Kashton recently graduated from cub scouts

The scout store doesn't sell these "kits" anymore, so I had to

go to a bunch of stores to find all the items I needed

to make his display.

Here he is "crossing the bridge" to symbolize
his cross-over into Boy Scouts.

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Now, I am cub-scouter free for 1 1/2 years.

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WAH HOOOEY!!!!!

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(That means yay.)

Koby and Kyson qualified

to go to the regional gymnastics meet in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center.

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Kyson decided to not participate at region since he would miss baseball, and since he has already been to region in Col. Springs before.

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Koby has worked really hard this year to be able to go, because he performed really well at this facility 4 years ago, and he really wants to go again.

His coach and I had a miscommunication, and he didn't sign him up to go on the day that was the deadline (a week ago). We just found out that he can still sign up.

So, now I have to juggle getting Koby to gym an hour early every day so that he doesn't miss his first 4 baseball games. Then get him from gym early and straight to baseball.

Not a big deal usually, but today,

Kyson has a game at 4 and Kash and Koby have a game at 5:30.

Kys probably won't get to play in his game till 5:30,

and Koby and Kash are supposed to get their shirts/hats today.

Welcome to a glimpse of my Marches and Aprils.

Except this year is MUCH easier and A LOT less stressful than usual since Kys and Koby aren't playing soccer. (Due to everyone being on club teams and not enough signing up for city league).

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Daddy would have a different story, however.

He is coaching Kash's team, and supposed to be asstistant coach of Koby's team,

but has not been able to much since their practices/games are often at the same time.

He is also supposed to be teaching a merit badge class tonight for scouts at 7. Oh, well.

Luckily, their piano teacher has to work a long day at the hospital,

and can't have their lessons today.

That was lucky.

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People with 2 children in activities think their lives are ridiculously crazy,

They just don't get it.

Huh, Mich?

A good luck item for Koby

This meet was a few weeks ago, but it was a first for Koby

to beat Kyson.

He had a fairly good meet and Kyson didn't.

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What was dumb was, we had to travel all the way to Ogden

to compete against one other boy,

and he was from our gym, and he got injured

on an event and had to go get checked out at the ER.

Kash is holding that boy's trophy.

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Koby also won the handstand contest, and

came in third on the "stick a back tuck" contest.

A good luck item for Kashton

Kashton pouted when he didn't win his heat of the school track meet,

and quit running his hardest with 20 yds to go.

He almost didn't qualify for the finals.

He took 4th in the finals.
He is in yellow.

Oh yeah,

Kyson had to take a college entrance exam and score at least 58 on the math

test or he would have to take a summer class to catch up.

He scored a 98.

He's 14, people. And he gets it from ME !!!

Another "lucky" thing from a week ago

There's a program here that let's 50 kids from each

grade from the area high schools

attend 3 hours of college for their 3 yrs of high school

for free ( well, we have to pay $35 admissions and 1 book).

and he gets credit for high school classes AND college.

He should graduate from high school with an Associates degree.

It's all done lottery style with about a 35% chance of getting picked.

"He won the lottery."
This program also pays 75% for the following two yrs
to any college in Ut (except the Y and Westminster),
so his Bachelor's degree is mostly paid for.
He is extremely excited.

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It will take a lot of time to keep up with the homework
load as these are "normal" college classes and
not watered down.

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So, State was his last gym meet.
He qualified to go to the regional meet in Colorado Springs,
but he didn't want to miss out on baseball.
As for State, he scored his personal best on the first 4 events,
then he tanked on the pommel horse.
He kept hitting his foot on it and falling, thus
taking his All-Around score with it.
Still, his AA score was a pretty good score,
but his gymnastics training is done.
He would like to coach this summer,
but we'll see.

Level 7 State CHAMP on the vault !!!

House guest part 2

It looked to me like he tried to jump out of daddy's arms when he saw all the toys still out.

The yellow stick was the first thing he grabbed, of course.
I finally found the channel with these fellows on it.

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He ate nearly 2 whole hot dogs for lunch.

The fork is just a prop, I guess.


He was not very interested in the playhut tunnel.

This picture says 1,000 words; can you tell what they are?

1. Notice the sacks of flour on my counter?

I found out that my child lock doesn't work on that lower cupboard.

2. I guess Z just lost his kitchen "sweeping" privileges.

I will have to block off the kitchen from now on.

If you zoom in, you'll see the reason why.

It's between his finger and his mouth, dripping from his chin.

Need another hint?

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The first time surprised him and he stood there wondering what

had just happened.

The second time, he started giggling-hence the kitchen

is now off limits rule.

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Yeah, I know, a good aunt would have stopped this instead of taking pictures,

but where would Cheryl find the fun in that.

Happy bed resting!

We have a house guest.

He arrived just in time for homemade pizza.

(with some of the 15 cent bisquits we got a week ago.)

he wouldn't eat his olives?

but his pizza disappeared pretty fast.

Then we made these with some more of that free or 15 cent

bisquit dough.

Z ate a small one.

Later, he enjoyed an ice cream cone.

and our house looks like a 1 1/2 year old has been having fun.

His favorite thing is sweeping our kitchen.

One more good luck tidbit for this week...

The saga: Kyson didn't go to the 3 weeks of pre-season soccer workouts,

cause he wanted to go to the 3 weeks of free baseball clinic

put on by the baseball coaches.

Half as many kids came this year as last year,

(new H.S. in town took 1/2 the boys off the baseball team)

so the coaches decided not to have a freshman team.

The coach is in our ward and told us this was 80% certain.

So, Kyson decided to try out for the soccer team.

He didn't even go to the mandatory conditioning for the baseball team hopefulls.

Monday, he went to soccer tryouts from 3pm to 515 pm.

I made him take his baseball glove just in case he decided to try out for baseball, too.

Baseball tryouts were 5pm to 7pm.

He was late for baseball-big no-no.

Tuesday was the same schedule.

Since 20 freshman tried out for the team,

they decided to go ahead and have a fr. team.

Hubby and I

waited at baseball practice long enough

to find out that soccer only kept 4 freshman

(only the ones the coaches had seen play

club soccer teams.)

Kyson had done fairly well at tryouts, but the coaches

didn't get to see him play much

since he didn't go to the soccer workouts (he was at baseball).

From what I saw at baseball tryouts,

Kys didn't perform that well,

but the coach had seen him at the 3 weeks of the clinic,

and knew he had "raw" talent and was "coachable".

This coach talked to each boy to tell them him if he made it or not and why.

He hasn't taken this thing off since he got it.

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These pictures

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are just

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to make
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a point.
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cause it's not "cool" to smile for the camera.

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A few lucky things:

just in case we are part Irish...

Kashton bawled all the way home from baseball practice last night.

He kept missing the ball (not like him, but it was the 1st practice of the season)

and his new coach kept yelling at him for it, "Stop missing the ball!"

(Kash can't perform for a coach if he knows he's going to get yelled at.

It stresses him out.)

This is not even the Major League, we avoided that

so we could have a good experience this year.

I made a few phone calls:

He is no longer on that team!!!!! YAY!!!

Apparently the LL Board was in the process of taking kids off

each team to make another team, so there wouldn't be 14 kids on every team.

(That means 5 kids on the bench every inning.)

Kash had one friend on the yelling coach's team,

so I called that kid's dad.

The dad said he would help my hubby coach!

Not only that, their family is great friends of ours,

and he actually knows a little about baseball. (I just found out.)

He played on the high school team all through high school

and the 13 yr old all-star team that took state

with a guy (RandyWillstead-who used to play Pro baseball.)

who is the head coach of the high school team, who also

has been the YM 1st Counselor over Kyson since he turned 14.

So, Kash WILL get to have a positive experience with baseball this year.

AND, although we got last pick of the team names,

the one we wanted was STILL AVAILABLE.

The team has a brand new logo and colors (deep red)

and is the best logo out there.

It's the D-Backs!!

We also made an agreement with Kash's last year's coach (that we loved)

that my hubby will be his assistant for Koby's and Kyson's team.

My hubby WAS going to be my boys' head coach

to make sure Koby didn't get a really lousy coach for 3 years in a row.

All this took place after 9:15 pm last night.

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a few other lucky/cool things happened this last week.

You will need to stay tuned in,

so I can drag out this blog and have a reason to update it.

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Some of our time spent at cabin in P. V.

Here's Kort getting ready to....

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lick the snowman.

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Kash, Kort, and Kauri playing on the merry-go-round.

Kyson digging snow caves in the back yard at the cabin.

The merry-go-round is now where the trampoline was.

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Koby mowing the lawn in 08.

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The boys set up their tents on the porch.

The wrap-around porch goes all the way around the 2nd level.

The snowmen are dressed in attire from the

"snowman kit" I gave Ann for Christmas that year.

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Looking toward the kitchen area.

some of the family enjoying T-Day at the cabin.