On Monday, July 20th, Clark proposed to his now fiance, Alexa!! They are planning to be married August 18th at the Bountiful Temple. We are all so pleased for them and so happy they have found each other.
Gorgeous!!! They will be living down in Provo and working and going to school.
More ballet zoom classes. Cannon and George are making a big change in their training coming this fall. They are leaving Ballet West and moving to Central Utah Ballet. This has been a very difficult decision, because Ballet West has been very good to us and they boys have loved it and had tremendous opportunities. I have nothing but love for Ballet West Academy. We feel this change will better fit our long term goals and they will still have exceptionally great teachers at this new studio. In fact, many of the teachers they have already been working with will be going to the new studio as well. Even so, change is tough and it's hard to leave something you really love, in the hope of something better.
Peter had his first Tae Kwon Do testing on Thursday.
Peter is 2nd from the right.
He did a great job on his testing, but did have some trouble breaking his board. But he kept trying. And even when Master Kim asked him if he wanted to try later in class, through his tears he said, "No I want to do it now". And then he did it. And that is why we do TKD or swim or ballet or robotics or orchestra . We enjoy the activity itself and we have opportunities to face fears and hard things and overcome.
He was a still a little shook from breaking that board.
Now he's a yellow belt.
The moment of breaking the board:)
Here's one of my favorite pictures of the week-- Faith loves to swim butterfly and she's getting better and better at it.
Faith is on the first block about to race her first 200 IM.
In other VERY exciting news for Faith-- she just got her first job (other than babysitting) being an assistant teacher at Jolley's Gymnastic Tumbling-- her old studio she went to for nine years. Greta recently started there and they asked if Faith was interested in coming to work there. This is Faith's childhood dream come true!
She's been asking to start piano lessons for a while. Like I could say no, even if I wanted to!
She just turned four, so of course we go very slowly and practice for maybe 10 minutes a day. But she loves it and she is doing quite well. I admit, it's very enjoyable to work with her.
Abe and I borrowed my brother's commercial grade electric scooters and had such a fabulous date riding them around the city park.
We all had fun riding them the next day before handing them back over. I'd love to get a couple of these-- so much fun!
When then kids have a meeting on the trampoline to discuss matters they do not what our input on.
These four kiddos had swim lessons this week. We haven't had any kids in swim lessons since Clark was about 5 year old. Abe has taught them to swim by taking them swimming and just playing in the water with them. Since pool time has been limited due to COVID, we figured we'd put them in lessons. Also, Elinor is a swim teacher at the pool they went to. This was one of the best decisions of the whole summer! Thy loved everything about swim lessons. We will most definitely go back next year. Actually, Faith will likely be a teacher there next year as well.
Both Greta and Peter passed off their levels.
Peter especially took to the water-- they had lessons every day and every morning Peter watched the clock and perseverated on the time until it was time to go.
The great thing for Peter is he can swim by himself-- not great, but he can independently get from one end of the pool to the other.
Also, Peter was determined to dive off the diving board on his last day. Mind you, he didn't know how to dive and had never even dove off the side before. But no matter. He had made up his mind.
Ha ha ha! YES!!! We have gotten so many laughs from this video. And don't worry-- he loved it.
His chest was pretty red, but he was thrilled with his performance!
Cannon and George learned loads of news skills and are entertaining thoughts of a morning swim team next summer.
I was super impressed with Fuller's Swim School and highly recommend them to anyone looking into swim lessons for next year. They are are full up for this year.
One day I went back in the afternoon to watch Elinor teach for a bit. She was wonderful-- so calm and thorough and her kids were swimming great. It's been a great summer job for her. Hard work, but very rewarding.
And once more, because it was just so good!
It was fun this afternoon when Elinor and several work friends stopped by the house. Peter was shocked to see his swim teacher away from the pool.
Our little Greta turned 4 this week!! One of her nicknames is UniKitty-- a character from The Lego Movie
Here is how UniKitty is described on the Lego Website: Hailing from Cloud Cuckoo Land, the capital of rainbows and puppies, she is half unicorn, half anime kitten and one endless dance party.
She is the happiest, most cheerful, loving child I have ever known-- she is sunshine and unicorns and rainbows. She is entirely beloved by everyone in the family. So when I informed the boys that we were going to have a fancy family tea party to celebrate her birthday and they would need to wear their very fanciest clothes... they were ALL IN!
This birthday celebration will likely go down as one of my very favorite family memories ever. I was so much fun and Greta was beyond thrilled with the activity and the attention.
We set up the tent and table in the backyard and got our my grandmother's fancy tea cup collection.
So glad Cannon insisted on holding our regal cat in the pictures. I ADORE this picture.
Here is a little miracle of the day-- Stephanie Chase, not knowing what our fancy occasion was, brought over this Twix cake masterpiece. She wanted to make it, but didn't want to eat it. Okay! Twist our arms-- we'll eat it! But seriously, it was beautiful and delicious and made the perfect centerpiece of our table.
I recognize that this wasn't a "real" English tea party-- no scones, no cucumber sandwiches. Actually our party food consisted of only sugar, sugar, and more sugar. But there were no complaints from the little people.
Bethany curled Greta's hair for her.
When Abe came downstairs in his gloves and cravat there was much cheering and clapping throughout the family. And we all spoke in terrible English accents.
Happiest of birthdays to this happy, loving, joyful child. We love you, Greta!
