The first

Friday night. Having successfully navigated the Stake and Regional softball tournaments, the Ward women's team headed for glory in the area championship. Four teams with dreams of green jell-o victory parties, only one could walk home with the Pyrex cup.

Melissa confidently strode out to right field, where her advanced speed could make-up for missed catches. In her first at bat, the wind blew three times. Second at bat, contact! A dribbling grounder... an error... she made it on base and later home. Then came the glory. A high fly ball into right center field, she ran, she prayed, her team prayed, no one called it... and Melissa grabbed it right before the center fielder collided with her but still, it was the game winning catch.

The post-game pep-talk mostly centered on why a person should call for the ball, and what that means for those who have never really played before. In the semi-final, Melissa focused on remembering to call it. Another high fly ball, Melissa ran in, calling for the catch the entire time, and watched it sail 20 feet over her head into the glove of the center fielder. Next lesson? Geometry. Particularly circles. This was not the most entertaining part of the second game though... Melissa "slid" into second base. Words cannot describe the attempt, but one must try. Imagine not knowing how to slide, and assuming that it occurs by stretching one leg out further than the other - like splits, now imagine not slowing down before that, now imagine the foot hitting the bag, popping up, and seeing her land "safe!" both cheeks directly on the bag.

Unfortunately, they lost that last game. Second place is the first loser. So we had to celebrate with apostate peach jell-o instead. Maybe next year. But... we don't have to wait long for more entertainment! Basketball and volleyball seasons are just around the corner... let the pain begin! Bring video cameras.

And it begins...

David begins teaching 9th graders again tomorrow; summer tasks are completed. He laughed at the open house last week at how small they are. It is hard to remember how small they start out when most of them grow between 3 and 12 inches in their 9th grade year. His is also helping with a stake institute teacher-training Book of Mormon-styled class to help prepare the gospel doctrine teachers for their next week's lesson.

Richard made it back from the mission alive. Props.

Olympics

David realized that a large part of his love for America came from watching the Olympics with his mom and dad growing up, so we ordered Satellite TV. I decided it would be a good time to cash in some of our tanking stocks and bought the family their early Christmas present. If you give a mouse a cookie...
So now we have a new TV and are part of the high def world.

It... is... so... worth... it... drool...

You know you live in Utah when...

You're asking someone for directions in a parking lot in Sandy, and they start out by saying... Well, I don't want to lead you astray...

What the heck.

and other phrases. True story.

Couples Day

S & I held one of their annual General Authority and leadership meetings today. Our local management also provided two additional enjoyable guests for local in-service training after the main session. Mary Ellen Edmunds came (mostly to address us wives) and spoke on "Happiness". Some of her great one-liners (paraphrased as closely as we could write) included:

"Happiness is not the absence of difficulty."

"We shouldn't listen to nobodies. Nobodies are those with no body."

"We came to follow the great plan of happiness. Anyone who is unhappy either does not understand this plan and the Atonement, or is following a stupid plan of misery." Amen to that.

Following this and some good food, Jon Schmidt (one of the most talented new age pianists of our time) performed a concert for us. That was quite a treat. If you find that you easily are depressed, I would highly recommend some of his CDs, they are quite upbeat. You can get them on itunes or from jonschmidt.com.

Help'n a buddy

One of our friends is working on getting a scholarship, and part of the application is a video, it is pretty sweet! If you have 4 minutes and want to see something fun, check it out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTohVkO2dew

Mermaids

Tragedy struck at the heart of #1 over this weekend, when she informed David she wanted to meet some mermaids for a vacation sometime. When David informed her that, as far as he knew, Heavenly Father had not created mermaids for this planet, there was near meltdown. She learned that the story of the little mermaid was fiction (just after she got an Ariel backpack), her dreams crushed, David let the subject fade... Next week we'll crush her spirit by letting her know there is no such thing as fairies, (at least the type with wings).

Weekend

The children and I stayed home as Melissa made a trip up to Idaho for the weekend. We ate (lots of sushi!), we slept, we played, we did sports, and we cleaned up. I even got to read a couple books. Not that we'll do this again, since it was not fun being apart. Oh well. Oh, and #3 is allergic to bath and body works stuff, I guess if she stinks she should probably get a bath.