Here are the performances!

The kid had their piano recital today. Shirley does such a great job with her students! Sarah played Fur Elise, and Spencer played the theme from Stargate SG-1. I recorded their songs with the camera, and of course took pictures!

I think I wrote that we went to 3 Margaritas for dinner after Monday's jury duty marathon. We had a good time. Spencer sat by me (sometimes he loves his Mom), and Sarah sat with Alan. The boys are shaggy in this picture, but they did go for haircuts after dinner.

I had to report for jury duty Monday. Ick. I believe in serving and all that, but really. The juror assembly room was at least 80 degrees, and humid, and stuffy, and full of 100 or so hot, cranky people. (Me included.) I woke up with a tired headache (Alan decided to spend half the night rolling around and making the bed move like it was in an earthquake. I love him, but he can be really restless some nights and I wish for another bed for me! Sigh.), and my IBS was beginning to show signs of acting up, so it wasn't an auspicious start to the day. But after 3+ hours, getting the enviable #47 (not my age anymore), and being told to go to lunch and report back at 1 pm, I got to go home to my nice air conditioned house. I was a little bit frantic because I hadn't heard from Alan and didn't know what his work schedule was yet, so I didn't know if I had to rearrange kid pickup or not. Finally talked to him, he had run Sarah's keys up to Kamiakin for her, and Emily (bless her!) had texted her mom and made arrangements for them to give Sarah and Spencer rides home. Bless Susan! Long story short, things worked out fine. No drama after school today so Sarah and Spencer entertained themselves until I got home around 4-4:15 ish. I was hot, tired, cranky, still had a mega headache, and took an hour's nap. Alan got home and then around 6 we went to 3 Margaritas for dinner. I like that place. Family friendly, the meals are reasonably sized and priced, and best of all Spencer ate ALL of his cheese quesadilla! Proof I went to the courthouse follows.

I don't really have anything to post about. Just thought I would post for a change more than once a week/month. LOL. We're watching So You Think You Can Dance and I'm shaking my head at some of the dancing!

I did learn something new this week. I learned to put videos on my iPod Nano. Woo-HOO! Love learning new stuff like this. I refuse to let technology defeat me.

Since I got Easter pictures up, thought I'd better do Mother's Day as well. We went to Gma Noakes's house and Alan fixed lasagna for dinner. Mom went to Diane & Sam's, so after we were done at Gma Noakes's we went over to Mom's and gave her a card and hugs from the grandkids!

I haven't posted Easter pictures yet (sigh), so here they are. First off, DH and I. Aren't we handsome and gorgiferous? (LOL) Then, we have Sarah and Spencer. At least they don't act like they hate each other.

Next is a picture of Sarah and me, and then Spencer and Alan. This was just after Spencer's birthday (he turned 12), so he was ordained to the Aaronic priesthood on this day. *Sniff.* We went to Diane and Sam's for Easter dinner, and got to spend some nice time with them. We didn't do an egg hunt this year, and nobody seemed to miss it. Well, Sarah did mention it, and did a fake pout when I said she was too old for it, but other than that nobody cared much!

(You know, I really hate it when pictures don't go in the order I put them in the silly post! ARGH! The picture of Alan and I should be first, but it decided to go in second. Go figure.)

I have to confess, I didn't see ALL of General Conference. I did see 80+% of it, though, and it was wonderful. I DVR'd all the sessions, so I am going to go back and watch the talks that I missed. I am so glad that we have this opportunity to hear from our prophet and apostles and others in leadership positions in the church. The Gospel is so important, and I take it for granted so often. It's something I'm trying to resolve to be better about!

Xina from HNH Family sent this great website the other day. It lets you make "motivational posters" using your own words and photos. I made a couple for the kidlets. The site is http://www.bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php . It was fun!

I rediscovered a great site today. http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/ This site tracks the construction of LDS temples worldwide. The big news is that the Vancouver British Columbia temple got its Angel Moroni yesterday. Wonderful! I had forgotten there was a temple being built in B.C. Cool.

Sarah and I had fun on the 28th attending "101 Quilts in a Day", the Kennewick East Stake's Enrichment activity. The goal was to put together at least 101 quilts for charity. At last count (that I heard), we had 138 or some astounding number. A local TV station came and shot some footage, and Sarah is on it! I'll put in the link here: http://www.kndu.com/Global/story.asp?s=9924473 . Sarah is shown in the green top and black pants at about 60 seconds into the story. You have to watch a couple of other short reports first, but we're on there. You can't see Sarah's face (darn it), but it's definitely her. Her back is to the camer and she's walking toward the back of the cultural hall. The lady that is shown sitting down and talking is in my ward and is the stake's enrichment counselor. She's a real go-getter and has coordinated our ward's charity quilt making for several years. I'm posting some pics too, just of Sarah because I had the camera (haha) and didn't want MY picture taken.

The kids brought home really good report cards again this time around. Sarah got a 3.716, if I remember correctly. Not bad for first year of high school and honors classes. Spencer got a 3.76 and got on the Principal's List for good grades in middle school. I'm very happy with them both! They are great kids and we are so blessed as parents. The small quarrels and battles we have with them could be SO much worse!

I really stink at blogging. I don't know why, I just find it difficult to find new things to say, I guess! DH went on a cleaning frenzy the past couple of Saturdays so now the countertop by the stove is nearly completely clean (nearly being better than not at all LOL), and we got a good start on the kitchen table which has masqueraded as the piling paradise for the past while. I need to make some folders for things on the table (taxes, insurance, etc.), but it's much better than before. I do appreciate it, he just drove me a bit batty and just now I had to tell him to knock it off. LOL

Happy Anniversary to us! It is our 17th anniversary today! And it is Alan's 12th baptism anniversary. He was baptized into the LDS Church on our fifth wedding anniversary. Easy for him to remember that way (and for me, too!)!

Here are the school pictures! We got Spencer's today ... handsome boy! ... and so I decided I should probably post them both, what do you think??

*ALSO* in family news, Sarah got her braces off! She was very excited and so were Mom and Dad! She has to wear a retainer on the top, and there is a bonded wire retainer on the bottom, but much easier than trying to floss and brush with the braces!

The kids are into their third week of school now. Sarah is a freshman in high school now, and Spencer started middle school. I can't believe they are growing up so fast! Here are some first day of school pictures ... I hope they upload this time. Last time something hiccuped and nothing saved *or* uploaded. *Stomp!*

This little video was taken at the Benton-Franklin Fair Parade on Saturday. Sarah is the blonde swinging around the flag a little bit (7-8 seconds) into the video. Don't blame me for the wobbliness; DH took this one!

Okay, now Sarah is cranky because I posted the post-Trek picture of her for all to see. Well, at least the all the reads this blog (5?). It's the most horrendous picture of herself that she's ever seen. LOL.

Sarah returned from Trek on Friday. She had a wonderful time and learned a lot about herself and what she was capable of doing! She came home very dirty and tired (see picture), but enjoyed herself a lot. I have such an appreciation for this opportunity and what she learned from it! There was a nice article in our local paper, the Tri-City Herald, about the Trek. Some of the comments make it sound like Mormons are too weird for words (LOL), but you really do have to understand the pioneer experience to really "get it." http://www.tri-cityherald.com/901/story/258613.html is the link to the article. There is also a gallery, and there's a good picture of Sarah's boots on p. 73 of the photos. Sarah is on several pages since her cart was second in line that day. On p. 37, Sarah is right behind the guy doing the "thumbs up". She's in a plaid dress (blue primarily) with apron and bonnet. The guy doing the "thumbs up" is actually somebody she went to school with the last few years, although he's in another ward.