Emmy's Track and Field Day

A few weeks ago the 5th graders at Northside started practicing and getting ready for the district's annual 5th-grade Track and Field day. It's a really fun event and I've helped out the past two times my boys participated. I volunteered again this year to help out Northside's responsibility: high-jump. It's actually pretty fun! It also allowed me to be down on the field (of course, but other non-volunteer parents had to stay in the bleachers) and so I was able to watch Emmy up and close.

Emmy's gym teacher, the fabulous Mr. Warren, picks our 2 events for the kids. Then each kid chooses 2 more. Mr. Warren chose Emmy for the 1600M race - aka, the mile. Emmy was so nervous about this because she wanted to "place." (I think placing means you are in the top 6). Ben took her once to the HS track to practice the mile and she ran it in 7:47. Not too bad. Mr. Warren thought if she ran it in a 7s, she would have a good shot of placing. I took Emmy again a few days later and she ran it in 7:35. Faster, awesome. We had also been running getting ready for the GOTR 5K (which was the day after Track and Field day!) and so she had some distance-training as well.  :)

 The 1600M race is the first and only event happening at that time - so everyone can watch. There were 14 girls running the race (one girl isn't in this picture).

 Go, Emmy, go! Pacing is one of the biggest factors in running - especially for kids (Case in point: in the boys' 1600M, a few boys took off like it was the 50M dash! They were sooooo fast. Toooooo fast, in fact, that they pretty much all petered out and none of them were the top finishers. In fact, Emmy thought one of them was last.  :( ). Emmy took off fast, but not too fast. Just fast enough to be in the top-5 right off.

 I think this is the first lap. The girl in the tie-dye shirt is Emmy's good friend, Millie. Millie is super fast! She would have probably placed 1st or 2nd if she didn't end up barfing after 2 laps . . . :(  Millie had a great attitude afterwards ("I ate too much breakfast!") and ended up winning or placing high in her other sprinting events.

 She was looking great and was keeping up a really good pace!

 And there she is finishing SECOND! Yay! We were both so super excited! Emmy felt a little sick right after she ran, but within seconds she was doing just fine. Her final mile-run: 7:04! Wow! So awesome!

 Emmy also ran the hurdles. She loved it. She took first place in her heat and we're anxious to see how she did compared to all the other heats. She finds out Monday and is hoping for a top-6 finish so she can earn a ribbon. I'm not sure she will, but I'm crossing my fingers, too.

 I love this action shot of her! She's an adorable athlete.

 In the lead!

Peyton, Emmy, and Makala. On-and-off-again friends.  :) They were friends at that moment of time. An hour or so later I was talking to Peyton and she was upset because Makala wasn't friends with her anymore. I think that lasted about an hour . . . Silly girls.

I enjoyed my time at the high-jumps and so it was just another great track & field day!

California

About 6 weeks ago my Uncle George passed away. He was a great man and we're lucky to have him as part of our family. I loved reading his obituary as I learned even more great things about him:

October 22, 1929 - March 18, 2019 George Ellis, age 89, died peacefully March 18, at his home in Granada Hills with his wife, two sons, and Hospice nurses by his side. His passing was attributed to complications from Alzheimer's disease. Born in Lead, South Dakota, Oct. 22, 1929, George was the seventh child of Joseph Everett Ellis and Berta Hurd Ellis. When he was six years old, his family moved from South Dakota to the Yakima Valley in the state of Washington. The Ellis family later relocated in Spokane, Washington, where George attended both Whitworth and Gonzaga Universities. While he was a student at Whitworth University, he joined a flying club and obtained his private pilot's license. He enjoyed giving free flying lessons. One of his flying students was Inga Hendrickson, who was soon to become his wife. After graduating from Whitworth University, he and Inga moved to Los Angeles where he obtained an MS degree from UCLA. He served two years in the U.S. Army assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). Upon completing his assignment in the military, he spent 37 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District, beginning his educational career as a Chemistry teacher at North Hollywood High School. Eager to learn new skills and improve the quality of teaching chemistry, he participated in several summer seminars sponsored by the National Science Foundation. During his teaching career he had the rare opportunity to meet with two Nobel Prize Laureates in the field of science. He was soon assigned to District headquarters where he developed a Course of Study for chemistry teachers in LAUSD. This effort led to the publication of a chemistry textbook, Foundations of Chemistry, which he co-authored. The publication, followed by a second edition, was enormously successful. It was adopted in many school districts throughout the United States as well as in 20 foreign countries where some editions were translated. In the latter part of his career in education, he was an Advisor in the Department of Career and Continuing Education and a Coordinator of Granada Hills Adult School for 20 years. Upon retiring from education, he became active in real estate investing wisely in apartment buildings throughout the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita. Nothing pleased him more than upgrading vacant apartments and providing clean, attractive and desirable units. His generosity and kindness earned him the respect and admiration of many of his tenants, apartment managers and employees. In 1984, Inga Ellis, the mother of his three sons, passed away. Ten years later, he married Karen Whicker. During the past two decades, he and his wife Karen traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia. An avid reader, George acquired an eclectic knowledge about numerous and varied topics which contributed to his being an engaging conversationalist. He is survived by his wife, Karen, and three sons, John (Vicki-Lynn), Raymond (Rocio), Joseph, and five grandchildren Truman Ellis, Kendrick Ellis, Austin Ellis, Amber Ellis, and Annette Ellis. In honor of his request, there will be no funeral service but his family members plan a celebration of his life. 

About 6 years ago my then-young family went to California for Spring Break. We stopped by and visited and stayed the night with Karen and George at their lovely home and had a wonderful time. 

Spring, 2013.

Per George's request, there was no funeral but instead a Celebration of Life. My parents, brother, sister, and I all came to California for that special event. It was really a nice time being with Karen and staying at her home. The Celebration of Life was excellent and a lot of people came. I was glad I could be a part of it all!

 

 Karen has a beautiful and unique cat named Bentley - a Bengal cat. I am usually not a fan of cats, but Bentley is pretty adorable and great!

 We helped get the backyard set-up and ready for the evening's Celebration of Life.

 Erin. :)

 Derek (who was a big hit, "Are you the log-builder from Alaska?" I can't tell you how many people came up to him and asked him this.), Erin, Karen, my mom, me, and my dad. We enjoyed a nice evening meeting people who are friends and family with Karen and George. We enjoyed the stories and memories shared of George as well.

All in all, it was a lovely time and I really enjoyed being with my family that I don't get to see too often!

Delilah

Miles' car got a new and improved name (it used to be "The boat," which is so typical of a name Miles would pick . . .). The name is Delilah. His YM's leader came up with it from, of course, the story in the bible of Samson and Delilah. Miles is the Samson who got a hair cut for his Delilah. Awesome.

Ben has been busy and so there hasn't been too much time to work on the car. But they did change the fuel injector (or something like that!) the other day and so that's a start!

Emmy's YW projects . . .

As I've mentioned, Emmy is working on earning her YW Personal Progress award. I just want to post a few pictures from the projects she's worked on so I don't forget and so we have documentation on her as well.

She started with the value Faith. After doing the required activities, Emmy began her 10-hour project. She decided to write down all the scriptures about faith in the Book of Mormon. It took her almost exactly 10-hours to complete! She would wake up earlier on school-days to work on it. What a gal.

Divine Nature was next. For Emmy's project, she attended a babysitting class and also planned and prepared a dinner and dessert for the family. She had to decide what to cook ("It's so hard, mom!" "I know, welcome to my life."  :) ), write down everything she needed, go shopping with me, and help make it all. It was a lot of work, she realized. But she liked it, too, of course.

 Emmy at her babysitting class - Safe Sitter. It was put on by our library. It was a lot of lecturing, but some hands-on, too. They got to learn and practice the Heimlich on each other (Emmy's good friend Holly did it with her), plus they worked on baby mannequins as well. They practiced what to do if an infant chokes and some other things (which I can't remember . . .). Emmy said it was fun!

 Emmy received an official certificate - awesome.

Here she is busy peeling butternut squash.  Emmy made tilapia, rice, butternut squash bake, and a strawberry-pretzel thing for dessert. It was all delicious!

Go, Emmy, go!

Easter Saturday and Sunday (with some Friday stuff thrown in!)

 The kids were out of school on Friday and so we had time to dye some eggs. Wren got to join us for the fun and the day.

On Friday we met up with friends and played at the park for a couple of hours. Then we walked down to the theater for a matinee showing of Dumbo (which turned out to be kind of dumb . . .). On their mutual activity earlier in the week, the boys got in to the back of their leader's trunk - 5 of them. Miles showed him up with getting 7 kids in his trunk.  :)

 Due to a super-crazy busy Saturday, the only time we had for the Easter-egg hunt was at 6am!  No sleeping in for any of us . . . Lucy was excited about it all and found the first egg.  :)

 

Lucy was also the last one to collect her five eggs . . . we had to give her hints where the last egg was hidden (in the bird-house hole).

Lucy was also the first to find her basket - full of candy, socks, swimsuit, squishy, etc.!

Our Saturday consisted of Jonas' track meet from 7am - 12:45pm (Ben and I were in and out - but we did see him in both of his events - the 1600 and 800.) Emmy had a babysitting class from 9-2. Lucy had a birthday party at 10. Miles and Jonas had a mountain-biking clinic from 1-4 (Miles as a team volunteer and Jonas as an interested middle-schooler). Whew, what a day!

On Sunday I had to give a talk. After church we made yummy resurrection rolls. Ben prepared our delicious Easter feast. It was a good day.

 Our beautiful Easter-day girls!

Update on Happenings Around Here . . .

What we've been up to lately:

Ben - 

 He went to Florida (a first for him!) for a work conference. I don't know if it was a conference, but I don't know what else to call it. Basically a company, Arthrex, shows off its medical orthopedic devices to docs and medical reps in hopes of their usage of their equipment. Ben was invited to go. He felt out of place there for many reasons, but I think it was a good, overall experience for him! It definitely was beautiful.

Me -

I found excellent deals on chacos for all the kids - here are we girls showing ours off.  :) Awesome. I've just been busy with the same-old things I'm always busy with: grocery shopping, cooking meals, putting together lunches, exercising, an itty-bitty of working, PAC'ing, giving talks in church (my second one in just 6 weeks - two different wards, though - is this Sunday), etc.

Miles -

Miles has been doing some driving . . . not a ton, but some. He really likes it. He's an okay driver.  :)  He just needs more experience. He loves his car, "the boat." He loves showing it to his friends. He loves honking its horn (sounds more like a train toot). He bought a manual for it and is anxious to get it working great.

He is doing well with his schooling and hopefully will finally finish his first semester of English very soon (second semester will be done this summer - lucky him).

He had his first job interview - with the forest service. He did not get it, but it was a good experience in filling out an application, working on his resume, and actually interviewing. It would have been the *perfect* job for him - but he had one big strike against him: it's a 10-week job and Miles would have only been available for the first 8 weeks, due to family reunions. The lady called to tell him he didn't get the job, but that he interviewed very well (Ummm, even with responding to, "What is your biggest weakness," with "Sometimes I get distracted. . . " Yikes!), and that she hopes he'll apply again next year. He definitely will!

Jonas - 

He decided to do lacrosse and track this spring. Two sports he's never done before. He likes them both and it definitely keeps him very busy! He has track every day after school. Lacrosse is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday - pretty much after track. He's managing it well!

 On Jonas' first lacrosse game, he got to play for like 2 minutes, at most. It was kind of disappointing, but Jonas wasn't too upset by it (probably Ben and I were more so!).

 The second game (it was a "tournament" and his team had two games on Saturday and two games on Sunday - which Jonas didn't participate in) Jonas saw a little more action. We told him if he got a hold of the ball, we would buy him some Dippin' Dots after the game. Luckily he did - for a brief moment!  :)

Then this past Tuesday I spent my day in Olathe at a track meet. It was chilly and windy and sort of miserable up there, but oh well. Track meets go on forever - or at least 4 hours. But it was kind of fun (it would have been way more fun without the chill and wind) and I got to visit with my friend Sarah the whole time.

For some unclear reason to me, Jonas chose to do "long-distance" running in track. He hates running and he doesn't have good endurance. But he did just fine at the meet!

 Jonas had two events - the 1600m (1 mile) and the 800m (1/2 mile). First up, the 1600!

 And he's off!

 Go, Jonas, go!

 He wasn't first, but he wasn't last either. :) I was proud of him. His time was 7:19. He ran the whole thing and had a great sprint at the end.

My camera didn't like me during the 800m, so I don't have any pictures from that. But pretty much the same thing: not first, not last. He liked the 800 much better - actually, he felt a little sick after the mile run. I think it's more than he's ever really exerted himself. His 800m time was 3:34. There were two kids on his heels but when one of the kids' mothers cheered on her son and told him to get ahead of Jonas, Jonas kicked it up a bit and didn't let that happen.  :) He realized he doesn't want people passing him.

 Awesome Jonas.

The Girls -
Ha, I'll just link them together. Emmy is working on her Personal Progress program in YWs as it will end this year. There is a slight modification for new beehives that will help them in finishing it up in one year - although it will still be quite a challenge! She completed her Faith project and is now working on Divine Nature. It's awesome that she's doing it! We are doing our 5k training while Lucy has piano lessons and that's really fun for me to run with her.

Lucy continues to love school, friends, sugar, and gymnastics. Both girls are working on their fly-aways from the bar. Oh, I think I have some videos . . .

(These videos were taken a couple of weeks ago. Emmy has told me she has greatly improved and that Coach is hardly spotting her now . . .)

I was nominated by one of the girls' teammates to make a cake for their Easter party they were planning for during one of their practices.

 It wasn't quite as picture-perfect as the one online, but cute enough. Oh, and delicious, too - a homemade coconut vanilla cake. The girls had a fun night at gym with cake, egg hunts, veggie trays, etc.

Okay, that's enough for now!

Just Add Magic

It was our turn for book club and we (we, meaning me) chose the book Just Add Magic. I read about it online and saw it had a fun series on Amazon, so I thought we'd give it a try (the plot sounded perfect, too - a few friends, a magic cookbook, hexes, crushes, etc.).

It was a fun read and lent to a great book club!

Here are some pictures of the evening:

 We started out by having the girls tell each other's fortunes. One girl would hold her candle and let the wax drop into a bowl of cold water. The "fortune teller" would look at the wax and tell the girl's fortune. :)

 Emmy was a weird fortune teller . . .

 Lucy thought she was pretty funny. . .

 After that, we made some chili for the "Annual Alfred Nobel chili cook-off." (All ideas came from the book, of course.) By this time, Holly (in yellow) was suffering from burning-of-the-lips from chopping jalapenos and then touching her lips - the rest of the girls were crying due to chopping onions.  It was great fun.  :)  Actually, it was totally chaotic and super messy!  But the girls enjoyed it.

We walked down to our local Mexicn Meat Market - Carniceria Sonora (in the book it was called La Cocina). It was fun looking at the weird food (cactus anyone? plus a whole lot of "I have no idea what that is and can't read what it is either . . . ").

 The girls picked out some food and snacked on the bench outside. Jillian (in the light green shirt) had to leave early for volleyball, so her mom met us here and took Jillian.

We walked back home and tried the two chilis. There was definitely a favorite . . . So we ate chili and cornbread. The girls did more wax fortune-telling (including to Jonas), etc.

Then they got to go and watch a few episodes of Just Add Magic. Apparently it's pretty good - my boys even really liked it.  :)

 Of course I had to make them each a "Swirley." Those were eaten all the time in the book!  (Oh, the book has recipes at the end of it. We used those for the two chilis we made and the Swirley's.) This was some Rocket Launcher Rainbow Swirley and consisted of strawberry ice cream blended up with skittles, next layer of banana ice cream drizzled with caramel, then topped with pistachio ice cream. Earlier I dipped the cups in melted white-chocolate chips and nerds.  I think they all approved.  :)

The kids also did "M.A.S.H." to each other. They thought it was quite funny - and it was.  :)

 What a fun book and book club night!  (We had a "late over" as the girls were there until about 9 - that's late for us!)