Whitney won the Student of the Month award at her school. Each month they pick an attribute and which ever student best exemplifies that attribute gets the award. This month it was honesty and Whitney got chosen. So we got to go to a breakfast and awards assembly. It was pretty neat.
Whitney’s classmates wrote in a little book for her why they chose her. Some of them were kind of funny, like, “So and so thought he was going to get this award, but I’m glad you did instead.” But they were very complimentary of Whitney. My favorite was that Whitney is “the kindest person I know. She is even kind to the mean kids.”
Whitney and Mason both had their end of year soccer parties a few weeks ago, and they each went somewhere to have pizza. Me and Whitney ended up at one place, and Heidi and Mason at another. This is where Whitney got her trophy. It was pretty big and very impressive.
They had a pretty good time playing soccer this season, although the last games were pretty chilly. There is a pretty big difference in the two teams, though, since in Whitney’s league the field is a lot bigger and there are goalies. Mason’s field is about the size of a basketball field and there are no goalies, so there is usually quite a bit more scoring in that league.
We went to Idaho for Thanksgiving this year, which we haven’t done since we’ve been living in Virginia. We had a pretty good time and the kids got to see some snow.
We flew into Salt Lake and spent the first night and Dan and Amy’s new house (and the last night there as well.) Then we headed up to Pocatello to eat dinner with Heidi’s family before going out to Springfield.
Mason’s one request was to go to Craters of the Moon, and so we took a day and did that. The kids also make gingerbread houses, played some video games and some other fun things.
Me and the kids dressed up for Halloween. The kids were Wonder Woman and Lion. This year, Mason dressed up as a scary lion. He took the red ribbon off his lion costume and wanted some blood on his teeth to show that he had been eating meat.
I went as Buckethead, the former guitar player for Guns and Roses. Even though the real Buckethead wears a mask from the movie Halloween and not Friday the 13th.
We had a pretty good time and the kids got a lot of candy. The night wasn’t too chilly, either, which was nice. Mason had wanted to be Godzilla, but changed his mind at the last minute back to the old lion standby.
On Sunday, we had to leave church early because Whitney wasn’t feeling too good. So on the way home, Mason, who usually responds to Sundays by saying “You know what my favorite part of Church is? Going home,” decided that we hadn’t had enough church yet.
So he decided to plan a lesson and teach us when we got back to the house. He spent all sorts of time preparing with his little flashcards he found, putting them onto the fridge with magnets, and thinking about things to talk about. He labeled each one of our chairs with our own name, so we even had assigned seating.
Anyway, he did a great job and even though the video is kind of long–at 23 minutes–it isn’t as long as staying for the rest of church would have been.
Marty and I went to the Van Halen concert last night. It was really good. We we both surprised by how good David Lee Roth sounded after such a long layoff.
The worst part of the concert was the opening act. It was the worst opening act in the history of the world. It was reggae music for one thing. It may have been a decent band if they were playing in a park somewhere for free, but worthy of opening (more…)
