Park City

My parents have a time share condo every other year in Park City and we had a great week with everyone! Thanks Mom and Dad for everything!

My red, white and blue kids

What a work of art!

My snow white Emma and bronze beauty Kate

I had to get a pic of these girls together to show how dark Kate is and how light Olivia is!

What a goofball!

Fun times in the pool!

Daniel is getting OFF the lift because he panicked at the top and decided the zip line was not what he wanted to do!

Richard and Landon loved the zip line!

Fun with the Family

Jenny, Mom, Dad and Jon

My cute mom rode the zip line and loved it!

At the top she said, "If my wig comes off, I'm gonna die!"

Grandpa Kevin and Landon went down together

Enjoying slurpees from 7-11 after a nice ride down the Gondola

Just chillin'

If you're interested.....

Daniel is going to be in a little production of HSM in August. He is really excited to do this (inspired by the Beardens!) and I just wanted to let those of you who want to come know where to get tickets. Apparently it is a small place and there are not very many seats. You can purchase tickets at sjtheatre.org. Daniel should be in every performance except Aug. 13, 14 and 15.

East High School

My Dad works for Granite School District and is good friends with the principal of East High. He was so nice to arrange a "tour" of the school. If you are not a HSM fan, this will mean nothing to you, but we thought it was pretty cool. It was cool for the kids to see that the school is not just like the movie. A few million dollars in a budget can really spiff up a place. There is no fountain out front, there aren't red and white banners everywhere, the cafeteria isn't quite as colorful, the roof is just a black top. It's amazing to see how they transformed it all for the movie! We had fun going around and recognizing all the different places that were in the movie. Thank you Dad (Grandpa) for taking the time to do this with us and thank you Paul Sagers for taking us around and being so cool!

Above, this staircase was used a lot for the numbers that Troy and Gabriella sing in the school.

Below, in the gym. This is the actual coach of East High BBall, but he was the West High Knights coach in HSM 3.

The movie did leave a few things like these banners at the school after they finished filming.

Troy and Chads lockers are right behind them!

Sharpays locker is still pink! Of course, in the movie it opens from the middle, but they couldn't leave it that way. I wonder if people request these lockers!

This is what the roof really looks like! No gazebo, no skylight, no plants! It was all brought in from Cactus and Tropicals. My kids were a little disappointed that it wasn't like the movie, but definately a good dose of reality!

A nice (and windy) view of Salt Lake City from the roof.

East High is really the Leopards!

Landon took this picture and it didn't turn out as clear as I wanted it to, but this is supposed to be my "I Want It All" pose!

The cafeteria steps that are really red in the movie.

At the end of the tour Mr. Sagers asked if we had seen everything we wanted to see and we said yes, and Kate was done, done, done. After we left we realized that we never saw the auditorium! Bummer! There is so much that happens there! I'm sure it's just your typical high school auditorium, but we were sad about that. Other than that, we had a "FABULOUS" time!

Fourth Festivities!

We usually go to my family reunion on the morning of the Fourth and then down to Mt. Pleasant later that afternoon, but this year we went down on Friday night so we could spend the whole day in Mt. Pleasant on the Fourth. We went to a delicious breakfast at the park in the morning and then the kids marched in the Kid Parade with a handcart. Emma was a little disappointed that it wasn't an actual float, but once she climbed inside and realized that she could still wave to onlookers she was okay with it. She didn't stop waving the entire parade route and she has got that princess wave down. It was so cute! Landon and Kjerstin pulled the handcart most of the way with all the little cousins in the cart. Then we watched the city parade and were so excited to see Chante on her float as Miss Mount Pleasant- she is such a fantastic girl! Later we went out to the park for games and then on to the cabin for dinner- yum! yum! I forgot my camera at the cabin so unfortunately I didn't get any pictures there, but it was beautiful and it was so nice to be up in the mountains! We finished off the night at Lori and Troys where we celebrated birthdays and did fireworks- fun stuff. We only had a few meltdowns by the end of the weekend because we packed so much in and the kids were exhausted. We had a great time though and were happy to spend the Fourth in Mt. Pleasant! It was a day that I wish I had you, Heather Pearce, with us taking pictures and capturing the images of a small town parade on the Fourth of July. I know she could have done much better than my feeble attempts, but you get the idea!

Landon and Kjerstin pulled these 6 little ones and you can see Emma with her arm up waving, waving, the whole time!

This is the whole group that marched in the parade. Richards mom wanted us to sing The Handcart Song from the childrens songbook, but we didn't . But FYI, Richards great-great Grandfather, John Daniel Thompson McAllister, wrote that song!

Kate was a cutie pie and was a very good girl considering the crazy lack of sleep!

Emma held baby cousin Conrad almost the entire parade. She didn't even want to pick up candy because she was too busy playing mommy and actually doing a darn good job!

Yay, Chante! We loved cheering for her and seeing her on her float!

Emma loves Chante so much!

Kate was soooo tired after the parade!

Chantes float was at her house after the parade and the little girls loved standing on it and pretending to be "royalty".

Open a can of what?

This morning Richard was telling me about a frustrating situation at work and a woman who was being particularly difficult to work with. Landon happened to be listening and after a few minutes of Richard "venting" about the woman that was causing so many problems Landon looked at Richard and said,

"Do you wear that belt to work?"

"Yes."

"Use it when you need it."

Emma's new haircut

Emma has been wanting to cut her hair for a long time, so the other night we took a trip to "Cookie Cutters" and she got it chopped! They did a great job and she thought it was so much fun! Emma has super thick hair and the girl cutting her hair could not believe how much hair she has- it took forever to cut and blow dry! Emma loves it and kept asking me if it was still short when she woke up the next morning! She has an extra bounce in her step now so that she can really shake her new do!