Emily goes to Prom!

The big day finally arrived and Emily went to Prom. We were a bit nervous about the hair do. I watched numerous videos on you tube about how to do a curly hair up-do. Failed once. Prayed. Got it right on Thursday night. Prayed. Got it right today including little hair flowers! Emily looked elegant. Simply beautiful. I was so pleased. Everything turned out perfectly! Wheeeeeee! Rich, Collin and Spencer pulled in the driveway about 30 minutes before Emily's date arrived. That was a surprise because they weren't supposed to be home until really late tonight or early tomorrow. What a glorious day! Everybody home together! We can't wait to hear how the evening went for Emily!

It's Been a While.

Much has happened since I last blogged. I said I'd post all the happenings of the tournament but I was just too tired so I'll try to do it now. We had a house full of people stay with us. Collin came home for the weekend of the 14th with our good friend Arnoud and his son Christiaan. They all enjoyed attending the tournament. I didn't get to see a whole lot of anyone because I was at the tournament until past 11pm some nights. Alec, our good friend from Finland, also came to visit. He split time between us and Teemu. We all cheered for Jarkko Nieminen but unfortunately he lost to Lee, a Korean. Alec brought us all t-shirts from his racetrack that we are headed to this summer. We LOVE the shirts. They are soooo comfortable. The cut and the fabric are just fabulous! Wish I had more of them in different colors. After everyone left and the tournament ended, Emily flew off to NYC with her choir to sing at Carnegie Hall and Madelyn celebrated her 14th birthday. She had so much fun with my camera during the tournament that we bought her her own for her birthday gift. She loves it an has been busy. We then decided to pop over to Mesa for a quick cousin visit. While there for only about 24 hours or less we attended a t-ball game, baseball game, track meet and a pinewood derby. The kids enjoyed their cousins and playing in the irrigation. Some things never change. This past Monday we celebrated Spencer's 12th birthday. He opted for Indiana Jones Lego's for his gift. The same day as his birthday, Emily was asked to Mormon Prom. She is so excited. I can't recall ever seeing her more excited. We got it all on video so maybe I'll post it. If she'll give me permission. He asked in a creative way. He doorbell ditched a child's fishing game on our doorstep. As the fish are spinning you have to try and get them to bite your line and then you pull'em out. She could see a little note inside one of them so she got that one and then unrolled the note that revealed the boy's name and invitation to prom. She was gleeful! She answered with a puzzle that had written on it directions to look up the scripture Mark 7:28 words 1-8. It says "And she answered unto him and said yes". We heard that he was happy too! Yeah. Now for the dress. It's apple green with a big skirt. I'm sure she'll look lovely. Cousins Conference is this weekend so Emily and Madelyn are at Grandma Nora's until Saturday night. They are loving it.

The Fortnight is over!

After a chaotic 2 weeks of tennis we can now rest until next year. We will continue to post the stuff that happened during the past 2 weeks over the coming days as we finish the projects associated with them. For starters, here are some clips of the morning warm-up/jog around that started this year. I hope to see it continue. It's loads of fun and hard work working with these kids but well worth it to see them do their job well.

The tennis continues!

I gave Madelyn the camera and she went to work. She figured out the best place to wait for players and has been seen camping out there. Here's some of what she got!

Marcos Baghdatis

Today Roger Federer was on the practice courts, and there were a million people watching him. Spencer was trying to get his autograph, and I was bored so I started walking around and looking at the other practice courts. Then I looked at some matches and went back to the ball kid trailer. My friend Sarah came up to me and told me we were on the same team, then we went to look at the practice courts again, and we saw Marcos Baghdatis. So we went back to get Sarah's camera, so she could take pictures while he was on the practice court. A little while later he walked off the practice courts and we asked if we could have a picture with him. So we both got pictures, because everyone was watching Federer.

Spencer being a good ball kid with Frederic Niemeyer who went on to win the match! Must of been the ball kid!

Pacific Life Open

This week the Pacific Life Open began. We are told that it is the 5th largest tennis tournament in the world. We like it because it's fun! Spencer and Madelyn are Ball Kids again this year and I'm again a Ball Kid Coordinator/Captain(don't know quite what they're calling it this year.) It's always loads of fun and we meet kids from all over the place who come just to volunteer here. Yesterday I got some pictures of Spencer and Madelyn doing there jobs. However, I heard later that I missed the best happening of the day. Spencer was working a match between Max Mirnyi and Teimuraz Gabashvili. He was the umbrella holder for Gabashvili. Spencer piled up balls in his corner at the changeover (90 sec. break) and rushed to get the umbrella which said player had already opened(very unusual!). He opened it with such force that it became concave. It looked as if the wind had blown it out! Spencer now had the umbrella and the crowd was laughing. He didn't quite no how to fix it or what to do so he decided to try to shade the player anyway with it all blown out. The crowd laughed some more and finally a linesperson got the umbrella and fixed it. We all thought it must have looked funny with Spencer trying to shade the player with a blown out umbrella.

New Concrete!!!

Today we had a new slab poured for our patio. It looks awesome! I never thought I'd say that about concrete. We chose a color and a stamp. I can't believe how good it looks. I'm gushing! It's a perfect surface for the ping pong and foosball tables. Yipee! The drawback is that we have no idea what toys and utensils were permanently buried in the sand. It'll give something for future archaeologists to dig up. When we get around to it, this same color and stamp will be poured around the pool after the pool is fixed.

Reagan Lives!

Ronald Reagan Elementary brought this to the track meet. I thought it was funny. So here you go!

Long Jump, First Place!

On Saturday we attended the District Elementary Track Meet where Melissa jumped her way to first place in the girls 3rd grade division. Wheeeeeee! In years past it has been a very long, drawn out, all day event. This year they had things running so well that things were early! EEEkkkk! The long jump event for her grade was supposed to be sometime around 9:30am. We arrived early and it was a good thing we did. As we got out of the car Emily heard the words "Final call for girls 3rd grade long jump!" We ran over to the pit, got her checked in and she ran and got in line with a bunch of other girls. Within 20 minutes she had completed all her jumps and we waited for the final results. We had no clue as to how far she had jumped or where she stood in the standings. We still don't know how far she jumped. Anyway, a man soon came up to the group of anxiously awaiting girls and called out the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners. We we're shocked and happy. Her next event wasn't until 4:30pm so we decided to go home and come back later. We went back to the meet about 3:15 because we had heard that they were running early and we had about 10 minutes before she ran the 200m. She place 2nd in her heat and about 8th overall time wise. She was happy to have received a medal considering all the kids who go and come home with nothing.