (white shirt) wearing sunglasses towards the bottom of this picture. Tyler has a pair of white sunglasses on his forehead.

We slowly saw the big picture come together. When they were done arranging it, they looked pretty impressive. The show was about an hour long and they sang a lot of songs about America, the constitution, the Bill of rights, heroes, etc. It was so good and a great reminder of why it is such a blessing to live in this country.

The best song was the one that they used their flashlights for. They dimmed all of the lights and then during the chorus, the kids moved their flashlights in the same pattern. I tried to post the video, hut it was too big. I found the full performance on Youtube so I'm posting the link here. The flashlight song is at the very end, around the 1 hour mark.

The link if the above video doesn't work https://youtu.be/zsqC9v9nQ60?si=xKLvyClBmMTLZcR8

 

Prom for Ashley

Ashley went to Prom with one of her best friends. She didn't want to make a big deal about it, so she wouldn't even let me take her out to get a dress. She was just going to wear a church dress, but I talked her into wearing on of my dresses that I got for events and the Convention Center. She also did not want her hair curled or down and she only let me put on the bare minimum for makeup. 

Her group consisted of all the people she eats lunch with plus a couple of extra girls. They did a daytime date to the nickel arcade, took pictures at a park, had dinner at Sol Agave and then went to the dance.

She said it was more fun than she expected it to be. This was her first Official date, so I'm glad it went well. We have been trying to tell Ashley for a long time that dating is really just hanging out with your friends. I'm glad she was willing to go.
 

Date Night with Ashley

For our one on one date, Ashley chose to go to dinner at Olive Garden and then a play at the Lehi Arts Center. She didn't want to tell me anything about the play before that night, but I found out on the way to dinner that we would be seeing "Daddy Long Legs." 

Dinner was good and the service was super-fast, probably because it was Friday night and Olive Garden gets pretty busy on Friday night.

The play was interesting. I had never seen it before and it took about 4 scenes for me to realize that there would only be 2 people in the entire cast. I liked the play more then I thought I would. The Lehi Arts center is tiny and we had seats on the front row, so there were a couple of times that we had to pull in our feet or tuck our legs a different way so that we didn't accidentally kick or trip the actors.

After we left the play, Ashley admitted to me the reason for choosing this play on this particular night. One of the actors was supposed to be the physics teacher that I aide for. We still don't know why he wasn't in the play. He must have dropped out after they bought the tickets. I'm kind of glad that he wasn't in the play because that would have been quite awkward since we were so visibly there. We had a fun night together.

Camden's 9th Birthday

We celebrated Camden's birthday on 2 different days. On his actual birthday, we had a steak dinner at home, opened presents, and ate some of the bottom layer of his cake. We found this cake on pinterest, so I did my best to recreate it. 

Ready to blow out the candles.

On the day after his birthday, we had Camden's birthday party. He chose to take 4 friends to Airborne Trampoline Park. They jumped and played for an hour and a half and then we headed back to our house for pizza, cake, and presents. The weather was nice, so we did everything outside.