State Speech

Charlotte's speech team won State! She was so excited! Individually, she placed 2nd in EPR (Extemperaneous Programmed Reading).

Valley City Math Comp

Westley's math club attended the VCSU Math Competition again this year. The team placed 2nd, and Westley won 1st in the individual competition!

Skiing Trip

The kids went with our church youth group to South Dakota to go skiing! They had a great time.

UND Honor Choir

In October, Charlotte auditioned for the University of North Dakota Honor Choir Festival. The audition included singing a song and sight reading. It is one of the hardest festivals to get into here. She was very excited to make it into the Treble choir. So in the dead of winter, we drove to the other end of the state for the festival. She had a great time and really enjoyed working with the UND faculty.

Speech

Something good about moving to a new area is learning about new things and trying new activities. Charlotte was able to try Speech this year. She participated in two categories this year: Serious Duo and EPR. EPR includes three rounds, one each of poetry, serious, and humorous pieces. You are given the piece one hour before and have to edit and prepare in the time before performing. She really enjoyed  Speech and was getting pretty good. She even got 2nd place at one of the last meets.

Midsummer Ballet

The girls were able to participate in their first full ballet. They were attendants in A Midsummer's Night Dream. They had a wonderful time and the studio did a great job. We are very glad they let us come be a part of their studio for six months.

Hiking

We actually had a free day where we could just go do something fun as a family. We decided to check out some local trails. We started early and got in a few simple hikes before it became crowded.

Charlotte's Birthday

I don't know what it is about her birthday, but I seem to slack and forget to really do much every year. This year she made her cake (probably because I have forgotten and burned cakes on her birthday in the past). She also had a friend party. Sadly the only picture related to her birthday is her reading her new horse book at the park. She LOVES the giant book about horses her Aunt Jenn gave her.

Choir

Charlotte has joined a brand new choir in the area. She has had a wonderful time and particularly loves learning to sing harmony. The choir has been perfect for her. They had multiple performances this holiday season. Below is a picture of Charlotte singing her solo.

Cake Decorating

Charlotte has been wanting to work on her cake decorating skills and now that I no longer have Young Women's activities on Wednesday nights, we decided it would be a perfect time for her and I to learn together.  Here are her first two figurines made out of marshmallow fondant.

Below is Jenna's birthday cake. We spent many hours on this cake. We worked on the fondant pieces one night, baked the cake the next morning, and put it together in the afternoon.

And yes, this is how she wanted to look in the picture!

Halloween

The kids had a great Halloween season this year. Westley went to the haunted corn field thing for the first time. The girls and I tried out a new pumpkin patch. We also homemade the girls' costumes. Everyone had a great time trick or treating and we learned that going from neighborhood to neighborhood chasing the best candy does not result in as much candy as just going to every house in the one neighborhood. Basically Westley ended up with twice as much candy as his sisters.

Horses and Animals

Charlotte has loved animals for awhile and particularly like zebras as well. Lately her love for animals has greatly increased. This last year she particularly been loving horses. She takes any chance to ride a horse, whether it be at Grandpa's house or at a fair. She has also recently acquired fish, and she has done a great job of caring for them.

Frozen Jr

Charlotte participated Frozen Jr this summer. She had a great time at the camp working on her musical theater skills and also working on her part in the play. She was one of Oaken's family members. Her main scene was very cute and funny and her lines and solos were perfect.

Northern California, Oregon, and Washington

After Westley raced at nationals in Sacremento, we decided it would be a great opportunity to go see the redwoods and go to Oregon and Washington, since we haven't been there yet. We first drove through the various redwood forests to the Northern California coast. We have previously seen the giant sequoia trees, but we were still amazed to see the redwoods. In the first picture below, Westley is standing new the top of a fallen redwood tree and the girls are standing on the base. You can barely see them under the red arrow.

Another highlight included driving through a redwood tree. We are thankful to Westley for making us stop so he could throw up, giving Ben the time to discover that we were only about a mile from the drive through tree.

My favorite part of the trip was the beach. It was not quite what I grew up with, but it was still beautful and relaxing. I could spend all my time there happily. At one point, as we were walking past a harbor, Charlotte heard a seal and took off running. That girl loves all animals and she was enthralled. Ben loved the Oregon beaches, with the giant sand dunes, rocks, and light houses. I felt like I was in a book or movie since I had never seen beaches like them before.

We then headed inland and traveled along the scenic byway new I-84. There were many gorgeous sites including the Multnomah falls. And yes, even though it was summer, we were cold! (Also, Jenna is much taller than me now.)

We made a couple of stops in Washington along the way. One cool stop was Maryhill Stonehedge. A WWI memorial that is a full sized replica of Stonehedge. This spot also afforded us a beautiful view of the Mount Hood volcano.

Seussical Jr.

The kids were recently in Seussical Jr. Charlotte was Mrs Who. She was amazing and she says it was her favorite part she has ever done. Westley was a monkey, who was mean to Horton. He had a good time, which surprised us all. Jenna helped with choreography, stage crew, and she danced during one of the solo songs. She missed being in the picture because I couldn't find her.

Dance Recital 2019

I am very bad at taking pictures at the girls' dance recital every year. I usually don't get any pictures. Luckily this year one of the dad's took some amazing professional photos. Jenna only ended up in the background of the photos, but there were a couple of really great pictures of Charlotte. In the first one she is helping a younger class.

This is from her advanced tap dance. She started the dance off with a small solo.

It snowed!

We don't get snow very much here, but this past week it snowed twice! The first time it snowed, none of the kids wanted to got out and play. Granted we had recently been to visit my mom and sled there, so maybe they had satisfied their need to play in snow. But a few days later, when it snowed again Westley decided he wanted to build a snowman. Charlotte decided to join him for the picture.

Then Charlotte decided she wanted to build her own snowman and add more features, like arms, to Westley's snowman.

Little Mermaid

The girls were in The Little Mermaid Jr. They were both eels. They had a fun time being evil and the hair was cool too. Jenna was Flotsam and did well with talking slowly with a lisp.

First Family 5K

We set a goal as a family to all participate in a 5K together. We decided to do the Run Run Reindeer just before Christmas. The best part was the food at the end! We got donuts and Chick-fil-a sandwiches. Westley beat the rest of us by finishing in 19:11. He also won a prize for being the first kid finisher. Ben was second and then the girls and I came in more than double what Westley did!

Christmas Newsletter 2018

Merry Christmas!

We have had another great year full of creating lasting
memories - usually without the documentation! With
the kids getting older and involved in more activities
we were not able to take many trips this year, but we
were able to fly to Minnesota and visit Wisconsin and
North Dakota.

Ben stays busy with work in the City as the
Assistant Leisure Services Director. He is also teaching
a class at the university this year. Ben decided he wants to
do the St. George Ironman this next year and has been
busy training. He has also kept busy with serving in the
Bishopric in our ward and that has been a blessing to our
family.

Jill has been busy homeschooling the kids and
chauffeuring the kids to all their activities. She also
volunteers for many of their activities, including
helping with costumes and backstage at the dance
studio and the kids’ musical theater group. Jill is
still serving in the ward Young Women’s and having
a great time with the girls.

Jenna has been busy with her passion - dance. She is at
the studio five days a week taking classes and being a
Teacher’s Assistant for some younger classes. She
recently started her own dance studio in our home and
is teaching five sweet girls. According to Jenna, the best
to happen this year was to get her pointe shoes and go
en pointe in ballet. She also works hard in her
schoolwork and is a great help to her younger siblings
with their work. After a really great SAT score as a 7th
grader, she had decided to skip a grade and is doing great
in 9th grade. She was the Indian Chief and assistant
choreographer in Peter Pan this summer. She loves going
to Young Womens’ activities, girls camp, and seminary.

Westley loves sports and anything that can be remotely
competitive. Much of his free time is spent practicing
sports, playing with friends, and coding. He played
soccer, football, volleyball, basketball, and participated
in track, cross country, and ninja warrior training this
year. He ran his first half marathon and also
participated in a couple of Ninja Warrior competitions.
Westley has also began to really enjoy playing the piano
and is even taking lessons from someone besides his
mom. He has a passion for coding. After becoming
proficient in Scratch, he has been learning Python and
Javascript programming languages. He enjoys his
computer programming club and wants to work for
Nintendo someday, after being a pro football player,
an Olympic marathoner, and a concert pianist, of course.

Charlotte enjoys art, musical theater, dancing, sports,
swimming, reading, and sleeping. She was in a couple
of plays this year, including the part of Tinker Bell in
Peter Pan. She relished the role and it was perfect for
her. She also participates in several dance classes and
a choir. She just loves to perform. She also enjoys
sports including volleyball, swimming, and soccer. She
has also taken a few art and baking classes and is always
drawing. Her favorite thing to draw is ponies.