Abby Finishes 6th Grade

Before the summer ends, I'm trying to get caught up by finishing posts about the girls' previous school year. Here is a rundown of Abby's second semester of 6th grade at Hornedo Middle School. Most of my pictures are from Band functions since that's the main extra school activity she's involved in. This first picture is from their contest. Abby played with the Symphonic Band and she walked in first for her row and that's how we knew that she was first chair. She had kept it a secret from us until that concert. They played really well and I was so proud of her.

Their final school concert was played at Hornedo. The beginner band was conducted by a student teacher who had been helping out that semester. Abby performed with both the beginner and symphonic bands. 

The symphonic band had another contest during the school day at Coronado High School that Taryn and I were able to attend. My parents met us there too. There were not very many people in the audience since it was during the day, so we cheered loudly for them. They played the same contest songs that they had been working on all semester and they did great. They were awarded the highest score. 

Abby has an iPod that she uses at school for the internet and also to text me and a few friends. Here are some of her pictures that she used for her profile. Definitely your typical tween, serious-face, selfies, but I love them and made her send them to me too. 

Abby took this picture after a young women's activity where the girls got their hair and makeup done. She looks so grown up and beautiful.  

At the end of the school year, the beginner band plays a final concert at Western Playland. I chaperoned so I was able to be with Abby all day. Here's a picture of the beginner band horn section before they performed. 

And here's a picture of the entire band as they performed with a closeup of Abby as first chair. Because Abby was playing in two bands this semester, she had to learn twice as many songs, but she was very dedicated in practicing after school and also on the weekends with me. She is so talented and has picked it up very quickly. I'm excited to see how well she does in upcoming years. 

After the concert, they were able to just enjoy the park and all the rides. I followed Abby and her friends around and met a lot of her new friends from this year. Here she is with three of her band friends - Lexi, Carrie, and Braelinn. 

The final band concert was a huge combined effort with another middle school, Brown, and with Franklin High School where both Brown and Hornedo feed into. Mr. Beach, the Franklin band director, is also the director I work with when I play with the wind symphony, so that was fun. The group was huge and they played some numbers separately and then one final number all together. It was so fun to hear such a large group play together and to know it consisted of 6th-12th graders. 

After that concert, it took forever to find Abby, but we were able to grab her with a few of her friends for one last band picture. Her she is with Mary, Carrie, and Braelinn. 

I had to have a last day of school photo, so here's Abby on the last day of school. They have uniforms at their school with the occasional free dress day, so luckily the last day of school was free dress. She survived 6th grade and her first year in middle school! Academically, she ended the year with all As as well. We're so proud of all of her hard work, determination, courage, and good attitude she had during this year at school. 

Even though that was all the school pictures, I've decided to add just a few more pictures from her summer camps. Abby was able to attend three volleyball camps this summer in preparation for trying out for the school team next fall. Her first camp was right after school was let out and it was at UTEP. She played from 8 to 5 for three days straight. She really enjoyed working with the UTEP volleyball team and meeting new friends. Here they all are with the UTEP mascot, Pete the miner.

Abby also attended camps at Franklin High School and Coronado High School. I didn't get any pictures at Franklin, but I took a few of her warming up on the final day at Coronado. She's really excited to try out for the school team and has been working hard all summer to keep up her skills.

Two weeks after school was let out, Abby was able to attend a different kind of camp - Girls Camp for church. She's been in Young Womens since December, and every summer there is a Girls Camp held in Cloudcroft, NM. Abby was a first year and was so excited to go. I took pictures as they waited for everyone the morning they left.

Here's Abby with a few other first years from our ward: Abby, Braelinn, Carrie, and Devry. She had such a great time and came home telling us of all the fun and spiritual adventures that she had. She learned all the Girls Camp songs that she ended up teaching her sisters and she was even asked to bare her testimony at the fireside where we saw a slideshow of camp.  

Her favorite story to share was about how they were trying to do an activity, but were not able to start because of the rain. One of the leaders said a prayer and told the girls to also pray for the rain to stop so they could continue with their planned activities. Abby said as soon as they finished the prayer, the rain stopped. She will always remember how through faith, prayers can be answered. She met a lot of new friends and really loved being with them. I'm so happy that she had such a great time. She's just growing up too fast! In just a few short months, she'll be a teenager! I can't quite believe it, but we really are just so proud of the beautiful young lady that she is. We love you Abby!

Memorial Day Weekend in Utah

Our month of May ended with a bang as we traveled to Utah for Andrew Gibbons' high school graduation. When we got his announcement and realized that it was right before Tyler's long weekend, we decided it was worth the drive and the girls missing a little bit of school to surprise the family. We started our drive on my birthday, so we celebrated early with the Kasallis's. Teagan's birthday is the day before mine, so Tyler made two cakes - strawberry for Teagan and coconut for me. They were both yummy.

We drove to Moab Wednesday night, and then woke up early Thursday morning to drive the rest of the way to Salt Lake City before his graduation started around 1:00. We got there just in time. Tim and Lora knew we were coming and so did Tyler's parents, but his sisters, Tiffany and Tara, were surprised to see us all, so that was fun. I felt a little bad because Tiffany had even called me for my birthday and it was while we were driving, so I had to be sneaky in my answers so she didn't suspect that we were on our way there. 

After the graduation, we ate at Tucanos and walked around the outdoor mall for awhile. This is where I took the most pictures of the weekend. 

The kids loved the escalator and had to ride up and down it multiple times. All those kids together made for some interesting comments as people walked past us. It was funny. "Look at that stampede of children!" 

We were all still dressed up when we walked past the spray park, so luckily the kids stayed out of the water, but they played on the steps and seating areas for awhile. 

I love how easily these cousins play together. It helps that they are all close in ages, but after long months between visits, it definitely doesn't take them long to be best buddies again. We love our family!

We stayed a couple of nights at Tim and Lora's house in Tooele where the girls talked Uncle Tyler into buying fake nails for them at the store. They lasted all of a couple of hours, but the girls still had fun pressing them on and showing them off until they started falling off and getting lost. 

We hung up a sheet and watched a movie on the projector outside one night. Even though it was a little chilly, the kids bundled and snuggled up and enjoyed watching Sing together. 

We spent the end of the weekend at Tiffany and Justin's house in Spanish Fork. We went to church with them on Sunday too. While the kids were dressed up so nicely, I took my final pictures. I love how close Taryn and Lucy are. They love playing together and always have so much fun playing and being mischievous. 

Here are our 9 kids together from oldest to youngest. We had fun playing games, visiting, and just hanging out until we had to leave to drive back home. It was a really fun trip and we were so happy to be there for Andrew's graduation and to see all of the family. 

And here are a few final pictures to wrap up everything else that happened in May before the end of the school year. I played with the El Paso Wind Symphony again this year and our last concert was the first week of May. My dad's been playing with them as well, so Tessa decided to come to the concert with Grandma. I told her she needed to dress up a little bit, so she changed into a fancier shirt, but I couldn't get her to change out of her bright green converse shoes. But then I realized that's just Tessa, so I let it go; and I thought she looked really cute!

We've had awesome missionaries come to our ward and we've been better about feeding them regularly. As they get transferred to new areas or finish up to head home, they like to stop by and get pictures with our family. Here we are with Elder Kirkham and Elder Jansen before Elder Jansen left for a new area. The kids all loved them and called both of these elders "the funny ones." We loved having them in our home. 

Tyler and I have continued coaching volleyball at the YMCA. During the spring season that went through May, we coached three teams. I was only able to get a picture of two of the teams and they're both missing some players, since so many girls were in and out of town as the season came to an end. I think the day I was taking pictures, our third team hardly had any players at all. We really love volleyball and watching these girls improve as they work together as a team.

Finally, the deer were back in the neighborhood. This particular day, Taryn and I came home from our morning activities; and we were about to go outside to swim when I walked outside and stared at a deer looking right back at me. I slowly walked back inside and we watched them lounge on our backyard slope for the rest of the afternoon. There were three until Taryn saw the fourth one on the side of the yard by our pool. Eventually, she made her way over to where the other three were, and they all just laid there and rested in the shade. It was pretty cool. We love our backyard and our neighborhood. 

Abby's First Temple Trip

Before I get to the annual school-year posts, here's a post from April of things we did that month. The main event was Abby's first temple trip to do baptisms. It was also my and Tyler's first time to go to the Juarez Mexico temple, which is our temple. I made sure that we had our passports ready so that I could go with Abby during her first time. We had even found our own names through FamilySearch.org of my relatives on my mom's side to do the baptisms for. It was awesome! Here's Abby with her two Beehive buddies: Carrie and Braelinn.

We left our church to caravan at 4:45 in the morning so that we were getting to the temple around 6 in the morning. After we were finished with the baptisms, we took pictures outside of the temple. However, the sun is just coming up, so the best pictures with the temple in the background had the people in the picture staring directly into the rising sun. Here's the entire youth group that went that morning. 

Here's a picture of all the young women who were at the temple. I was able to leave my other girls sleeping at home because of my friend and visiting teacher, Heather, who came and stayed with them when we left so early in the morning. What a great visiting teacher! 

With it being Abby's first temple trip, I was able to tag along and watch. Tyler, now with a calling in Young Mens, would have gone either way. He was able to do the baptisms for Abby, so that was an extra special treat. We took pictures of just the three of us before we left to drive home as well. It was an amazing experience, and I can't wait to continue doing the work for my ancestors and going back to the temple to do it.

After driving back from the temple, we went straight to our volleyball games at the YMCA. I coached the games in my skirt that day, which was fine. The funny thing was, the dress that Taryn picked to wear that same day made her my twin. I had to take a picture. Aren't we just so cute? :)

Also in April, one of our Additional Relief Society Meetings was a painting class. Dee Bowden, from the 5th ward, came and taught the class and we all left with our own versions of this flower. It was so fun hanging out with the ladies and learning a new skill. All of the paintings turned out unique and beautiful.

Aubrey loves to have her picture taken. One day while at the Kasallis's house, our friends the Andersens stopped by with their brand new puppy, Leia. Aubrey took a turn holding her and had to have her picture taken with her. It's a cute picture because as we see puppy Leia growing, we can remember how tiny she once was. 

Easter Sunday was spent at church and with the Kasallis's after church. We had our annual Easter egg hunt and dinner with them. It was a fun time, until they were playing in the backyard when Aubrey got hit by the swing which knocked her back into the rock wall behind her where she hit her head. She got a decent cut, but we just applied pressure and decided she didn't need to go into the doctor's office. Luckily, she didn't mind the pigtails so we could keep an eye on it as it healed. Poor thing. 

April also included a city event through the YMCA, so Tessa and Aubrey prepared all month for a performance with their gymnastics class. Taryn continued her classes in gymnastics and ballet as well even though she didn't perform. I wanted to get some cute pictures of Taryn doing ballet, but the only time I remembered to pull out my phone for a picture was when they were stretching. 

The city event was held at the Chihuahuas baseball stadium and it was a Healthy Living event with performances by different groups and lots of vendors selling their products. We walked around the vendor booths playing activities and getting free goodies. The girls had their picture taken with these beauty queens at the end of the vendor row. 

Tessa and Aubrey performed a gymnastics routine with their Rollers 1 class to the song Thumbs by Sabrina Carpenter. It was choreographed and they loved practicing it at home. 

It had fun dance moves and a lot of tumbling including a little solo done by each girl. Both Tessa and Aubrey are awesome at back walkovers now and have perfect cartwheels and round-offs. They had a fun time performing, and they did a great job. They finished off the routine by doing some tricks with the trampoline which included front flips off the tramp with the help of their coach, Sean. They all did so well. Both girls really love gymnastics and are doing so well at learning new tricks.