It's about time I update you!

This is long overdue! Sometimes I just can't believe how fast the time flies, and not necessarily when you're having fun. The last several weeks have had a lot of fun though. Time really flies when I am so busy that I don't have time to think about it, which defines the last few weeks of our lives. In fact, I have to look at the calendar to remember what even happened.

Our Friday night dance classes are now complete. We actually ended up with only 5 weeks instead of 6 but we crammed in the full 6 hours of instruction! The kids had a great time and really did well at learning all the steps. We spent 3 weeks learning the waltz and 2 weeks learning the swing. Justin would get bored (because we already know everything, just ask us!) and then he would become entertaining. I still laugh every time I think of some of the facial expressions and postures he would do to keep us having fun. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I'm sure that the instructors thought we were rude but Justin didn't care and I was laughing too hard to worry about it. Seila and Kai started to follow our example though and we had to stop. We actually traded partners so that I was dancing with Kai and Seila with Justin. He helped her learn to follow better (he is a really good lead) and I helped Kai learn to lead. Kai did a pretty good job!! I was very proud of him. I guess we're going to have to crank it up here at home so that they don't get rusty!

The 8th grade girls basketball team that Seila is on is making great improvements in their skills and team work. The margin by which they are defeated seems to get smaller with every game. They only have 3 games left in the season but they are very hopeful! Seila said one day, one of the coaches asked her if her mom knew how to play basketball. She had to tell him no. I was very glad that she was truthful.

Kai has done well in wrestling this year, considering the fact that he hasn't really wrestled for 3 or 4 years now. He has won several matches and has held off opponents who have more experience that he does. In fact, his last match last Thursday with a kid who pinned him the last time that they wrestled each other, should have ended in a tie but, some missing points mysteriously showed up in favor of the other kid. Oh well, that's how the game goes sometimes. He was pretty proud of himself and Justin was proud of him too. Justin saw the match and said Kai did a great job.

Hadley has decided that she doesn't want to be smarter than her friends so, she is slowing down in her school work. I'm not sure how to fix this problem. Maybe I should lie to her and tell her that her friends are doing Algebra at school and she'd better kick it up a notch if she wants to keep up with them. Really though, she is doing a great job and sometimes she is even self-motivated! I love those days. I really need to reward her more for those, in hopes that she'll keep it up. She loves to come to basketball with Seila and I three times a week so that she can babysit the little kids while the moms play. She is a good babysitter and loves little kids. She had the chance to help at Mrs. Becky's preschool last week and she was in heaven!

Kale is definitely the youngest child. It seems that every day I notice more and more how spoiled he is. I finally had to lay down the law about whining today. I can't stand it anymore! I shouldn't have any whining anymore. There are no toddlers here. His favorite time to whine is at bed time. He whines that he doesn't want to go to bed (I'm sure it is hard to go to bed when everyone else is still up). He whines that he is thirsty. He whines that he is hungry. He whines that he didn't get dessert, even when we don't have any dessert. Tonight I told him that if he whines at bed time, the next night he'll go to bed 15 minutes earlier. That seemed to work, tonight anyway. He knows we'll stick him to it. I hate him being gone all day at Kindergarten and I love it when he comes home for lunch. I don't get to see him enough so I am rearranging my piano lessons to have more free time after school when he is home. So, now that I have rescheduled several piano lessons, he doesn't want to be with me but with his friends playing. He never wants to play with his friends after school. He always wants my attention. But now that he can have my attention, he wants to play with his friends. Ugh!

Thanks to our newly-moved-to-the-Royal-slope family (they kept our kids), Justin and I were able to get away for a few days with some friends. We went to Las Vegas. We were hoping to get a little bit warmer weather but all we got was rain. Rain, rain, rain. We had a great time anyway. We went to the temple one day. We went shopping the other days. We saw a few shows at night (thanks again Allie!): Blue Man group, "O", and Phantom of the Opera. We plenty of great food and we got to meet Miss Washington, who was eating at the same buffet as we were, along with the other Miss America pagent contestants. Our best meal was at Bobby Flay's restaurant. When we got home from Vegas, Justin used the Internet to find some of the recipes that we ate and then he recreated some of them! He did a great job and we again had great food!

When we got back from Vegas, we scheduled Justin's surgery with the Dr. in Spokane. On Thursday Justin and I drove up and had the procedure done to remove the rest of the carcinoma that was on his scalp. They told us to plan on 2 - 4 hours but it took them 4 1/2 hours to complete the procedure. The extra time was because he is tough-skinned, literally. They had a hard time getting his skin numbed up again when it was time to close his new wound. They told him he had tough skin. Once they got him all numb, they started cutting again. Yes, the reconstruction was worse than the initial skin cancer. They had to cut a larger flap of skin to cover the hole that they had just created. He walked out with 18 staples and at least 2 stitches in his head (I say 2 stitches because I can only see 2 but he insists that there are more). He's got a little Frankenstein thing going on now. I do have pictures but I'll spare our weak-stomached friends. If you want to see it, just email me.