We finished off the entire first semester of school virtually but Aubrey still had to do a science fair project. She decided to find out if temperature affected bubbles and how long they would last at different temperatures. We took some pictures as she did her time trials. It was definitely more time consuming than we were thinking it would be. Those darn bubbles just took forever to pop no matter the temperature.
Aubrey also had a visit with the dentist in December. We moved our girls over to Tony Kasallis’s practice since he opened up his own dental practice really close to our neighborhood. Aubrey’s orthodontist recommended that two of her canine teeth get extracted to make room for her adult teeth to come in. Aubrey’s baby teeth have always been really slow at falling out and she already had another tooth extracted a couple years ago. So we went into Tony’s office after her classes one day and he pulled both of her upper canines. We took the picture to show how long the roots were. They were not wanting to come out and even on the second tooth Dr. Kasallis pulled, he had to stand up to get enough leverage to pull it out. Poor Aubrey! She sat there with her eyes closed, softly humming to herself while he worked to keep her mind off of the tugging process. She was amazing. We love that girl and her now hole-y smile. Abby’s friend Astrid comes over a lot and all of us love her. One weekend when she came over, she brought a gingerbread house kit. She and Abby worked on it but got frustrated with the frosting glue after a couple house disasters. Later Tessa and Aubrey took turns working on it and even Taryn helped with some decorating, so it became a full team effort by the time it was complete. We took a picture with all of them so we could remember their final creation.
Tessa finished the school semester by working daily with her theater club. She is in a brand new theater class this year at school and she even joined the after school club which consisted of a zoom class every day after school for two hours. They prepared a virtual play that they performed for two nights in a row the last week of the school semester. They had auditions and everything and Tessa was casted as Clarence in their production of It’s a Wonderful Life. She was so excited and loved working on her lines and practicing with the other actors. Tessa decided to perform in our garage so the night of her first performance, I took a quick picture before they started and before I went inside to enjoy the performance on our big screen.
It was such a different way of watching a play, but it was so creative and awesome the way they did it. We watched it both nights and figured out the right way the second night, so that we could see everyone in each “scene” at the same time on the screen which helped as they “interacted with each other” virtually. It was pretty amazing. Here are the starting screens with the credits showing Tessa’s name as Clarence.
We took a couple pictures of our tv the second night to show Tessa in some of her scenes. All of the students performed so well, and it was awesome to see how each person was perfect for the role that they were cast in. Tessa’s theater teacher was brilliant and did a great job adapting the play to these kids and their circumstances.
Tessa was the perfect “kooky angel” from the past who worked hard to earn his wings. She was so cute on the screen and did a great job with her lines and interactions with her classmates. At the end of the play each night, they had the curtain call by having everyone wave on their screen together. It really was well done and the kids all did amazingly well. It was so fun to watch.
For the entire first semester of school, I worked off and on in the school office. For the last 4-6 weeks of the semester, I was working only on Tuesdays. Right before the Christmas break, I stopped by the office to pick up some Christmas goodies, so I grabbed a picture with Julie, my coworker, so they could post it on our school’s facebook page. I really enjoy working at the school and with the ladies in the office. I love being able to work on the computer creating spreadsheets and forms, but also being able to talk to people on the phone and with all the teachers as I run errands through the school. This first semester was harder because there were only a few of us in the school and none of them were teachers or students. Working once a week kept only one lady in the front office at a time, but that made for quiet, lonely days since we were all alone. But it kept us safer and able to be at home the majority of the time which was good for me, since my kids were all at home doing school virtually.
This Christmas, Tyler bought some new lights for our stairs. Our old rope lights were glitching and not staying lit. His new purchase came with a remote and multiple color and twinkling options which was fun to switch up daily. One night I was sitting on our front couches and enjoying the view of our Christmas tree and stair lights, so I snapped a picture. Tyler also came across some plans to create a tree from wood scraps so he spent a couple nights working on it while we watched Christmas movies. It turned out really awesome and I plan to have it be outside by our light post in the front yard from now on for Christmas decorations. We started a new tradition this year of watching a classic Christmas movie every night as a family starting December 1st. We wrote down all of our favorites and classics that we could think of, and the girls pulled one out of a bag each night to determine which movie we would watch. It was really fun and it kept us in the Christmas spirit all month long.
We had some fun visitors during the month of December. Elder Vail, who served in our stake for over a year, but in our ward for the majority of the Covid pandemic, finished his mission in the middle of December, so he stopped by our house for a final goodbye and picture. He worked with Tyler a lot while Tyler was the acting ward mission leader; and since Elder Vail was in the stake for so long, Abby and I had been playing volleyball with him for over a year when we were still playing volleyball twice a week with the ladies from church and all the missionaries on their Pday. Kristin and Shaela Baker passed through on their way from Houston to Arizona and asked to stay the night with us. We were happy to oblige and to be able to spend the evening with them visiting and eating dinner. They were our closest friends when Tyler was in optometry school in California. They only had Derek and Shaela at the time and we didn’t have any kids yet. They moved to Houston when I was pregnant with Abby, but we have been able to stay in touch and visit one another over the years as we’ve both added kids to our families. Kristin was driving Shaela out to Arizona for a job and preparing for Derek’s upcoming wedding, so it was fun to catch up and reminisce on how much our families have grown and changed. We were happy to have them even for a short visit.
On December 15th, Tyler and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. We threw around a few ideas of doing something big for our 20th, but with the pandemic, there weren’t a lot of travel options anyway, so we spent a quiet evening at home. Tyler picked up food for us from a restaurant and our girls went all out decorating the table and serving us the food. Taryn and Tessa made us cards that we had displayed on our table. I love them so much!
The rest of this post is about Abby and her 16th birthday. Ever since her school volleyball season ended in mid-October, she started working one on one with her club volleyball coach to improve her setting. We went two to three times a week to a friend’s sand volleyball court in his backyard and Abby worked with Coach Martin on her setting. One time, I thought to take some pictures and videos. I was so proud of her dedication and determination to improve and it really has helped her. She feels more confident on the court and her sets are a lot more consistent and it’s really elevated her game. Astrid brought over a sweet 16 birthday gift to Abby before we left town for Christmas. She got Abby white crocs which she loves and a basket of goodies and 16 one dollar bills. She is one of Abby’s closest friends. They even talk about hoping to room together at BYU in the future. She’s an awesome friend.
At our Kasibbons dinner, the Kasallis family treated Abby to a birthday extravaganza complete with birthday cake and candles and our traditional gift wrapped in a gift wrapped in a gift, etc. All of the gifts that they got Abby were to prepare her for dating so it included things like gum, hair accessories, a car air freshener, a burrito blanket, and more. We were all laughing as AJ explained the need and uses for each of the gifts they picked out. It was very thoughtful and fun.
On her actual birthday, we were traveling to Utah for the Christmas break. We woke up in our hotel in Moab, UT the morning of her birthday, so I took her birthday photo with the beautiful fog and mountains of Moab behind her. We love this girl and all that she has become. She’s an awesome big sister and she’s one of my closest friends. I love talking to her and just hanging out with her. She’s a hard worker, a straight-A student, and a loyal friend. She’s determined, independent, loving, thoughtful, respectful, and kind to everyone. She is an amazing teenager and we are so proud of her. We stayed with Tyler’s sister Tiffany for the duration of our Christmas vacation and she had her house already decorated when we showed up Saturday afternoon on Abby’s birthday.
Abby’s cousin, Halley, loves to decorate cakes so we asked if she’d be willing to make a cake for Abby’s birthday. She found out Abby loves the color lavender and she decorated this amazing creation. It was so beautiful. Abby was so excited and we all loved the strawberries on top.
We wrapped Abby’s gifts at home with our traditional wrapping and traveled with the huge box in the back of the van. All of the cousins were with us as she unwrapped her gifts and one of their traditions is to sing happy birthday as they unwrap the gift. The funny part was they thought she only had one gift to unwrap, but once they realized our tradition of wrapping a gift inside a gift, we laughed every time she pulled out another unwrapped gift and they had to start singing happy birthday again as she unwrapped that one. And that kept repeating while she unwrapped like 10 gifts that they thought was only supposed to be one. The first gift Abby got out of her big box was this quilt that I made for her using all of her elementary and middle school T-shirts. I realized a week or so before her birthday that her 16th birthday would be a good time to give her a quilt especially when I thought about the number of volleyball and high school shirts she’s accumulated already and she’s only half way through high school. It would have been too many for one quilt, so I decided she’ll have to have two, and I could make the first one with all of her T-shirts that she’s already collected and saved. It was fun reminiscing over all of her past schools and events and she loved it when she opened it. I thought it turned out great.
We spent the main part of her birthday at her cousin Andrew’s wedding, but that event will be in the next post. She was happy to be with family and see her Utah cousins on her birthday, so she had a great day even though she wasn’t the center of the day. We really do love this girl and are so proud of the woman she has become. Happy 16th Birthday Abby!!
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