BIG NEWS FOR MARCHING BAND - WE ARE IN!

Last Friday started like any other Friday.  Waking up kids, making breakfast, packing lunches, driving kids to school. 

 

All of a sudden I got a frantic text from Markus...followed by another one...and another one...they kept coming all morning long.  He told me to turn tv on. 

 

Watch me on news!

I am being interviewed!

This is huge!

 

Foothill High School Marcing Band had been selected to be one of the ten marching bands to participate in 2014 Macy's Day Parade.

 

Here is a news clip from school district website:

Foothill HS marching band to be featured in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2014

Foothill High School is celebrating the selection of its marching band to take part in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Nov. 27, 2014. As reported by the Las Vegas Sun, Foothill's 250-member marching band "is just one of 10 marching bands from across the world selected to participate in America's largest parade, which attracts 3.5 million spectators and 50 million television viewers each year.

 

The representativies from Macys at New York had flown in to Vegas to come and surprise the kids.

 

The news was televised all across the valley on Friday.

(You can see Markus here in a 54 second mark) 

 

Kids were so excited, they could hardly stand sitting through their classes the rest of the day.

 

I guess we will need to plan a Thanksgiving trip to New York on 2014. 

I always wanted to visit New York...and now I get to see Markus and Kai (who will be a sophomore) march in Macys Parade in New York City!

 

 

 

 

 

Courtesy of Las Vegas Sun

 

 

 

HAIRDOS...SO FUN

One of my callings in our church is to run a program (with three other women) for girls who are 8-11 years old. 

It is called Activity Days.

We get together twice a month for an hour and learn new skills and do fun things with girls.

 

In our most recent Activity Days we asked our friend Julie, the creator of Princess Piggies website to come and teach us all how to do hair.

 

It was such a fun night!  We learned all kinds of fun, creative ways to do hair.  Girls created a 'train', brushing, braiding, and tying each others hair. We topped the night off with some Root Beer Floats.

 

 

Julie demonstrating a hair braiding technique

 

 

The Hair Train

 

 

Maija working hard on her friend's hair

 

 

 

 

 

I JUST NEED SOME SLEEP

...maybe 100 hours or so...and then I will be good to go.

It is the last week of tax season, and anybody who is either a CPA or married to a CPA knows exactly what that means.

There is light in the end of the tunnel, but in the meantime....we are seriously dragging in our household.

Yesterday, picking up kids from high school at 1 pm I fell a sleep in the car (parked, thank goodness).  I woke up for a knocking at the car door...kids wanting to come in :)

This morning taking Markus to seminary at 6 (Jason being long gone to the office already), I was coherent enough to notice a beautiful sunrise.  I even pulled over and took some pictures.

This time of year it is the small and simple things that I find most enjoyable...eating, sleeping and occasional beautiful sunrise.

Have a wonderful day!

HAPPINESS IS...A WORKING FRIDGE!

Remember how our fridge broke!

 

The compressor failed, so we had to wait for the warranty company to order and put a new one in.

 

We were two weeks without a working fridge. 

 

It was quite an interesting experience.

Fortunately we have couple of chest freezers, so we could still have frozen stuff to defrost, cook and eat.

We did learn that we are surrounded by lots of wonderful neighbors, friends and family, who were more than happy to help.

 

Our neighbors brought us dinner, we had several friends who even offered to bring us a spare refridgerator, more dinner offers, and my sister and brother-in-law even gave me a Tropical Smoothie gift card for my birthday, so I could go get something nice and cold to drink.

 

Speaking of cold drinks...I have to say that was the worst part...not having a functioning icemaker and cold water.  We are big water drinkers here in desert.

Kids would run to neighbors' house to get ice for their water. 

 

Good thing the fridge did not go out in the middle of the summer!

 

Now we have a working fridge again.  Happiness!

 

 

SUN PARADE AND FUN

It is a tax season. 

Poor Jason is working his tail off. 

He got up 4 a.m and was out on his way to work by 4:30 a.m. 

To balance his hard work out, Maija and I grabbed some chairs and enjoyed the Saturday morning by watching the city of Henderson Parade.

 

It was a beautiful morning. 

Warm enough for popsicles and slushies.

 

 

 

 

 Foothill Marching Band ROCKED the parade.

(You can see Markus really well starting 1:25)

 

 

 

 

While I videotaped the marching band, I handed Maija my camera and she took some great pictures below.

 

 

 

DEAR KIDS THIS IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW

A week ago I painted the walls of our dark, uninviting basement staircase. 

 

I took a few day break from painting to get some inspiration for the paint on the stairs.

 

I am happy to report that the stairs are done. 

It is quite a color over load, but at least the staircase is not gray and dark anymore. 

 

I decided to be sneaky and include a subliminal message for the kids...since they are the ones using the staircase. 

 

It did not end up being so subliminal...but a message it is :)

 

 

My real, only mishap happened after I had painted this floor.  I accidently kicked a bucket of green paint, and it spilled all over the painted floor.  I had to redo the water area, which was quite a pain, since I am not very good at paintinng water anyway.

 

 

 

SHOUT OUT FOR HANGING TOWELS

Some of our kids are quite challenged when it comes to hanging their towels up to the towel bar.  Any given day I would go to one of their bathrooms and find wet, crumbled towels on the floor!

 

When we were planning our new bathroom/sauna, I decided that I would have towel hooks instead of towel rod.

 

I looked and looked, but could not find anything that I instantly liked, so I decided to make my own.  I found some instructions from here, and went to work.

 

So far I have had this up for three days, and I have yet to find a towel from the floor - I think three days is actually a record...hopefully it will turn out to be a much longer record.