Favorite new books

One thing I love to do in December (and October and November) is play Christmas music. It starts on Halloween day. This first book has been a favorite of mine for several years now. I love to play in it all the time, and it has arrangements of classics, and the last song "Go Tell it on the Mountain" is a little jazzy and fabulous.

This next book I just discovered a few days before Christmas. It became an instant favorite! David Lanz, Christmas Eve. Joy to the World, and The First Noel are at the Top of my list in this book, with several others coming in next. I am anxious to play some of his other music. I am sure I will like it. For Christmas I also received a lost page for Claire De Lune. I can now finish learning that wonderful tune. Those who know me, know I have been on a Jon Schmidt "kick" for a while now. At the beginning of the month, Steven and I were able to attend his Christmas Concert. It was fabulous. He is an amazing pianist. They had a big screen behind him, so you could watching his hands on the piano. Wow! Love, love, love, his music. He and the cellist played Love story meets Viva La Vida. It brought the house down. I am so anxious for him to release the piano music for his new album "Bonus Tracks" Most times when I am walking past the living room, I just have to go in a play a song or two, or three. Fun times. Cavalcade will be coming up in March. It will be a wonderful event featuring Jon Schmidt as our guest soloist! I will be playing 3 of his songs in duet form.

This next book I discovered at the scrapbook store when I was attending a class. I later found it at Costco and couldn't pass it up. Davis received it for Christmas this year, and we've had fun reading it together!

Graduation

Now it's official. Stacie is GRADUATED! She had seminary graduation last Sunday. She was the main speaker. She did a great job. She was a little bit nervous, with projects still to finish at school, but everything worked out well. Then Thursday the 21st, she graduated from Red Mountain High School. We were a bit nervous because we were having sprinkles on and off during the day. The school told them the latest they would call to change to a "rainy schedule" would be 6:30 pm. So everytime the phone would ring, someone would run to see who was calling. At 6 pm, we got a call from MESA PUBLIC SCHOOLS...saying that Stacie Peterson was absent from 5th period. How funny is that?! All the seniors only had graduation practice that morning. We all had a good laugh. As we left for the school, it was lightly sprinkling. Steven grabbed 2 rain ponchos, and we had 2 umbrellas. We had Grandma Peterson and Grandma Larson with us. They wore the ponchos and Steven and Ginger used the umbrellas. Stacie used her nice graduation hat. (they were so worped looking at the end of the night!) We had a pass for Grandma Peterson to sit in the handicapped seating, and were able to stay and sit with her. We had the best seats in the house. (2nd row in the front of the graduates) We captured some good pictures of Stacie, and many others in our ward that passed by us. What a great night! It is so amazing to believe that we have a daughter graduated.

Easter Sunday

What a beautful Easter Sunday we had! Here are a few pictures before going to church.

It is such hard work getting everyone to look at the camera for a picture using the timer. This is always their reward: crazy picture...not too hard.

MILESTONES!

Sunday, was a great day. Davis actually went to Sunbeams without Mom, which = Mom being able to attend R.S. Hooray! Yea for Davis!! #2 milestone: Davis went potty in the toilet for the 1st time. He has had an incentive (bike) sitting on the pot rack in the kitchen since Halloween. All he had to do was go potty 1 time to earn it. Believe me when I say I was WAY Excited to get it down for him. Now, if we can continue this enthusiasm and get him all the way trained it would be OOOH so nice for MOM! I just discovered an e-book, potty training in 3 days. Anyone know anything about it? I am getting very anxious to just be done with the last of the potty training...not at all my favorite. I know some might think, what's the deal, you've done this 5 times before...Yea, I have no theories. Everytime it was different. So here I am. (Thanks JoAnn for making me feel normal by posting the same dilema!)

Day Camp!

Last Friday, my ward put on Cubscout Daycamp, at Bull Dog Canyon. It turned out so wonderful! My assistant and I were in charge of the food. We were cooking in the Dutch ovens. Thankfully her husband came and took over my spot and I was able to give the boys 4x4 jeep rides. It was awesome. It was the 1st time that any of them had ridden like that before. Steven had taken me the month before so I could "practice". Well, the boys just made me feel like I was the coolest driver around.


The boys were divided into 3 groups. As I was coming back with the 3rd group, you can see who surprised us. They were ready and firing at us with their marshmellow artillary. It was so funny. It really caught us off guard. The boys had a blast shooting marshmellows all over the desert.

Here are two of the boys ready to start the ride.

I got a new calling 2 days later, on Sunday. They are going to release me in a couple of weeks. I will totally miss my Webelos boys. It has been the best calling!!

Spring Break--California

California Here we come. Steven had been looking on line for things to do and explore while we were in California. We stayed at a camp ground, that was about 24 miles from Disneyland. So he had come up with a great list. Sunday we headed up to LA to see the temple

Stacie in front of a beautiful flower bed.

Isn't this the coolest climbing tree ever?

Starting the day in front of Califonia Adventure. Stacie, Kinsie, and Hunter started here on their own and joined up with us later in the day in Disneyland. So Steven and I had Ashleigh, Bracken, and Davis. It was really different to just have 3!

Ashleigh always looks forward to a visit with Minnie Mouse.

Davis would only go a little close to a character if Mom or Dad was with him.

Davis and Bracken were very excited to see Mater and Lightning McQueen!

Here we are at Bronson Cave. It is where they filmed Batman and several other movies. We'll let you in on a little secret though....It is a tunnel. (we had a big discussion about that) On the one side you can see the HOLLYWOOD sign up on the mountain in LA.

As we were coming back from our hike to the cave, we saw this cool tree and decided we needed to have a pictures on it.

We went to Newport Beach for the day and had a blast. Yes, the water was freezing, but it didn't keep them from boogie boarding at all. They did love to take turns burying themselves in the sand, and we made tons of great sandcastles. Kinsie did the famous "Hancock seagull catching trick". It was hilarious. You can see a clip on her face book.

Steven made this wood game for us called Koobs, and we had fun playing it on the beach.

One day we went to the Science center. They had this tightrope-bike ride exibit, and Steven decided he totally wanted me(Ginger) to ride it. Well, when we got up to pay, he took a look at our shoes and told us we had to have shoes with laces. Most of us were wearing our crocs. I looked down at Hunter's shoes, and decided to give his a try. So I put them on, and went on the ride. Great fun. We are up in the air maybe 30 feet. So when I got back, Hunter put his shoes back on and took a ride also. Then Ashleigh decided she wanted a try, and put Hunter's shoes on her. (yes they were huge on her, but the rule was that they had to be shoes with laces..nothing about size or fit!)

The last day, we went to Six Flags, Magic Mountain. Here is Kinsie our roller coaster maniac QUEEN!!! We did get Bracken and Ashleigh to ride the big wooden roller coaster...Collossus, with us, and had a great time. Ashleigh definately has a HUGE scream, and Bracken likes to report that he went on the ride, as a 5 year old.

Here we are entering the park.

There was a Thomas the Train area, and it was a HUGE hit with Bracken and Davis. After the ride you exit through the store and play at the train table with all the acessories.

This was Tweety Birds ride. Steven was a little cramped.