Sweet Kind Hearted Kyler and So. Utah Performance Arts Festival- Choir Style!

My Sweet Kyler.

Yesterday, I had the honor of chaperoning Kyler's choir class to SUPAF (see title description.) Kyler volunteered to help this boy named Blaze. He is special ed and is very amazing to me. He has a stump for an upper arm, no other arm on his left side and stumps for legs, but he does so much. SUPAF was held at Dixie High school, but because of the sound barrier there was no access to the stage for a wheelchair, so Kyler followed Blaze while Blaze walked up the stairs and then walked to the bleachers. Officer Simpson (one of the safetly officers for the school,) picked Blaze up put him on the bleachers and then they all started singing there hearts out!

Kyler has talked to me about Blaze before but I didn't realize how much of a handicap Blaze had...

But I am so amazed at his personality. I got to help him with put on a choir shirt and he was such a fun kid. I always think that Heavenly Father gives kids with handicaps great humor, because he had me cracking up with his jokes! I can see why Kyler likes to be with him. Since they both has such crazy humorous personalities.

I love watching the kids when they are away from home and they don't realize that I am watching I get a totally different perspective on their values and what their life might be like for them. I see bits of those life journeys by how they interact with others, in the most mundane activities.

I hope that Kyler continues being kind and sweet to others throughout his life, because it is such a great quality to have when dealing with others!

Busy Times for Matt

Poor Matt has been pulling some really grueling hours for the last couple of months, last night he didn't get home until 11:30 p.m. because that is when City Council ended. He has been going to work at 6 and 7 in the morning and then working his complete day and it will be awhile longer until his schedule lightens up!



Streetscape is coming along great (see the title link for all projects.) The city just put in new generators (and boy are they impressive- huge, I got a one on one tour, ) and renamed the power station in honor of the Fort that was in Santa Clara during Jacob Hamblin's time.

They are also building a 2 million gallon water tower in the south hills which is providing great rock for Matt's weekend projects.

The City Council just appointed a new mayor as of January 7th, since Mayor Drake is now a County Commissioner. We really like Mayor Rosenburg. He and Matt are good fishing buddies (well, they went to New Mexico on a fly fishing trip with Kyler and some other guys.) And so there really wasn't any stress with the new Mayor coming in. They also appointed a new council member since Rick was a councilman, Jerry Amundson is in our ward, is a member of the Bishopric and was on the Planning Commission so he is very familiar with Matt and Matt is very familiar with him- so no stress there either.

But the most exciting project (for Matt,) is the new city hall that they broke ground on and are excavation now for the basement and foundation. I am so excited for him to have an office that is his, decorated by me (and him,) and to have all the directors in one place (Jack right now is in the power station.)

When he is home on the weekends he has been building his own project in the backyard; a really nice firepit and patio in the back of our yard. It is going to be really great. I hope it is done soon because even though it is warming up, it is still chilly in the evenings and I am really looking forward to our nightimes outside!


Matt also has one project waiting for him in the house - painting the kitchen. I was going to do this, but he said that I was doing the primer wrong and so he has taken over. The only problem is that it is going to be a while longer before he gets to this one since he wants to get the firepit done first- since that one was his idea. Which will help him to relax when he is at home- so I don't blame him for wanting to get that one done before the kitchen...

Reading Holes

Mckenna has spent the last 2 weeks reading Holes for school homework. Each kid is in a group. Mckenna's group's name is CAMELS (which stands for all the girls first initials. Cam, Addie, Mckenna, Erin, Lea and Sadie. Cute huh?) then each kid is assigned a homework sheet that they do and they are in charge of that part of the group discussion: for example; The Artful Artist (draws a picture of what they read,) The Summarizer (obvious), Discussion Director (gets to be the one in charge!), Connector (mckenna didn't tell me about this one- sorry,) Word master (picks out great words in the section they are reading) and Literature Luminary (picks out an interesting passage and has someone read it).

This has been a really good homework assignement for Mckenna it is fun because of the group of girls she is with, she loves the Disney movie AND best of all it makes her read, which she doesn't really care to do so much. Which of course really drives me bonkers because I love to read more than anything and have past that down to the boys. I am actually rubbing off on Matt, he has been reading alot too (which he never did before- would rather watch it in a movie instead... wonder where Mckenna gets it from? Humm???)

After finishing reading this book she is planning to read THE LITTLE PRINCESS, which is a book that I gave her for Christmas. I am so excited to talk to her about this book, since it is one of my favorites! Next maybe she will read EMILY OF NEW MOON. Well, I can hope can't I?

Taquitos, Chicken and Dumplings and Food Storage with the Ritchies!

Saturday night Jenny and Walley came over after the Adult session of Stake conference. They mentioned that Megan ( there 12 year old,) had been upset on Friday because they usually have Donut Friday at home and since they couldn't go to the store, because they were living on Food Storage. I was really curious about that. She told me that she would tell me later about it. The funny thing is that I had just bough donuts some 2 hours before so I sent donuts home with them for Megan and the other kids.


They invited us over for dinner for the next night. I was looking forward to having dinner with them because Jenny had told me about these yummy Taquitos that she had made a week before (which was weird, since I don't usually like mexican food- unless it is taco's made mommy style,) and because I had been sick for 2 weeks, hadn't been out and since their family had been sick with the same thing and Wally was still feeling it we all decided to feel miserable together!


What we didn't know is that the Ritchies were just finishing 2 weeks of having to eat from there food storage! What nice people to share the only food they had left.

Their Bishop had told them in December what his plan was about having a disaster happening and challenged them to go for 2 weeks with just their food stores already in their house. So in February, the Bishop told them that there was a emergency and they were off for 14 days of no shopping. The Ritchies only had 3 gallons of milk starting that Sunday so they drank evaporated milk for a while and then dry milk (ughhhh.) They were almost down to nothing when we got there, but we had yummy chicken and dumplings, the taquitos, home made rolls, and yummy home made chocolate chip cookies! I guess they saved enough to feed us. They were able to shop the next morning. They were really appreciative of the lessons and trials that they went through and learned from.

And, wow, was the food yummy! I am not sure how we would have made out if our Bishop told us about the same challenge, but It really made me think about our plan for an emergency and how we would handle it. That has started our quest for a better food storage system.

I told Jenny about how my mom use to go to the cannery and bring home canned pork, and we would have yummy fried rice with it. How she also made grape juice, canned fruits and canned chicken. I have talked Lisa and Jenny into going to the cannery and doing more to help and to bring home. Lisa is always talking about the potato pearls at the cannery, we had those at Jenny's and they were better than the betty crocker flakes. The funny thing is that Lisa is not a member of the LDS church, but she wants to help out at the cannery and bring home those potato pearls. I love my friends!

Mckenna On Stage! (or should we say- gym floor?)

Yeah! It finally worked!

Here is the long awaited video, that I have been trying to upload for the last 2 months. This is her first performance during Half Time during the Snow Canyon High School Basketball game.

It was so exciting to see her perform this since I hadn't seen it before. She also performed with her team and the other teams performed too.

Part of the night was sad though, because Kyleigh didn't get to do her solo, she was suppose to be the last one to perform, because the sound guy thought the performances were over and started the music for the basketball teams to come out. (did I say that we were over time?)

After the game, Mckenna was approached by most of the cheerleaders and a few of the drill team girl and told that she was amazing. Jessie (a cheerleader and a daughter of a friend of ours,) told Mckenna that after her toe roll, the cheerleaders were talking about how they wished that they were dancing again or had learned to dance. Mckenna thought that was really cool to have older girls tell her she did good, especially Jessie since she is an idol to her (she is gorgeous!)

Well hope you enjoy the show!