June 20, 2009

Where to begin?

It's been so long since I posted and so much has happened. So for the sake of my journal here is a crash course on what has been going on!

End of School Events:

1. The end of soccer--Spencer's team took 2nd place! Way to go HC Storm.
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2. Zack was a whiz at Dolphins and did a Great Brain on them.
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3. Ali performed wonderfully at her violin recital--she really was the best one!:)
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4. We planted our Garden.
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5. The Dance Festival
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6. 1st Grade Graduation
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7. Dad's Surgery--WE'RE SO GLAD YOU'RE DOING SO WELL DAD! WE LOVE YOU.
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8. Many many clogging and singing performances: Art City Festival, Art City Parade, Spring Recital, Care center performance and soon the 4th of July pre-parade.
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9. Girls Camp for me and 5th Grade camp, Father's and Songs and 11 year old scout camp for Spencer. No pictures--my camera is not working! All were a great success.

10. Meeting new friends. I have been corresponding with a relative of mine named Anton Martin Hanse of the Netherlands since last September after he contacted Dad. He was interested in connecting with his family who had immigrated to Utah. It's been an incredibly neat experience. The Gospel has been talked about a lot and last Tuesday evening Grandpa, Dad, me, Uncle Bill, Joyce and Wynn Hemmert and Jack and Lauree Sieverts met them at the airport. Anton (Ton) and his wife (Tonny) are even more impressive in person. It's a long story and needs it's own entry, but here's a picture.
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There's my crash course on what's been taking place around here.

June 01, 2009

A Curve Ball

Life has a way of throwing you curve balls doesn't it? Just when you think you have it figured out...you find out you don't.

This last week after my Dad experienced confusion and some chest pain, Billy and Mom convinced him to go to the emergency room and from that point on it's gone fast...I won't elaborate because Mom's blog does it so much better--see www.daleboutfamily.blogspot.com and you'll learn about this week's adventure.

May 18, 2009

A Little Bit of Heaven

I've been back now for 5 days and I'm still in hang loose mode. All I want is a pina colada and a trip to the beach to watch the sunset. We spent 8 blissful days with our good friends the Eddys in paradise (Kona, Hawaii). WOW! I don't even know how to begin to describe it except to say it was the trip of a lifetime and I'm ready to go back.

Here are some pictures of our week:

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The first day there we took a Sea Quest boat tour. We went along the coast and learned the the history of Hawaii. We snorkeled in some fabulous spots and while snorkeling happened upon a superpod of dolphins. One dolphin was so close to Ryan that if he had reached out, he could have touched it. They weren't a bit scared of us--they are beautiful and incredible animals.
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The second day we were in town we went to the Kona Temple which is a small temple. We met some Hawaiians there who were taking their son through for the first time in preparation for his mission to Spokane Washington. We took pictures for them and chatted with them. Chris complimented them on their cool ties and they promptly took them off and gave them to the guys. We were all glad we hadn't complimented them on their pants or shoes!? Such nice good people.

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After attending the temple we went to the market and shopped for souveniers. After that we went to one of the most incredible beaches, Maunakea Beach, where we snorkeled, body surfed, walked on black rock, played volleyball and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Later that evening we went to to a hotel and watched huge monterays in the cove off the deck of the hotel.

Saturday we woke up early and went canoeing with the local canoe club and saw more dolphins. We ate breakfast at the farmers market, went snorkeling some more, toured the city of refuge, watched a movie, swam and went to watch the sea turtles.

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Sunday was peaceful. It was mother's Day and the men bought us beautiful leis. We enjoyed church with the natives who are humble, good and genuinely kind people. We caught up on sleep that afternoon. Ryan and Chris made pancakes and eggs for breakfast and fajitas and pina coladas for dinner as we watched the sunset on our lanai.

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Monday was our frenzied island tour. We headed North and our first stop was Waipio Valley. We hiked from the top of this mountain down into this valley. The hike up was a beast, but while we were walking along this black sand we were in heaven.

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The next stop on our Monday island frenzy tour was to the Akaka falls. Beautiful! During our hike, both Ryan and Chris decided to play tarzan! Nice spread eagle Ryan.

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And to finish up our island frenzy, we watched the sunset as we watched smoke billow from this active volcano. When the sun had set you could set an orange glow in the middle of the smoke cloud and could occasionally get a glimpse of lava shooting off into the ocean.

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We watched many sunsets! This picture is taken in front of the little snorkeling bay that was within 100 yards of the condo we stayed at. On Tuesday we snorkeled in this bay and saw sea turtles and some of the most amazing fish!

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After snorkeling and lunch at Costco we spent the afternoon and evening at this AMAZING beach. I can't remember the name of this one but I loved it. In one book it is rated the best beach in the whole country! We couldn't get enough. We played and played and watched the sunset and lamented the fact that our paradise vacation was quickly coming to an end.

Wednesday we relaxed, the boys snorkeled more, we shopped at the market, swam in the condo swimming pool and then sadly packed up, went to the airport and flew home. If I didn't have 4 wonderful children that I missed terribly there's a very good chance I would have never come home!

ALOHA AND MAHALO!

April 28, 2009

An Eventful Week

Mission Call

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There's quite a story to go along with this call. I will definitely have to journal the story--it's a good one.

Graduation

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Both Bill and Dad graduated from BYU last week! Congrats to both.

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Piano Recital--No pictures

Basement Flooding--No pictures

Birthday Celebration for Zacky, McKenna and an early Mother's Day Celebration

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Thanks for the cool birthday cake Grandma Geri and Grandpa Larry! And Thanks Mom for hosting the party after out flood!

And today is....

Matt and Amy's Birthday and the 2 year anniversary of the passing of Grandma Dalebout! Love you all.

April 21, 2009

Spring Break

We had such a fun Spring Break this year. Our good friends, the Hyers, invited us to go with them to their time share in Las Vegas. We had lots of fun with them. They are great people and we love being friends with them.

Highlights from the trip:

1. Circus Circus


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Jen, Spencer, Ryan, Zack, Lesa, Milly, Ali, Bishop Hyer and Randie

2. The Strip-- which is not all bad if you make sure you don't look up or down and just look straight forward.
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The M&M Factory
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Lesa and Ali watching the water show at the Bellagio.
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The inside of the Bellagio. Each season they decorate the inside. It was filled with Spring Flowers, water fountains and lots and lots of tulips. BEAUTIFUL!

3. Swimming --No pictures here, I was too busy swimming, sliding down slides and relaxing in the hot tube-ahhhhhh!

4. Freemont Street--on Friday night the 4 adults went to Freemont street and watched crazy men ride motorcycles in cages, spray painting, sculpturing and more. Then we enjoyed .99 cent shrimp cocktails. Randie stayed back at the hotel with the kids watching a movie.

5. St George Narrows--I loved this. Look at these pictures of this narrow walkway. I was very clastrophobic! We hiked through that. Isn't it beautiful?
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It was a great Spring Break!



April 14, 2009

An Enjoyable Few Weeks

Except for the weather going back and forth between spring and winter, the last few weeks have been so nice!

My favorite time of the year is Spring! I love new life, green grass, beautiful flowers. I love Easter and Conference weekends and spending time together with family and renewing family traditions. I love celebrating the Resurrection of the Savior.

This time of year offers so much hope and happiness!

We enjoyed conference weekend with our traditional Grandpa Pancakes (I wish I had pictures). I enjoyed hearing from our prophet and apostles. We were lucky enough to have both sets of parents with us for conference as well, which is especially special as both are likely to be heading out on missions in the near future.

Easter weekend was great as well. Both Grandma Geri and Grandma Evie had Easter Egg Hunts for the kids and on Sunday we hosted Easter dinner here with again both sets of parents.

Isn't family great!

I don't have pictures from conference or from Grandma Evie's Easter Egg Hunt, those are coming. Here is our traditional picture of Grandma Geri's famous Easter Bunny cake.
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Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend as well!

March 30, 2009

While the boys are away...

the girls will play.

I wasn't about to get left home for another weekend when Ryan and Spencer took off for Spring Training so...

I talked my mom into driving all day on Wednesday to San Diego to play for three days and then turning around and driving home all day on Sunday.

Was it worth it? Overall yes! The driving was a bit much, but the cousins spending time together was priceless. I love how much my kids love their cousins. The only thing that could have made it better would have been having Michigan and Texas cousins there as well.

Thursday we went to Knotts Berry Farm. The day started out well but by the end of the day we were all pooped. Ali capped the day off by throwing up on the drive home. Thankfully she had a plastic bag--poor Ashlynn she had to both see and smell the ordeal.

Friday we took it easy attending Ashlynn's choir concert (AWESOME, ESPECIALLY ASHLYNN'S SOLO ON THE AIR GUITAR), exercising, shopping and going to the movies.

On Saturday we drove to the beach and rode bikes along the boardwalk! That was an adventure to say the least. My bike was a kind of tandem bike and Milly was on the back. Everyone else had regular bikes.  It was very crowded at the beach but  I would have to save overall, that was my favorite part of the trip! After the bike ride we played in the sand and water. The water was a bit cold, but that didn't stop Ali and Milly from going all the way in.

On Sunday our whirlwind trip was over and we drove all the way home. Mom was a real trooper driving through Beaver in a mild snow storm--I was so proud of her.

It was a great trip--but next time I WANT TO FLY!
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This is a picture of us at Knotts Berry Farm.
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Grandma Evie enjoying the grandkids.
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Milly and I on our cool tandem bike! She love it.

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Milly and Zack before they got all wet.

March 25, 2009

This is an experiment!

I don't know if I was successful in posting this, but we'll see. If it worked, this is a video clip of Ali's Clogging Team Performing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy at Thanksgiving Point. This is one of four dances that they won 1st place in.

March 23, 2009

Spring Training 2009

Spencer and Ryan had a wonderful time this last weekend on the annual Dalebout Boys Baseball Spring Training Trip to Arizona--wow, that was a mouthful. Thanks to Uncle Scotty, things were well organized and put together great! Grandpa, Uncle Billy, Uncle Scott, Andrew, Sam, Ryan and Spencer were all able to make the trip.

5 baseball games, swimming, dinner at PF Changs, attending an amusement park (I think?), eating peanuts and hot dogs, catching foul balls, and signing autographs were all part of the excitement. Spencer came home with a new padres hat, a red face and a great big smile.

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Sam, Spencer and Andrew at one of the baseball games.
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Uncle Billy, Grandpa, Uncle Scott and Ryan.

What great memories!

March 09, 2009

A Magical Weekend

This past weekend both Zack and Ali competed at Thanksgiving Point in clogging. When I learn how to put a video clip on my blog, I will!

First Zack--he loves clogging because Kayla does it and Zack loves Kayla. He also loves his teacher. However, Zack does not like to get up in front of people--I can relate to that. At the last competition, Zack backed out last minute because of nerves. This time I prepped him--I told him that if I paid for the competition, I wasn't going to lose my money again, and he WOULD compete. He assured me that he wanted to and that he would compete. The night before the competition Zack was soooo nervous. I felt so bad for him and so did Grandma Geri. I assured him that I would be proud of him no matter what his scores were, if he'd just get up on stage and try. Well, he did! He competed on a novice level (pre-beginner) in one team dance, 5 solos and 1 freestyle. He was so cute and he did such a good job. I think he charmed the judges and along with his superior novice dancing, he received 7 1st place awards! Each student is judged against himself and if they are able to do the routine mostly perfect, then they can earn a 1st place award! He was all smiles and might I say quite proud of himself to say the least. I don't think we'll be worrying about stage fright next competition.
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Next, is Ali--last year at the Thanksgiving Point Competition, Ali competed in some things on a beginner level and on others at an intermediate level. In the last year Ali has switched clogging groups and has jumped from a beginning/intermediate level to an advanced/championship level. There are 6 levels: Novice, beginning, intermediate, advanced, championship and pro. Ali has spent many hours this last year trying to keep up with a team that has been well above her level. Ali's teacher, Twilla Mann, was and is so encouraging to Ali letting her know that she's doing very well. Ali has worked so hard. That's why this weekend was so great! Ali's team competed in 4 team dances on a Championship level--SCARY! All 4 dances received 1st place awards. One of the 4 dances got the overall award and the team as a group got the overall studio best scores award! WOW.  I think Twilla was stunned, and there couldn't have been a happier group of kids! Not only was this feat amazing along with how far Ali has come, but they competed as the youngest group in the championship team category. They looked so little and so cute and they were awesome.

Later Ali competed in freestyle and 5 solos. Among those she received 3 first place awards, 2 second place and 1 third place.

It was also extra special because both sets of grandparents were able to attend! Thanks for your love and support! It was a great weekend.
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