The Results Are In!

So every year since we've been married (wow, 3 whole years!), Collin and I have both filled out NCAA B-Ball Championship Brackets (with a small wager, of course), and each year I have won. EXCEPT this year!! (stunned silence) We TIED! Can you believe it!

Here's the DL: This year, if I won, I wanted a nice date that Collin actually plans in advance. (Hey, they've been a little scarce lately.) Check out what Collin wanted if he won--A trip to NCAA Wrestling Championships next year. I thought I had it for sure--(plus, do I really want to spend our money on a WRESTLING trip? You can answer that one on your own.) but that blasted Memphis went so far, we ended up in a tie. So, now Collin has to plan me a date, and we have to go to Wrestling Nationals next year! It will actually be fun, I'm sure, and also, who knows if we'll really be able to do it--but he's been on a pretty high cloud for a while. :)

LAGOON

I will be performing at the America on Stage Nationals West Clogging Competition at Lagoon on May 17th. I just wanted to give a shout out to any of my Utah/Eastern Idaho friends that would be interested in spending the day at Lagoon--I can get you a discounted all-day ride pass/admission pass ($28.95 + tax) and $2.00 parking pass if you want to come down. You don't even have to watch me if you don't want to--but for fun there will be clogging going on pretty much all day. You don't have to hang out with us or anything--but I figure the more people they get there the better. I'll probably be dancing some time in the morning and then will have the rest of the day to play. So if you have any interest in heading to Lagoon that day, let me know! I just have to turn in a number of passes (it can be as many as I want) by April 24th--and they aren't name specific and I don't have to use them all. So even if you're not sure but might want to, let me know. :)

My Brother, the Organist and other happenings

So, if you haven't heard this before, my little brother, Cory, is an amazing organist! I know, you're thinking, "organ, where did he come up with the organ?" But seriously, he has been taking organ lessons for the past 5 or 6 years, and has accomplished a LOT in that time! He currently studies with the organ professor at BYU-Idaho, and has been for about 4 years. He has played organ recitals all over Eastern Idaho and Utah, including playing in the Tabernacle at Temple Square! He just received a full-ride scholarship from a big foundation for "promising young artists" or something like that--and not only did he receive that, but they have paid him to play a series of recitals in Rexburg, Idaho Falls, and Boise! (including paying for all trip expenses for him and my parents!) He won some big competition here in Boise last spring, and then went on to play in a bigger competition in Portland, where he got 2nd place. Recently, he won a scholarship to attend a summer music clinic at Rider University (in Princeton), which he will be doing this summer. As of right now, he's planning on majoring in Organ Performance. Isn't that amazing, and crazy!! I am glad that someone else in my family is pursuing music . . . and I don't know much about the Organ World, but his teacher and the organ community of Idaho in general seem to think he is quite the stuff! It's funny because my mom is often sending me articles about him that are in the paper, and just the other day I saw a poster about him in the BSU music dept. building! I guess it's important, whatever the details are of what he's been accomplishing!

Anyways, he did a recital here in Boise, at BSU this past weekend. It was fun to see him perform. Organ is HARD!! He does an amazing job and is really musical. Way to go, Cory! By the way, while we're still on the organ thing . . . I took organ lessons one summer (remember, Kaylin?!) And I HATED it! Anyone out there who thinks that just because you can play the piano, you can play the organ is WRONG! Organ is way more complicated, AND, you have to play with your FEET too!! I don't know how organists can split their brain that many ways, but it is pretty amazing.

So, that means the rest of the family was here, and it was conference weekend. Which means that we all say around for a LOT of hours in small quarters watching conference together! We split our time between our house and the hotel they were staying at, but it was quite amusing when we were watching conference here. This is me and the other girls--you can see by the looks on our faces how excited we were after we had been sitting around all day.
Then when I went upstairs, this is what I found! Cory and Alex had an "incident" with the yardstick and ?bike pump? so Dad had to go sit in between them to keep them quiet! Some things never change, like my little brothers being brats to each other when they're supposed to be good! :)Once Dad went up there Alex had no problem being quiet. . . (I especially like the look on Dad's face! ha ha!)
After the organ recital, we had treats at our house. The kids stayed late and we played some games--it is always really funny when we all get together. Here's most of us--the 2 missing are losers because they didn't come visit . . . (Sam & Tara)

Anyways, I'd like to point out that we are are cute bunch! :) Thanks for coming, guys, it was great!

Thank goodness!

So, I lost $100 on Tuesday. It was a really busy day and I was running from place to place, and in the shuffle I picked up $100 in cash that Collin's wrestling team earned in a fundraiser last weekend. And somehow, I lost it somewhere in between my car and our front door (which is like 20 feet.) I didn't even notice until like 5 hours after I must have dropped it. So we went out and searched with a flashlight for like half an hour and searched everywhere (including garbage cans) in our house it could possibly be. No luck! So, for a last ditch, I made a sign that said "Lost: $100" with all the details of where and when it was lost and that it was for a fundraiser, with Collin's phone number on it. LUCKILY, someone called! It was our next door neighbors who had picked it up. I guess they were going to make a sign to put up also because it's not every day you find that much cash lying around! They called right away after I had put the sign up, and returned it to us. Anyways, the moral of the story is that people are awesome! I was so glad to see that in a freaky situation like this, someone was kind and responsible enough to give us that money back, even though it would have also been easy to keep it. Whew!