Elinor's 23rd Birthday

We celebrated Elinor's birthday a couple weeks ago at a family dinner.  It was a gluten-free, dairy-free, seasoning-free.  She is very careful with what she eats, so we had foods we knew she liked.  

The food might not have been spicy, but the conversations certainly were!  Conspiracy theories abounded

It is the best thing in the world to have all our people together.

Daniel is so much fun!!

And look... they are all praying together.

Okay, they're not exactly praying.  They are actually playing One Night Werewolf.  

Elinor sent us this picture of Daniel and his block of cheese.  I guess he takes after his Great-grandma Fox.

George has really been into biking at local skateparks lately.

Ben and Bethany hosted a fabulous Super Bowl party at their place.  And Ben's first attempt at making chicken wings was a smashing success!

Both Abe and I were prize winners.  Abe won this fetching and over-sized Back to the Future t-shirt, freshly picked from the bargain bin at Walmart.  His accomplishment?  His prediction of the final score of the game was the closest to the actual outcome.   I won the Love Elephants-- which were a wedding gift Ben and Bethany received that they wished to share with the entire family.  My accomplishment?  My prediction being the furthest away from the final outcome. 

Wait!... What Month Is It?

Cannon is heading into the spring of his senior year-- so lots of lasts.  Actually, I am planning a big "Ode to Cannon" post about all his accolades and achievements and upcoming adventures.  But not quite yet.  My heart isn't quite ready.  This picture was taken at the Valentine's "Songs and Sweets" that the Madrigals put on.  Most of these performances are more serious in nature.  But there are always a couple of guys who lighten the mood and perform some gender bending duet.  

This time it was Cannon and his friend Sterling, singing "Love Is an Open Door" from Frozen.  

They were very silly... but they did sing it well:)

Because life is so full and time is passing so quickly, I can not tell you what the date of this picture was.  It frightens me that I'm not even sure what month it was-- January... February?  I know it wasn't March.  I'm going to go with February.    Abe and I joined Andrea and James at a Jazz game with killer awesome seats! 

Like 5th row--  It was so cool!  But the evening was very memorable for another reason.

Poor Clark had appendicitis and went into surgery while we were at the game.  As soon as the game was done, we hustled down there to be with him and Brianna.  Surgery went well and we were there when he woke up.  It was all rather unexpected-- but fortunately he and Brianna had already taken a few days off for the upcoming President's Day weekend.  Aha!  It was February 11th! So he had plenty of time to recover and Brianna was there to help him out.

We went to go see my cute niece, Kaylee, play the part of The Inspector in The Play That Goes Wrong at Alta High School.  Such a funny show and she was wonderful!

On Tessa's birthday I went to lunch with Faith.  It seemed the thing to do.  We went to Chubby's and did more wedding planning. 

I LOVED going to the temple with Peter.

The next generation of Kids' Book Club!!!  We started it up again with the current crop of neighborhood "Homies".  We read Caddie Woodlawn, and it was wonderful.  They are a thoughtful and talkative group.  And speaking of book clubs.  I have rejoined my neighborhood women's book club.  I fell off the wagon there for a while-- but was happy to be back last month.  We read and discussed The Sun Does Shine.  It was good.  I can't say I loved it as much as some others did, but it was worth the read.

Go For the Gold!

 

It's Olympics time again!!!!!  These Winter Games are in Italy-- hence our Italian themed opening ceremony party on Friday night. 

Which ceremony, was in fact, extremely well done and very classy.  Especially so in comparison to the horrific monstrosity that was the Paris Opening Ceremony.  Sorry, not sorry.

Italian sodas

A taste of Italy for dinner

Me and my Clark-- 

This is a 3D printed figure called a "Dummy 13".  It's made of tons of little pieces assembled together into lots of moveable joints.  

George took it to the next level and created a 6ft tall Dummy 13 named "Little Ricky".  This is a project he's been working on for many months and he's finally finished.  

On this day, Little Ricky was just chillin'.  But in the future, you can expect to see him festively attired for holidays and special events.  The possibilities are endless

We enjoyed a Fox siblings dinner out last night.

Cannon and his date, Sophie, headed to the school's Sweethearts dance last night.

Once they are married, Faith and Landen will be moving into a basement apartment in his aunt's home that is quite near to our house.  Yay!  I like having grown kids living close by.  They've been working hard painting and preparing the apartment.

Since Clark was quite a little boy, he and Abe have had a tradition of going out to a seafood feast about once a year.  The last couple years, Clark gifts the meal to Abe for Christmas.  

Greta and Aly having fun with my phone

Rock On, George!

 

George is the bass player for a band-- Redwood Revival-- and they recently competed in Corner Canyon High School's Battle of the Bands.  

This was his (and all of our) first experience with Battle of the Bands-- and it was so much fun!  There were 11 bands competing and each played a cover song and an original song.

Over the last few years, George has taken piano lessons and some bass guitar lessons with Nate Anderson.  So when a band of high school aged musicians that Nate mentors needed a bass player, he invited George.   

George joined and that was a very good decision!

Have a listen....click here

They did so well-- and THEY WON FIRST PLACE!

The highlight of Peter's life was crowd surfing!  

They'll be performing a 30 minute set on the main stage at Draper Days in July.  

It was fun to be there with lots of family to support our Jorge.

On the left is their mentor-- Nate Anderson.  He helped them not only with their musicality, but also how professionally they presented themselves.

They be making a recording of their original soon-- can't wait!

After their sound check the night before, there was a guy making a documentary about Battle of the Bands and he interviewed the band.  Kind of fun

Rock On! Abe is 51

Hee hee!  We were so tricky!  We planned a surprise birthday party for Abe's 51st birthday.  Everyone gathered at the Riverton Chubby's banquet room and then--after running a few made up errands together, Abe and I showed up, and we all enjoyed a tasty dinner.  Then we all went around sharing what we loved about Abe.  Most of the comments were about how caring he is and how much he loves his family.  It was very tender.

The surprise gathering was Clark's idea-- and a very fine idea it was.  

But the surprises weren't over yet....

Before we ran our excuse errands, we dropped Peter and Greta at Ben and Bethany's for a "movie night".  But as soon as we dropped them off, they all headed back to our house to decorate for Phase 2.

George "went to the gym" with Landen.  But actually, they headed over to Chubby's to decorate for the Phase 1.

This is what we came home to-- a karaoke party!!  This was most definitely our family's cup of tea.  It was sooo much fun!

Clark kicked it off with a little Billy Joel-- "Movin' Out"

Ben and Beth did couple of duets-- "Double Trouble" from Eurovision and "Islands in the Stream" by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.  And can I just say-- these two can SING!

Abe and I performed our traditional and ever-inspiring "Endless Love" by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross.  We've been doing it for years... and dare I say, we are actually improving?

Faith and Landen sang "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"

In one of the most hysterical moments of the night-- Cannon singing "Lion of Love" from Eurovision

Peter's first ever karaoke-- "Viva la Vida".  Well done, Peter!

Greta rocked "Party in the USA"

George-- who was quite the vocal revelation-- performed "A Man Without Love"

Hunter-- who, btw-- is also an fantastic singer performed "Hooked on a Feeling" .

The whole night it was so fun to cheer and sing along.  It was like our own personal little rock concert.  

You probably wouldn't... but you might ask... Betsy, why did you get such a boring cake?  Well the truth is, I was trying so hard to decide what message to write on the cake that I forgot to specify any other decoration or frosting color.  So I suppose the Costco worker went with the gender neutral yellow.  Oh well.  It was tasty, nonetheless.

Go ahead and treat yourself-- have a little listen