Halloween 2017

Last year Halloween was kind of a dud!  For some reason Marilyn and I didn't think about getting pumpkins for Sean and Tashena to carve until the day of Halloween.  We took a very sad Sean out that afternoon looking for some but there were none to be found.  We went to about six different places (everywhere we could think of) and ended up finding some tiny ones at the Home Depot.  It was a definite aunt fail!  This year we vowed that we wouldn't make the same mistake so between the two of us we had at least ten pumpkins and six carving kits!  Ha ha!

Various stages of carving.

Our finished pumpkins.  I am especially proud of my Kylo Ren pumpkin but Tashena's Day of the Dead pumpkin is amazing!

Here they are all lit up on the porch.  I think they look pretty awesome!

I hope you had a wonderful Halloween!

Tashena is Seventeen!

Tashena turned seventeen on Saturday and we had our family birthday party for her yesterday.  Once again, she chose to have her birthday dinner at Cafe Rio (excellent choice!) then we came back home to open presents and have cake.

Grandma, Grandpa, and Marilyn gave her gift cards to Kohl's, H & M, and Old Navy.  She was very happy!  Marilyn also gave her some new ear buds (she loses them!).

I gave her some body spray from Bath & Body Works.  She sent me pictures of the specific fragrances she wanted but they are only available seasonally.  She told me that she trusted me to pick some out for her!  I hope she likes them (I really liked pink cashmere).

Her mom and dad gave her a foot spa and lots of goodies to pamper herself with!

After presents we had cake!  We have a tradition in our family of having an ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins.  Tashena's had chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and it was delicious!  Happy Birthday Tashena!

Volleyball Queen

My niece is on the Bountiful High School volleyball team for the second year in a row.  The varsity team is undefeated this season and they hope to win a state championship for the third year in a row!  Go Braves!

I am so proud of Tashena, who will be seventeen in a few days!

The Princess and the Frog

When The Princess and the Frog was first released in 2009, I took my nine-year-old niece to see it and it was absolutely magical for her to be able to look up at the screen and see a Disney princess who looked like her.  After seeing it on the big screen she watched the DVD over and over and sang every song.  She even had a Princess Tiana dress!  This movie may have a few flaws (I still think the voodoo scenes are a little weird, especially for a film marketed to children) but Tiana was definitely important to my niece and I can't think of a better role model for her to emulate.  The Princess and the Frog is being screened again at AMC Theatres as part of the Dream Big, Princesses film festival so I invited Tashena, who is now almost seventeen, to see it with me again last night.  We had so much fun!  She says she doesn't really remember when I took her to see it the first time but she certainly remembers the words to all of the songs because she sang them all at the top of her lungs (we were the only ones in the theater).   Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) is a young girl determined to succeed and open the restaurant she has always dreamed of owning.  Prince Naveen (voiced by Bruno Campos) is a ne'er-do-well who has been cut off financially by his parents.  Naveen turns to voodoo to make his dreams come true but he is inadvertently turned into a frog.  Thinking that Tiana is a princess because of a costume she is wearing, Naveen asks her to kiss him to break the spell, promising her the money she needs to start her restaurant, but when she does she is also turned into a frog.  Naveen and Tiana must discover what they need, rather than what they want, in order to break the curse with the help of a jazz playing crocodile, a Cajun lightening bug, and blind voodoo priestess (some really fun characters).  I really loved all of the scenes in the bayou, especially when all of the lightening bugs guide Tiana and Naveen to Mama Odie because it looks so magical (it reminded me of the lantern scene in Tangled).  I had forgotten how great the hand-drawn animation is in this film.  It was such a fun night and I'm glad that, for a little while, I got to spend some time with the little girl who wanted to be just like Princess Tiana!  The Princess and the Frog will be screened at AMC Theatres until Oct. 12.

Homecoming!

Last night Tashena went to the Homecoming dance with her boyfriend and a group of friends.

Putting on the boutonniere!

The girls.

The guys.

The whole group!

Tashena and Verl.

Tashena looks so beautiful!

State Champion

On Saturday my niece competed at the Utah State Track & Field Championships in discus.  She has struggled a little bit this year but that only made her more determined to succeed.  After failing to make the finals at the BYU Invitational, she started working with a private coach and all of her hard work paid off!  With a 126' throw, she became the 2017 4A State Champion!  I am so proud of her, not only because she won, but because she didn't give up and she used adversity to become even better!  Her whole life has been about overcoming adversity and I truly believe that she can do anything she wants if she sets her mind to it!  Good job, Tashena!

Note:  She is the only sophomore on that podium!

Look at Those Guns!

Last weekend Tashena competed at the BYU Invitational track meet.  As the name implies, only the best of the best are invited to compete at this two-day meet.  Tashena was ranked fifth in the state of Utah, quite a feat for a sophomore.  She had a really rough two days because she failed to advance to the finals in any of her events (discus, shot put, javelin, and long jump).  In discus, her best event, she scratched on her first two throws and had a mediocre distance for her final throw.  I think she was nervous because she puts so much pressure on herself and this was a big meet.  It doesn't matter the outcome, I am still so incredibly proud of this girl!  Her next big competition in the state championship (which she qualified for at her first meet of the season) and I'm sure she will be even more determined than ever to do well!

Note:  Look at those guns!

Throwback Thursday: Utah Lake

In May of 2010 my family went for a camping weekend to Utah Lake State Park.  It is one of my favorite camping trips to date!

Sean posing by the lake (I can't believe how little he is!).

Tashena posing by the lake (she used to like posing for me!).

Hanging around the campsite!

S'mores!

Kayaking on the lake.  I have loved every minute that I have spent camping with my family!  It is so much fun to look back at these pictures when Sean and Tashena were so young!  I hope they have happy memories of camping!