Winter miscellany

Snuggles: Friday, December 10

Seth and Winnie snuggle on the couch while reading their books.

Reed shenanigans: Friday, December 17

Rebekah received a saxophone for Christmas, so we had to order a reed. When it arrived, we texted her at school to let her know it was here. She told us to take good care of it and not let anybody touch it, so Seth and I staged several photos to send to her showing us pretending to harm it. Like this one of Andrea pretending to hit it with the meat tenderizer.

Seth pretending to put the reed down the garbage disposal.

70s dance: Saturday, January 8

Ana posing in her getup for the 70s dance and her sisters step in to make it a group shot. Ana went to a dance put on by the student council.

Temple baptisms: Tuesday, January 11

Family selfie outside the temple after Miriam's first time doing baptisms for the dead.

Flat tire: Thursday, January 13

Andrea with the spare tire she put on the van after running over a nail on the highway. I was on my way to visit Grandma Hendricks in Rexburg and was almost to the the exit when I heard a pop. By the time I made it to 7th South, I was driving on the rim. I pulled over at a married student complex and put the spare on before going to Les Schwab to have the tire repaired (and find out about the nail) and then to Grandma's.

Venus fly trap: Friday, January 14

Winnie and the venus fly trap she bought from Town and Country Gardens with money she received for Christmas. It ate one spider, then was placed in the playroom and accidentally forgotten.

Doodles: Saturday, January 15

Miriam's drawing of a hand missing two fingers. It's probably from a book she was reading?

Numenera: Sunday, January 16

Bekah and Winnie during a family session of Numenera, the tabletop roleplaying game we play.

Grandpa's birthday: Sunday, January 30

Ana and the amazing chocolate raspberry cake she made to celebrate Grandpa Scott's 72nd birthday.

More snuggles: Thursday, February 3

Andrea and Winnie snuggle on the couch and read a comic book together.

Your mom: Monday, February 7

Rebekah poses with her Napoleon Dynamite "your mom goes to college" shirt while Andrea poses with her alma mater hoodie.

Cotton candy: Monday, February 14

Winnie eats the cotton candy she received from Seth for Valentines Day with a spoon.

Aquarium date: Monday, February 21

Winnie feeds the porcupine at the East Idaho Aquarium while on a mommy-daughter date. It was Presidents Day, so the aquarium was pretty well packed.

Winnie with her froyo treat after the aquarium.

Sloth smooch: Tuesday, February 22

Rebekah smooches the sloth lovey Winnie bought from the aquarium.

Indexing activity: Tuesday, February 22

The Parri Ward Young Women index names on Family Search for their weekly activity. Seth brought a bevy of laptops to the Primary room and set them up so the girls could index.

Club meeting: Wednesday, February 23

Rebekah attempts to decipher an optical illusion as part of a club that Winnie formed. We held meetings in the playroom and pledged our loyalty to Winnie after working on optical illusions.

Crochet project: Sunday, February 27

Ana shows the width of the blanket she's crocheting. It's a temperature blanket, so each row represents the average temperature of a day in 2022. 

Thrift store find: Saturday, March 5

Seth shows what he thinks of the font on this Avatar poster at Goodwill. We had just watched a SNL skit with the girls making fun of this font being overused. The skit specifically makes fun of Avatar's use of the font.

Broken toe: Thursday, March 10

Seth's blackened toe after stubbing it on his office chair at home. He didn't see a doctor, but we assumed it was broken, and he buddy-taped it to its neighbor for a while afterward.

Another thrift store find: Friday, March 11

Seth tried on something we found at D.I. I assumed it was one of those jackets used to train attack dogs. We're still not sure.

Jammies: Tuesday, March 15

Winnie giggling in her dinosaur sleeper. I don't remember why she was half in, half out.

YW activity: Tuesday, March 15

The Parri Ward YW have their last activity before switching presidencies. They met in Sister Holly Andrus' basement to play games. Sister Andrus was about to have heart surgery and had been the YW president for a while, so the bishopric called a new presidency to take over.

More band

Rebekah made the Idaho Allstate Band again, this time as first chair euphonium. She got on the bus on Wednesday, February 2, and spent the next to days in rehearsals before performing on Saturday, February 5. Seth and I traveled to Nampa the night before, spent the night and then went thrift shopping before attending the concert at Northwest Narazene.

When the French horn player moved his horn like this, we could actually see Rebekah.

But this is the view we got of her most of the time.

Rebekah had a solo, so she got to stand after one of the numbers.

She performed both a solo and in a brass quartet during Gem State solo and ensemble at Century High School on February 26. 

Rebekah and her accompanist.

Playing her solo.

Playing in the ensemble with Matt Sorenson, Alex Randall and Caidan Anderson.

The BHS jazz band and symphonic band performed at their spring concert in the BHS gym on April 4.

Rebekah soloing with the jazz band.

Playing euphonium with the symphonic band.

Smiling after their number.

Talking to Seth after the concert.

And the jazz band was invited to play during the North Star Independent Drumline fundraiser in the BHS gym on April 9. 

Playing with the plunger mute.

Between songs.

Hillcrest and Bonneville are combining for marching band next year, so they held a joint fundraiser at BHS on Monday, April 18. Rebekah played both with the Bonneville jazz band and with the Jazz House Big Band.

Soloing with the school's jazz band.

They played in the commons. Dinner was served to all the ticket buyers, and there was a silent auction to earn extra money for the bands.

Rebekah playing the solo for "Tall Cotton" with the Jazz House Big Band.

The Idaho Falls Symphony Youth Orchestra had their spring concert on Thursday, April 21. It featured their concerto contest winner. Rebekah rested for many-a-measure during her impressive violin cadenza. 

Rebekah in the back row playing with the orchestra.

Sledding

We thought we'd go sledding during Christmas break, but the weather was too cold. On Saturday, February 26, we finally got around to pulling the sleds out and going to the Freeman Park hill.

Winnie and Miriam headed down the hill.

Bekah on her way after Ana gave her a push.

Seth hitting the jump.

Winnie coming down.

Ana trying to turn her saucer.

Sitting at the top of the hill.

Skiing

All the winter's skiing tied up in one neat post!

I took advantage of my semimonthly trips to Rexburg to visit Grandma Hendricks to ski at the Teton Lakes course a couple of times.

Skiing selfie on January 27.

Our family checked out the new cross-country trail system at Twin Bridges Campground on January 28. Unfortunately, Miriam was only able to go on one loop because her feet started hurting her.

Family cross-country skiing selfie.

Winnie's class got to ski every day for a week with equipment on loan from the district. I came three of the four days to help the kids and to ski with them.

Andrea and Winnie in the school field on February 17. Some of the days it was so warm and sunny that the kids would make one loop around the field, then stop to take off their coats and leave them on the bench. This day, however, it was so cold and windy that several kids made one loop, then went back inside.

And then we took the whole family for some spring downhill skiing at Grand Targhee on Friday, March 4, when the kids were off of school. Winnie was scared of the lift and the top of Shoshone at first, but then she got back into the hang of it and was whizzing down the trails at a breakneck pace in no time. The day started out sunny and warm, but after lunch it got cold and cloudy. We had to put more layers on as the day went by.

Family selfie.

Posing at the top of Teton Traverse. Going on this trail turned out to be a mistake because of (1) Miriam's fear of heights and (2) Miriam's bad feet. She didn't go on another run the rest of the day because they hurt so badly. 

Roof troubles

Just a year after we moved back in to our beautifully remodeled and added-onto home, Ana spotted this on January 14:

Water damage to the southwest corner of the great roof ceiling.

We moved the photo albums away from the wall and realized that the sheetrock was soggy all along the corner headed to floor. The culprit (as documented on January 15):

Snow and ice trapped on the new part of the roof. There wasn't a great place for the snow to fall/flow, and an ice jam formed.

We called Tobin, the same company that served as our general contractor, and they sent their cleanup crew out. They had to cut away any soggy sheetrock, pull away the baseboard, and set up this lovely series of machines:

A dehumidifier, an air purifier and a fan.

And because those machines had to run constantly for days, we had to adapt and spend less time in the great room.

Watching stake conference downstairs in the master bedroom with the door shut.

It took weeks for everything to get fixed, but we're all put back together now. We had work done on the roof (a solid piece of metal that goes under the roof and under the siding on the tallest part of the house so that water can't get below it, metal diverters installed on the roof to help channel the snow, and cable heating on the roof to help the snow melt and fall off) and work done in the house (sheetrock patched and textured/painted, baseboard reinstalled). Here's hoping we don't have any more weird and new problems with our addition.

More ballroom

 Analee performs! A lot! And it's documented!

First we have the Civic show, which is hosted by Bonneville, held at the Civic Auditorium in Idaho Falls, and features all the area ballroom teams. It was held Saturday, January 22. They had two shows, one in the late afternoon and one in the evening. We attended the afternoon show.

"Dance with Me Tonight," green team.

"Get Ready," white team.

Before the teams performed at a few more competitions, they held a showcase at the BHS gym on Wednesday, March 2. 

"Sax," green team.

"Cotton Eye Joe" with Ana and Miriam participating. Not a routine, just a fun thing they involve the audience in while team members get changed.

Gem State is a huge competition, and it's held (eye roll) during the end of spring break. We adapted our schedule so we could be home from Moab (separate post to come) so Ana could participate at Thunder Ridge High School on Friday and Saturday, March 25-26.

"Superman," JV cabaret. Ana is an alternate and got to fill in.

The team took first in their division.

Dancing the Macarena during "team match" on Friday night. It's basically a pep rally for ballroom dancers. There were shenanigans that included bribing the judges, shooting confetti, making as much noise as possible with cow bells and whistles, and (surprise!) and lot of dancing.

Getting lunch at Pizza Pie Cafe (so we could take advantage of the free kid buffet coupons we had (Miriam only qualified as a kid for a couple more days)) between events.

Ana realizing that the music they were playing was a paso doble version of the "Imperial March." 

The look on Ana's face as she realized she and her partner Avani were going to place first in junior bronze group B paso doble.

Dancing with Brigham Westover. They took 7th place in junior newcomer group A cha cha.

And then the ballroom team was invited to perform at the North Star Independent Drumline fundraiser held at Bonneville on Saturday, April 9.

"Sax," green team. Some of the team members were out of town, so other kids filled in. Ana doesn't usually partner with this kid.

"Sax," green team.

"Dance with Me Tonight," green team. Again, Ana doesn't usually dance with Brigham during this one, but they had to fill spots.