Tashena's First Dance

Saturday night was the Homecoming Dance for Bountiful High School.  It was Tashena's first high school dance and I can hardly believe it!  Where has the time gone?  Where is the little girl who played with Barbies?  If she has to grow up, at least she is turning into a beautiful and talented young woman!  I think she looked so beautiful in her dress!

Tashena with her friend Leea.

Tashena, Leea, and Alex

Tashena, Michelle, and Leea

The whole group!

Meet the Team

Tashena is on the volleyball team at Bountiful High School!  First, I can't believe that she is in high school!  How did this happen?  Second, I am so proud of this girl!  She is a three sport athlete and she is incredibly talented!  Last night my family went to a benefit dinner (our attendance was compulsory because Tashena was required to sell a certain number of tickets) at the school to meet the team and watch some scrimmage games.  It was really nice with tables covered in red and white tablecloths set up outside in the courtyard.  Several families worked together to make all of the food and other families (including my sister) served it and it was delicious!  After the dinner the whole team was introduced then the freshmen played the sophomore team and the JV played the varsity team.  Tashena is on the sophomore team and they won!  During the games there was a raffle for all kinds of Bountiful Braves swag and Marilyn won a water bottle!  It was really nice and I was quite impressed with BHS.  I have a feeling my family will be spending a lot of time in that gym!

Three Medals

This week Tashena competed for the final time at the District Track & Field Championships.  She entered three events (discus, long jump, and shot put) and won medals in all three of them!

In the discus she broke a district record that has stood for thirty years!

Discus Champion (Look at those guns!).  She has won the discus championship for three years in a row!

Long jump champion.

Third place in shot put.  I am so proud of this girl!  I can't wait to see what she does next year in high school!

A New PR

Tashena had another track meet yesterday!  Usually I really love watching her compete but it was unbelievably cold.  Even though I was freezing I was still so proud of her!  She took first place in the long jump and second place in shot put!  In the discus, which is her best event, she threw 132.1 feet!  Yes!  You read that correctly!  She threw 132.1 feet which is her best distance ever.  She shattered the high school record and one of the coaches told my brother-in-law that Tashena would place in the top 40 in the nation on the college level with that distance!  Of course our family has always believed that she is incredibly talented but it is an amazing feeling to hear all of the other coaches, parents, and students cheering for her by name!  I always tease her about watching her compete at the Olympics but I may need to start saving my money for a trip to Tokyo in 2020!

Miss Track Star

Tashena had her first track meet of the season yesterday.

She threw the shot put 29 feet to take first place!

She jumped 15.4 feet in the long jump, which is a PR, and took third place.

Finally, in discus, her best event, she threw 111 feet to easily take first place!  I think she is amazing and I can't wait to see what she does during the rest of the season!

Jazz Game with Tashena

While I sometimes miss the little girl who used to love to play Barbies for hours on end, I have to admit that the teenage Tashena is also pretty fun.  Recently she told me that she really, really wanted to go to a Jazz game so, clearly, we had to go to last night's game against the Dallas Mavericks because it was the last home game of the season.  I am so glad that Tashena talked me into going because it was intense!  The game had huge playoff implications for both teams as they were both battling to clinch a spot.  The crowd was loud and rowdy and Tashena and I definitely added to the noise.  The Jazz stayed with the Mavericks with some electrifying three-pointers from Joe Ingles to end the first quarter and they ended the second quarter down by just four points.  It was so much fun listening to Tashena analyze the game.  In the third quarter the Jazz were down by as many as eleven but then went on an 8-0 run to get back in the game.  The Vivint Arena was absolutely out of control cheering for the Jazz at this point and it was so much fun to watch Tashena take it all in.  There is nothing like a Utah Jazz crowd when they are playing well!  In the fourth quarter the Jazz could not seem to make a basket no matter what they did.  Gordon Hayward eventually got a nice three-pointer and made two foul shots to bring Utah within five in the last few minutes but it was not enough and they ended up losing to Dallas 101-92.  It was a heartbreaker because the Jazz lost control of their own destiny and now need to beat the Lakers and they need the Rockets to lose to the Kings to clinch the final playoff spot.  Needless to say, we were a bit more subdued walking out of the arena than we were walking in, but I had so much fun at this game.  It was almost as much fun as playing Barbies!

Fun at the Bees Game

Saturday night Marilyn and I took Sean and Tashena to a Salt Lake Bees game against the Sacramento River Cats.  We had so much fun!  The Bees played really well (with a dramatic home run in the third inning) and eventually won the game 6-0, but being with Sean and Tashena is what made this night such a good time.  I sure do love them!  We got laughing so hard that I could not breathe and I think we were more entertaining to the people around us than the game was.  At one point Sean was taking a bunch of selfies with Marilyn's phone and the lady behind us started photobombing.  Good times!  After the game there were fireworks which is always a lot of fun. It did eventually get a little bit chilly but sitting outside in the sunshine and watching some baseball made me get really excited for summer!

Gwinna

Yesterday I went with my family to watch Tashena dance in CDT's production of Gwinna at Capitol Theatre.  The production, based on the children's book of the same name by Barbara Helen Berger, tells the story of a little girl who has wings but doesn't know that she can fly.  A woodworker and his wife want a child desperately and ask the Mother of the Owls to help them.  She promises them a child but they must let her go when she turns twelve.  The couple agrees but when their child, Gwinna, develops wings, they bind them up so she can't leave them.  Gwinna hears a melody that only she can hear and it frightens her parents.  When Mother Owl calls her home her parents try to stop her but they are turned to stone.  When Mother Owl learns that Gwinna can hear the music, she sends her in search of it.  With the help of a griffin Gwinna finds Druantia, the guardian of the trees, who tells her that her song has been forgotten and that she must bring it back to the world.  Gwinna builds a harp and the wind teaches her how to play it.  She flies back to her parents and brings them back to life by playing her harp.  I really liked the story, the choreography, and the music.  The costumes were really beautiful, especially all of the owls and their wings.

Tashena's dance (which was at the end!) was called "Wind in the Harp" and I thought it was very elegant and graceful.  My favorite part of the choreography was when Tashena had a very dramatic leap to mimic the wind.  I always love watching Tashena on stage because she expresses everything she feels through dance.

Tashena did such a good job and we are so proud of her!

Gwinna will be performed once again at the Sandy Amphitheater on June 21 (a free concert) and at the Utah Arts Festival on June 25.  Come see my beautiful and talented niece perform.

The Three Questions

Crumb and the Pirates

Winter Break Jazz Game

One of the things I really wanted to do over winter break was take Sean and Tashena to a Jazz game.  I have only been to one game this season, which is really unusual for me, and I've missed it.  I got four tickets to last night's game against the Philadelphia 76ers (Kristine came with us, too) and it was so much fun!

It ended up being a great game!  The Jazz had a quick start (despite the fact that Derrick Favors, Dante Exum, Rudy Gobert, and Alec Burks were injured) and they led by as many as 21 points during the second quarter.  There was a big crowd in attendance and so it was pretty rowdy.  Then the 76ers went on a 29-10 run at the end of the third quarter and took over the lead 78-76.  The Jazz battled back in the fourth quarter, regaining the lead until the Sixers pulled ahead 89-91 with 38 seconds left.  It was intense!  Hayward electrified the crowd with a 3-pointer which put the Jazz ahead 92-91 with 33 seconds left.  They ended the game with a 95-91 victory!  So much fun!

It was such a great night!  I love spending time with Sean and Tashena (and I'm so glad that Kristine got to come, too).  They make everything so much more fun!

Gingerbread Houses 2015

Every year, usually on the Sunday before Christmas, we make gingerbread houses with Sean and Tashena.  This tradition started the year that Tashena joined our family and we always look forward to it!

Sean usually eats more frosting than he puts on his house!

A goatee often makes an appearance, as well!

Various stages of construction!  We buy kits and then use a hot glue gun to put them together because we never eat them and we like to get to the fun part, which is decorating, as soon as possible!  The kits come with candy but we always buy more!

I think Sean's goal was to cover every inch of his house with candy!  He is so much fun!

Tashena worked very diligently on her house and was the last to finish!  She used the glue gun to attach all of that coconut!

Marilyn with her house.

My house.

Sean with his house.

Tashena with her house.

The whole village.

A few more views.  I love this tradition because I love spending time with Sean and Tashena.  We laughed so hard while making these gingerbread houses and I hope they always remember the fun times we had together!  After making our houses we watched Christmas movies for the rest of the night.  Sean and Tashena have every word memorized to the movie Elf and we thought it was adorable.  Marilyn and I have every word memorized to A Christmas Story and they thought it was annoying!

Note:  Here is Tashena's first gingerbread house!