The year 2020 started out with great news for Abby. One of the last days of Christmas break before starting school again, Abby was able to get her Drivers Permit. She was very excited. We decided to do her Drivers Ed online so she had to do so many hours of online courses and tests before she was able to get her permit; and she had to be 15 years old. So as soon as her birthday hit, she used the Christmas break to her advantage to do online classes so she could get her permit as soon as possible. We had to get a paper signed by her school, but since the schools were closed for the break too we couldn’t get to the DMV until a couple days before classes started up again in January. So we spent one of our last mornings of the break waiting in line at the DMV. Two hours later, we had an official permit driver. Abby was so excited and I had to get a picture for the record, so here she is. My baby girl all grown up. Now she has to do more online classes and she has to log so many hours with me as her instructor, and have it all done by her 16th birthday if she wants to get her actual license once she turns 16. So now I’ve become the official shotgun rider because whenever Abby and I are going somewhere together, she wants to drive.
Also during the break before heading back to school, we found out about free tickets to an ice hockey game, so Audrey and I loaded up our vans and took a bunch of church kids from the stake to a hockey game. It was really cold, but the kids had fun visiting with each other and hanging out. It was the perfect, fun way to end the break before getting back to the regular grind of school days.
The three day weekend in January, over Martin Luther King Day, our stake always does a service project for the youth and since I’m in the Stake YW Presidency right now, I helped plan and carry out the service project. We had all the youth meet at President Murphy’s house to help pick up and clean his yard and acreage. President Murphy was the stake president for 10 years and had just recently been released so it was kind of like a thank you from the stake to have the youth help clean his land. It also was a good place for over 100 youth to gather since a lot of service project places can’t accommodate that many at one time. The kids enjoyed hanging out together and a lot of hands made for light work. Here are some pictures of Abby and Tessa as they worked along friends.
Most of the service included raking leaves and pulling weeds and bagging all the trash. Their property was so large that it kept all kids busy for over an hour. They even started burning some of the leaves in their giant fire pit because the trash bags just kept filling up. After the work was done, the kids were able to play on the newly cleared field and eat pizza and cookies.
We were able to get a picture with everyone that came to help. We had a great turnout and the kids all talked about how much fun they had, so we thought it was a huge success. President Murphy also talked about how glad he was for the help because what those kids were able to accomplish in just a couple of hours would have taken him and his sons many weekends to complete.
Also in January, Tyler and I were able to go with other members of the ward to our ward temple night in Juarez. Tyler and I haven’t been able to go to the temple together for a long time. I usually go during the day while he’s at work and trying to go while we’re in Utah for our family vacations is sometimes a challenge. I was happy we were able to go together with our ward; and I was even more happy when he let us get a picture together before heading back home.
Abby continued her club volleyball team practices in January and even scrimmaged some other teams to help prepare them for their upcoming tournaments. When her team scrimmaged, I was able to stay and watch them play. I took a few pictures as she warmed up and while they played. She worked really hard and had great practices that her coach kept telling her how much she was improving. He even kept saying that he may move her to the first setter position instead of the 2nd setter which made her a little nervous, but she was very happy that her coach was noticing and recognizing her determination and work ethic to do well.
The last weekend in January was the girls’ first volleyball tournament held in Midland, Texas. This was Abby’s third year going to the tournament in Midland, but her first year competing with her new club team. We were so excited to see them play. Besides the few scrimmages they had the week leading up to this tournament, they had not played any other games. We had an afternoon pool on Saturday, so our morning was free. We met up at Cracker Barrel for a team breakfast. Here are all the girls on the Sol 15s team.
After breakfast, but before heading back to the hotel, the girls decided to have a Tik Tok dance party. Tik Toks are apparently the new thing for teenagers. They are like 10-20 second clips of music that someone has made dance moves to and everyone learns them so they all know the same dance moves when they hear that particular song. So the girls were all dancing and showing off for the parents in the Cracker Barrel parking lot. It’s so fun to see how much fun these girls have together.
They kept having to start over as more girls came out and joined them. Here’s Abby with some of her teammates from left to right: Abigail, Sophia, Reggie, Sophie, and Abby.
Once we got to the arena where the girls were playing their games and after warming up, the girls were ready to play. They had been preparing for this moment for months. They were all a little nervous, but very excited. Coach Martin told Abby right before they started that she was going to be co-captain with Sophie so both girls got to do the captain duties together - meeting the other captains and participating in the coin toss. Abby was even told by her coach that he was going to have her start, which she thought was going to be a possibility but was very nervous that it was kind of last minute and without much notice.
I took the picture from behind the girls and Andrea’s mom took a picture from the front as the girls lined up to warm up before their first game.
Andrea’s mom also got this awesome shot of Abby serving. I love action shots. So Abby did indeed start as the setter for this tournament, but she let her nerves get to her and she had some doubles right away and they ended up losing the first set. Sophie started the second set, but luckily Coach still let Abby play as the second setter unlike her high school coach who just stopped playing Abby all together. By the end of the 2nd set, which they won, Abby was able to get her jitters out and play well. So they went to a third set, but they ended up losing that game. They ended up in the bottom of their pool after losing all three of their pool games, although they were all close games. So they were headed to the bronze bracket for their Sunday play.
We found a Fazoli’s near our hotel and told the team about it. Many of them hadn’t heard of it before. It’s one of our favorite fast food places, so whenever we find a town that has one, we like to eat there. Everyone else on the team thought it was yummy too. Here’s a table of some of the girls - Hailey, Sophia, Andrea, Abigail, and Abby.
Taryn was not very excited about traveling for volleyball again and she even told her teacher, Mrs. Bock, about how sad she was that we had to go out of town to Midland. Mrs. Bock attempted to cheer her up by telling her about Swenson’s, an ice cream place in Midland that she likes. We ended up finding it and taking a quick trip there after dinner Saturday night. We had to take a picture so we could send it to Mrs. Bock. She was so happy that we got to try it.
We stayed in the hotel that night, but ended up driving home Sunday morning. Abby still doesn’t play on Sundays and her team this year has been very supportive of her. They kept us updated as they played in the bronze bracket and we were so happy to hear that they ended up winning every game on Sunday and therefore winning the consolation medal. It really cheered them up and gave the morale boost they needed after losing all their games on Saturday. At their first practice after the tournament, they presented Abby with her medal since she wasn’t there on that Sunday, and they took another team picture since Abby wasn’t there to be in the team picture when they won the medal either. We thought it was so nice of them to think of Abby and appreciate her like this. It’s a great group of girls and we are so proud of them for fighting back and getting the win.
A few final pictures from January. Taryn helped me cook dinner one night and she was very excited to help when I told her she could beat the chicken with a hammer. I was making chicken cordon bleu and the chicken needed to be very thin. Taryn had a lot of fun pounding away at the chicken and the dinner was delicious. The girls’ elementary also had a STEAM night at the school in January, so we went for some activities and to see some projects. Here’s a picture of Taryn with her straw tower that she constructed. Taryn is loving 2nd grade and really doing well in it.
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