1st Grade

1st Grade! I can hardly believe it. The summer went so quickly and before we knew it, it was back to school night. Maddy and I headed over the Calvin Smith Elementary to meet her teachers, see her classroom(s) and get a feel for the coming year. 

This year is a special year, not only because it means a whole day at school, school lunch, three recesses, only a few hours after school at Miss Swendy's (sad tear) but also the start of the Chinese Immersion Program. Maddy applied and was accepted to this 6 year program where for half of the day she is taught by Mrs. Bryant who only speaks to kids in Chinese. 

They are fully immersed in the language and also are taught math and science - did i mention, all in Chinese!? Like, the teacher doesn't speak any English??!! I was very nervous. Nervous that I wouldn't be able to help her with her homework, nervous for her because she also was a little unsure "I won't know what my teacher is telling me". We talked a lot about how none of the kids would understand and "you don't remember but when you were a baby you didn't understand what daddy and I were telling you but you learned English pretty well didn't you?"

We visited her home room and took a picture of her at her desk and looked at the other names in the "blue class" who would be with her throughout the day, taking special note that Brody was in her class - she and Brody were great friends in Kindergarten so she was excited.

We then went next door to meet Mrs. Dean. After lunch, the kids in the "blue class" grab their backpacks and swap rooms with the "red class". Mrs. Dean teaches reading and language arts, and all the other non-math and science subjects. Maddy again found her desk and found it to be acceptable.

And then two days later the first day of school arrived! I had purchased Maddy an alarm clock in hopes that it would help her get up a little bit better in the morning as, this year, I wouldn't be able to park and watch her run to her classroom door and also see her go in to the office if we were late. Her first grade class lines up at a hall door that remains locked all the time. If we miss the teachers coming to let the kids in, she has to go around the front of the building to go in to the office - and I would lose sight of her. So, my goal for this year it to get there always with enough time for her to get to her line and go in with the other kids.

The alarm worked well (as probably aided by first day of school excitement) and she was up and dressed before I even came out of my room. We packed her lunch the night before so we only had to pull out the fridge things and get her all set up, take the obligatory picture and off to school.

She was very excited and happy and I'm so glad that she didn't seem to have the jitters that many kids there seemed to have.

It's now been a few weeks and she has settled into the routine of school including the Chinese. The homework is okay because all math instructions are in English and while she is learning to count in Chinese and to write the numbers with Chinese characters, we get to do our math problems with 1,2,3,4,5. Phew!

She has taught me to say "Hello, teacher", "I have to go to the bathroom", "I need a drink" as well as counting to 20. Not bad for just over two weeks of school. I can only imagine how well she will know the language after she's had 6 years of practice. Neat program. I'm excited for her, and for me to learn a bit as well. She no longer gets up well with the alarm clock. We tried.

Also, we decided it was time to remodel the upstairs hall bathroom when we had a problem with the power and couldn't fix it without fishing around in the walls for wires. Figured that we might as well work on it now.

And Scott and I celebrated our 13th anniversary with a trip to Tsunami for a sushi dinner and then a visit to Home Depot. Tres Romantique.

And because Rachel sent it over and I love looking at it - us when I was 10, in San Francisco at Terrantinos, Papa's favorite restaurant to take us to (if we promised to be on our best behavior) at Fisherman's Wharf.

I posted the picture on Facebook and many people said that Maddy looks like me. I didn't see it. I can see it a bit more if I reference the picture above with me below, but hard to see it just looking at me. Also, lots of people say I look like mom. What a compliment. She is lovely. Cute little family.

Dematic Zoo Day

Dad's company Dematic had their family Hogle Zoo day and luckily kids with grandchildren in tow are allowed so Maddy and I joined Katie and her kids and Sarah, Bryan and Lilian. They had a nice (hot) breakfast at the pavilion right at the beginning of the day and also had wonderful face painting. You know we love a good face paint.

The kids each got something, a butterfly for Mad, rainbow cheetahs for Lilian and Ally, a wolf for Jackson, a dinosaur for Dalton, and a polar bear for Holly.

My favorite part of the face paint was that Dalton looked like he was in a perpetual state of flared nose. Hee hee. Also, and I wish I had a picture, mom went back and got a "small" butterfly on her cheek. Granted it wasn't half  her face like the other kids but it wasn't also a tiny little guy either. I love that mom is spontaneous and wanted to bond with the kids.

This Polar Bear (Holly's favorite animal and probably my favorite this zoo trip)! He kept walking over to the edge of the pool then pushing off with his back legs and floating back on his back, walking back to the wall and pushing off again. He did it several times. I do that! I do exactly that in the pool. kick off with my legs to feel the rush of water against my back and when the momentum dies and I start to drop, I put my legs back, swim back to the wall and push off again. Made me like this guy because we have some common habits.

The zoo had several life-size dinosaurs (I guess they were life-size? who knows) around the park. When Maddy and were here for Kindergarten field trip a few months back they weren't there. I thought the boys would like them more than they did. The girls didn't much care for them either. Ho-hum.

They did like looking at the pretty butterfly's and the creepy spiders and scorpions. Gross. Even dead, just gross.

Fun, fun (hot!) day. While I will admit that going to the zoo with just my own child to wrangle is nice, it was really fun to have the kids together to play and look at things together and I like having my sibs to talk with too. I think that Bryan might choose to pass on the whole excursion next year but I'm glad that he came so he is part of the kiddo's memories.

I remember going to the zoo in Kansas City back when Mary and cousin Jim were baptized and I don't remember anything at all about what we saw but I do remember that my aunts and uncles and cousins were all there and I have fond feelings about it. Hopefully this trip will be a great memory for Maddy and the other kids when they are old and feeble minded like I'm becoming.

August happenings

Yesterday morning I got an email from Benihana wishing me a happy birthday and I thought, wow, they are months early. And then it dawned on me that it was indeed my birthday month. I am sitting here on September 2nd noticing that the leaves on the mountains are changing colors. Where in the world did the summer go? School is in session and I am seeing more and more bloggers pulling out pumpkins for their centerpieces.

Well, August was full of summer activities so at least we managed to do what we could to feel fulfilled. Maddy had her last swimming birthday party of the season and the ones that come hereafter will likely be inside. Good thing about those is that I don't feel compelled to hang around and supervise as I do when there is a swimming pool with a deep end involved. I do love a good 3 hour birthday party on a Saturday so I can run errands alone :)

We joined Phil and Rachel Sanderson, (another couple we didn't know) and Tiburon and Adam Erickson, (and the last couple on the right we didn't know) in the Mystery Escape Room at The Gateway. They put you in a room and you have 60 minutes to figure out clues and puzzles that will lead you to the keys to disarm the bomb on the door as well as to find the keys to the door so you can escape the room.

We were probably 3 minutes short on time and unfortunately died in the terrorist bomb. Darn it. It was fun and exciting but we kind of walked away frustrated and for two days I kept thinking about what I could have done different and faster so that we could have gotten out in time. I want to go back and do another scenario now that I understand the gist of the experience. What a fun date!


The best part of course was the Black and Tan at Leatherby's afterwards.

Sarah, Katie and I each got an email inviting us to come and be a part of recording Saturday's Warrior. Saturday's Warrior!!! We watched the movie as kids and knew all the songs and used to dance in our flowey slips while on screen they did the ballet scene in Heaven. Then when we met the Lex de Azevedo and joined Millennium it was a privilege to since selected songs from the show through the years at various firesides and concerts. Through the 15 years of singing in Millennium we have heard Lex talk about how he has always hated the movie that was made. He talked about the show back in the 70s when it was performed in Los Angeles and then toured for years around various states. He talked about how the play as he wrote it was so very different than what the movie portrayed and how he was always a little disappointed that that was his legacy on file - something he didn't like.

So when he told us that he wanted to make a motion picture of Saturday's Warrior, not a stage play that was filmed like the one we had grown up with but a real movie, I hoped that maybe, just maybe, there might be a place for his old choir friends.

Fast forward to August and the email saying that he was going to record and we were invited to join the choir. Yay, yay, yay! We immediately called each other "did you get the email?" Huge sigh of relief that we were all asked to join. So we recorded the opening number and they did some filming with a mind to add the shots to "the making of" or during the closing credits.

I keep waiting to see if we will record the rest of the choir numbers as well sometime soon since I know they have started shooting the movie this week. Very exciting project to be a part of.

I joined a few co-workers for a golf tournament/fundraiser for the UofU cheerleader (our owner has a daughter who is a cheerleader). Ironically, all four of us are Huge BYU cougar fans. I tried to keep my BYU colors to a minimum but when you looked at us as a team I think it was clear that we didn't belong! It dawned on me later that if we were in a BYU fundraiser, I would never wear red even accidentally so I suppose it was clear to everyone there that we were rivals. Perhaps that's why they never stopped by to offer us drinks or snacks.

I was very pleased with my driving but still have a lot of work on putting and my irons. Boy, I stink at hitting anything with irons. Driver, got that down finally but no irons.

Austin Gunn (social media coordinator), Billy McCleary (tax director) , Mel, Jason Gough (controller)

Sarah gave us and Katie a few tickets to see Julianne in "Guys and Dolls" at Centerpoint Legacy Theater. This is a community theater along the lines of Hale Centre Theatre. It was really exciting for Julianne to have auditioned and have been given a part - a mission doll - but a part!

We were the audience for the preview night so we went with the understanding that they might stop the show if they had to and in fact, and one point they did stop the scene because some major props were missing from the stage. It actually gave the actors a chance to do some ad lib and then started over and actually was charming and fun.

I especially enjoyed the show because it was what we performed in 9th grade at Eisenhower Jr. High. I was a bag lady (which is not a real part) but that meant i was in 80% of the scenes including the ones full of the "guys" gambling.

Anyhow, the show was great. The girls we brought along with us enjoyed it as well. I'm glad Maddy is now old enough to sit still and enjoy a 2.5 hour show. I love sharing with her something I enjoy so much.

After the show we met Julianne for some pictures.

Maddy loves meeting the actors (well the ones that aren't too scary - read that as - girls) so we had to get a picture with Adelaide and with Sargent Sarah Brown.

And one of the hot box dancers that Maddy thought was really pretty. When I asked her if Maddy could take a picture with her she looked surprised and flattered since she was a chorus member without even a specific named character.

We also made a trip to Benihana for dinner. On our way into the parking garage the parking attendant told us that if we brought back a Benihana hat he would show us a magic trick. So Maddy made sure to bring it and was so excited. He had her come close to the window of the booth and he leaned out and took her hat, turning it upside down and said "ta-da, I turned your hat into a warrior hat". I'll admit I was a little bit disappointed but Maddy thought it was great.

And we leave with a picture of Toby, ever patient Toby, who let us dress him up with a barbie superhero mask and a kerchief cape. What a good sport he is - we love our Super Dog!