HAWAII!!!!!

OK, I will not even possibly be able to describe to you how beautiful it is there! I went snorkeling and parasailing. Oh yea, I competed there too! :) Our chorus was seeded to come in 27th out of 33 choruses, based on our regional scores. We placed 14th overall!!! We were so proud. Only 2 people too many to win the Harmony Achievement award that we won in Vegas 2006. This is the award that is given to the smaller choruses based on the # on stage and the points earned. We took only 73 singers (including our director), and placed higher than choruses a lot larger than we were. We knew we did VERY well when our director winked at us after we sang our ballad. It is hard to tell on stage how well you do because you cannot hear yourself. You just have to go with the "plan" and try to tell how well you are doing by the way it "feels". Our uptune was a HUGE SUCCESS!! We got lots of giggles and screams. At the end of our preformance, we were blessed with an immediate standing ovation. The lady helping us off the stage says that she has not seen the audience react that way to any other chorus that she had seen that day, and we sang 26th! We were so excited! There were a lot of wonderful choruses there. A majority of them had well over 100 members on stage. Anyway, we had a great competition and are very excited about our ranking. Our director has been having some health problems, and has decided that he needs to retire. This was his last International Competition with us. He will direct us at Regional in March and that will be his big bow out. It is extremely hard to see him go since he has directed our chorus for 47 years. We were just told last week that our Baritone section leader, Mary Rhea will be taking over. I was so excited to hear that because I think she is WONDERFUL and so very talented!
On another note, I personally had a great time in Hawaii. Like I mentioned before, I went parasailing (even though I don't like heights), and snorkeling. I wanted to learn how to surf while I was there, but I ran out of time and didn't want to spend the extra money! :) We saw Michael, Rebekah, and Kaylee while we were there. That is the Priebe's sister, husband, and niece. Rebekah and Kaylee showed us around the island the first 2 days that we were there and showed us all the "hot spots". It was a great trip. I'll try to see if Steve can upload them to our photo gallery so that you can see them all. We went to the Dole Plantation, USS Arizona Memorial, USS Oklahoma Memorial, USS Utah memorial (on a military base), Wikiki beach, North Shore, famouse Shaved Ice store, and lots of beautiful scenery. It was a great trip!

Crazy Hair Day

The girls had a crazy hair day at school a few weeks ago. Abby would only let me put a wig on her head which I was told only lasted a few minutes once she got in the building. Jillian, of couse, wanted to go all out. She was very proud of the fact that she was the only one in her class that participated! :)

For Andrew

Andrew came over to our house to return some clothes that Amy had borrowed and got a little more than he barganed for. He did get to play some guitar hero with Steve, but I think the girls had more fun with him. See what happens when you have nice thick hair? :)

Zoo Field Trip

Jillian had a field trip to the zoo in the end of October. It was suppose to be on October 14th, but got rescheduled to the 30th due to inclimate weather. It was a beautiful day on the 30th, and we all had a great time.

Cheer Clinic

We signed the girls up to do a cheer clinic at the local high school again this fall. Unfortunatly, Abby got really sick the night before the clinic and couldn't go. Steve was a GREAT Daddy and took Jillian. He snuck over to where the 2nd graders were working and video taped thier dance and pom routine so that Abby could watch it and still cheer at the game the following week. I guess it was fair play. He took a lot of pictures of Jillian during the clinc (because Abby was not there). Then, during the preformace at the game, Jillian stood in the back where you couldn't see her so we only got pictures of Abby. The video of the dance routine was great! Abby caught right on and did the routine perfectly. I was so proud of both of the girls! And of course, Daddy for being so smart as to video tape the routine for Abby. Steve forgot to bring a coat to the game, so I ended up zipping out the liner of my jacket, and he wore that and wrapped his hands in a dress up jacket. We have enrolled the girls in basketball and Cheerleading for the winter season. Abby blew us all away when she said that she would like to learn how to play basketball and give up Cheering for this season! I guess more of Grandpa Morton got into her bloodstream than just those big beautiful eyes! We can't wait to see how she plays and watch Jillian Cheer!

Steve's Birthday

Steve's birthday was on the 8th of October. Yes, I know it's been a while! I thought he deserved his own post though. Last year for his birthday, the family bought him a Wii, which he loves and it has made gift giving easy for him. This year he had be talking alot about the Wii Fit, and I told him that I had heard a lot of good things about it. I FINALLY found one on his actual birhtday and we wrapped it up and gave it to him. He says he likes it, but I think he doesn't enjoy the fact that I got him "exercise stuff" for his birthday. i didn't even think about it that way and it was not intended to imply anything! I hope that he still likes it and knows his wife loves him and meant NOTHING bad by this gift. Love you, honey!

October Activities

OK, I know I'm several weeks/ months behind. I have a good excuse...Leann introduced me to facebook. :) I have uploaded most of my pictues there because I can do an entire album at a time, and I have not figured out how to do that or do a slide show here. Anyways, I'm going to take a quick break from work (that I should be doing), and catch up blogger. the girls were Sharpay (from High School Musical), and an Angel this year. Abby was Sharpay and Jillian was the angel (hee hee). Actually, Jillian changed to a bride after a friend of ours gave us some dress up clothes. We did the family Fall festival night at church, Haunted the Zoo and trick-or-treated the local dorms. We also made our own Halloween suckers and went to a sock hop at their school. We had a great time! We didn't do much on the actual Halloween night because I was washing and packing like a crazy woman trying to get ready for my competition in Hawaii. Here is a picture of the girls at each event. If you want to see all the pictures, look me up on facebook. :)