Swiss Days

Mckenna and her friend Kyleigh waiting for the Swiss Day's Parade to start
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Today was the 2nd day of Swiss Days. This is an very fun community celebration that honors the Swiss Heritage that helped settled Santa Clara. Matt has a very busy schedule leading up to the weekend. The Saturday part of the weekend starts off with a 5K which the boys ran this year and Matt usually runs but it was so crazy for him this year that he didn't participate, not only is it busy for him but it is also very busy for the rest of the family since Devin plays his violin during the Saturday part with his Studio. Kyler climbs the greased pole and he and Mckenna rides all the rides, and dig for coins in the coin toss. Kyler got $10 for climbing part of the grease poll and found $3 in the coin toss. Mckenna found $8 in the coin toss and used it all at the games and the velcro jump. Every year, Matt gets to drive the City Council around on Golf Carts in the Swiss Day Parade, this year they decided to drive him around and let him toss out the candy. It was fun to see him be able to do that. I ran around taking kids here there and everywhere but had fun doing it (except for the time, when I couldn't find devin and he had 5 minutes before his Violin Performance started and he wasn't in his required clothes!) But all in all the day was great and ended with the most awesome fireworks that the city has ever done. (okay, it's not Disney, but it is still cool!)


Matt tossing candy to the kids lining the parade route. (notice Mckenna on the opposite side of the street- right corner of picture.)
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Devin playing the violin with Studio Allegro
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Mckenna looking for coins in the coin toss. $500 dollars worth of gold dollar and 50 cent pieces. She found $8!
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Mckenna and her best friend Kyleigh "velcro-ed" to the wall of the jumping slide. Fun huh?
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Howitzer here we come!

Austin and Kyler watching the beginning of the Lion's Rodeo Parade. Their turn in the parade is coming soon.

Today, Kyler was able to ride on a Howitzer Tank! Kyle Hoskin's (one of the baseball players, AND one of Kyler's best friends,) brother Jeff is a Captain in the National Guard and since the baseball team won the Championship in Lehi. Jeff decided that it would be fun for the boys to ride on the two tanks that they had in the Rodeo Parade. The boys had so much fun! The Parade started at 5 p.m. but the boys had to wait until the end of the parade before they could have their moment of glory. It was a 2 hour parade. It was so hot that one of the other moms bought the boys the only water left that the gas station had, and the boys had to keep standing up because the tank had soaked up so much of the heat. Devin was so jealous because he loves anything to do with the military, construction or just motorized vehicles in general! After the Parade, Kyler and Kyle headed to the Rodeo while I went to Devin's baseball game. All in all it was a great day filled with a lot of activity.


Kyler and his friends, Kyle Hoskins and Austin Ovard on the leading Tank!
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Update on Devin's arm

Some of you might be wondering what happened to Devin's arm during his tournament. So I thought that I would provide you with an update.
When we got to Lynette's house from Alpine everyone thought that he might have Tendonitis. Tendonitis is something that a lot of pitchers get when they have thrown too many curve balls or get lazy in their fundamentals.
We returned to Santa Clara on Monday, September 7th, and his arm still hurt, so, we gave him some ibuprofen as his pitching coach prescribed and decided to wait to see if his arm would stop hurting after a few days of icing it down. Well, it was still hurting on Thursday. So,Matt took Devin to the doctor on Friday, so we could find out for sure what it is and he sent us to the Orthopedic the next Monday. It is not Tendonitis, but he was lazy in throwing his Fast Ball and so he caused swelling to the Growth Plates in his elbow. The good news is that he can still pitch, but was advised not to throw curves, (his favorite,)until he is 14. The Orthopedic also told him to get his coach to get him back into the fundamental mode of throwing correctly. He has to stop pitching for 3 weeks and with games every Saturday he is really bummed about that, but the best news of all is....... The Growth Plate X-ray's told the doctor that Devin has a ton of room to grow and that he will be a lot bigger than he is now and could be as tall as Matt when he is done growing! So this frustrating experience for Devin, ended up helping him to know that he will not always be small like his mother! Darn, I like my little Dynamite the way he is. But now he feels better about himself being smaller than all of his friends.



Devin throwing his last warm-up pitch before his first game in Alpine. Little did we know that he was three Innings away from not pitching for awhile.
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Lehi Tourney

Our sweet Angels on our way to Devin and Kyler's Baseball Tourney
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This past weekend the boys were able to play in a Tournament in Lehi. Actually, neither one of them played in Lehi. Devin played 3 games in Alpine and the 2 games in Spanish Fork and Kyler played 6 games in Spanish Fork, but it was called the Lehi Tourney.

Devin was having a great time, until his 2nd game, 3rd inning, when his elbow produced a shooting pain every time he threw and he couldn't pitch or throw anymore. He ended up batting each of the 3 other games and a few scattered innings at 1st base were he had to granny throw the ball or it would hurt too much so he ended up having to sit on the bench most games. His team played an awesome game against one of the hardest teams and ended up winning in double overtime and so The Crush (devin's team,) made it to the Semi-finals and as is always the case with baseball, they ended up playing their arch nemesis Taylorsville. The Crush had no pitching staff left (specially, since they couldn't rotate Devin in,) and so they lost the game by the 10 run rule: You don't score and they score Ten runs YOU LOSE. That game was really hard for Devin to sit on the bench, but he did okay. I know that he was so frustrated with himself, but his coach had the patience to explain to Devin that it isn't worth pitching today to ruin his arm for tomorrow. That his physical health is more important in the future than with this one game that would be over in a matter of a few hours. I really appreciated his coach talking to him about that and being such a positive mentor to him and the other boys.


Devin Playing 2nd base during his Tourney games
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Listening to his coach's "atta boy" comments after winning 2 games
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Kyler had the best time of all! His team went in to the semi-championship with an undefeated record of 4-0. No other team had won that many and so the kids were so excited when they went into the Championship game. They ended up winning that game too and ended up with a 6-0 record. They played so smoothly together, they had great fun, hit fantastic and fielded the same. 2 kids hit 2 home runs a piece in 2 games!! There were hardly any errors and Kyler got to pitch a few innings too! It was so neat to see Kyler and Matt standing there winning these gold trophy's that were given. There has been so much craziness with some of the parents on Devin's old team that had trickled down into Kyler's team that is was so refreshing to have everyone working together and having fun and getting along that it to me is the most important thing that happened in the whole tourney.


Kyler and Zack playing ball. They go one to play in the championship with a 4-0 lead over all other teams in the tourney!
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Kyler running a victory lap around the infield bases after winning the 10 year old Tourney championship game!
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10 year old Snow Canyon Warriors Tourney Champs
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A Coach and his Player OR A Dad and his Son
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Lagoon ~ Day #5 of our summer vacation

Lagoon is always so much fun, but this year is was especially fun for Mckenna! 1st, she was able to take Terra and Tyler and her family with her on the rides, Wednesday. 2nd, she got to dance at the Davis Pavillion on Thursday in front of a lot of people with 2 dance teams. Plus, she came in 2nd at Drill Down out of 10 girls her age! Lagoon was a nice ending to our fun 4 day weekend trip. Everyone hopes that they can do it again soon.
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Devin, Kyler and Tyler having fun on the Space Rambler
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Mckenna's performance with Jumpstart
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Mckenna after her performance in the Davis Pavillion
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Thanks to Rich and Sharon for introducting us to Blog!

Thanks to my sister and her cute husband, we have found such an easy way to keep everyone informed on what is going on in our lives. The kids will get to "Star" in their own private family production. and I get to show off how cute the "Stars" are!

Enjoy

Snow Canyon Middle ~ Back To School Night for Devin

Today was a great day for Devin. I got to meet all of his teachers. He has some really neat classes. All his core classes are GATE leveled ( Gifted And Talented Education.) His Drama class presented a really neat Island inspired version of a tribal dance. It was all black boxed, flourescent lights, tribal clothing and a really authentic looking Witch Doctor. It was awesome. I really wanted to video tape it but it was so dark in the room and the glow in the dark stuff so bright that it just didn't show up on the camera. Bummer.

He is going to be learning so much in Tech (shop,) Science, History and Algebra that I am really jealous of the knowledge that he is going to have. I told him that he needs to come home and teach me the info too.

Day Two of Bryce Canyon/ Posey Lake

On our next day we decided to go to the quaint little town of Boulder Utah which is near the Anasazi State Park.
Matt had a teleconference at noon and so we thought we would drive until that time. It was crazy because the cell phone kept loosing service and so we weren't sure if he would get his call done or not. We stopped at a little yuppy coffee shop that also sold art, sculptures and furniture from the local artists. It was a really fun place, but no so fun for children who had just driven in the rain for 2 hours, and who really wanted to see the Indian Petroglyphs. Matt ended up using the owners phone for another 1 1/2 hours.
I had the kids take Roxey for a walk (the dog,) and after that the kids finally had, had it waiting. I think that the owner had had it with the kids too and so she asked me if I knew that the Anasazi park was just down the street (I didn't,) and so I thanked her and the kids and I drove away.
We got to the park and it was closed because of the rain and the museum cost $6, which I didn't have because Matt had all the cash with him. by the time we drove back to the coffee shop Matt was done with his call.
The kids by then were starving and so we went to get food and stopped at this little convience store that was actually closed but the owner was in and he was so nice to us, he just told us to come in and he would let us shop anyway. Business he said was really really bad since no one came to their part of town and the walmart 2 miles away had taken all their business with the tourists. I guess that he was lucky to get us then.

Even though it was raining we decided to drive back towards Bryce and go fishing at Posey Lake. Since we were going back towards the lake we took the back side of the mountain which is called Hell's Backbone. I had wondered why it was called that and soon found out. You end up driving over the top of the mountain ridge and on either side is the downslope of the mountain. For me this was very scary because I do not like heights and I continously felt as though I might fall. But Matt talked to me the whole way (a whole 5 min. drive but to me if felt like a 100 miles!,) and I ended up doing all right. The kids loved the drive, we ended up stopping to pick up quaking aspen branches for Devin's bow and arrow for his play and to check out the beautiful environment. It was the prettiest woods that I had ever seen. The lake was fabulous! I love Teapot lake and this by far beat even Teapot for the shoreline. We saw so many ducks, all kinds of birds, the dog got to wander without us worrying, the kids were able to fish even though they didn't catch anything and best of all, I was able to sit down in a comfy chair and read some of the DaVinci Code, which I didn't want to put down. Around the bend was a state campground. We all decided that next year we were going to have to camp at the lake.

Devin waiting for Matt to finish untangling the line
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Roxey waiting patiently to go to the edge of the pier after Matt is done with baiting the fishing line.


Mckenna at posey lake
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After our trip to Posey Lake we headed back to our campground with this beautiful rainbow leading our way
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Our Fun Trip to Bryce Canyon

What a fun trip we had! The weather was beautiful! After 100*'s in Santa Clara, we were so excited to have a cooler temperatures and a few drizzles of rain.
We Stayed a the famous Ruby's Inn Camp Grounds . We brought our camper so we didn't get to sleep in the Tipi which is where Mckenna loves to lay her head at night, but we did get to go on the horse rides, explore the canyon of Bryce and enjoy the beauty of the surrounding area. The boys loved starting the fire with 1 match and keeping it stoked throughout their watch.

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