#4 is a Busy Girl

Our Stephanie is gearing up for quite a busy fall semester.  Here she is showing off her New Teacher Handbook received for her new job internship that will last all of next school year.
Steph is to be teaching 2 sophomore American Literature classes and 2 junior British Literature classes. The assistant principal of American Fork High School let her choose her class room a couple weeks ago and she chose the one with greater light coming into the windows.
In addition to teaching and getting her student teaching done while getting partially paid for it, our organized girl also is going to be the head volleyball coach at the HS.  She hired the 2 other coaches and is working out 3 days a week with the team.  The team is also doing a week long camp and getting prepared for the fall season and tryouts in August.
As she takes masters classes during the summer, and has another night class for her masters in the fall, she is trying to get her HS teaching lesson plans underway, so she can take some of the load off of the 4 crazy months coming up starting September.
Go Stephanie!!!! You can do it!!!
WOOOO  HOOOOO

Red, White, and Cute

This little babe is showing off a new dress that GramVi made for her.
I guess I always revert to the smocked items when I'm looking through my books for ideas.

This is a little sundress that has just a few rows of smocking under the round yolk, and then some flowery type circles at the junction of the up peaks in the design. The blank areas between the obviously smocked ones are back smocked from the wrong side of the garment so that the pleats stay put.

Then a couple of red ribbon widths are used for detailing and waalaa, you have a dress for the 4th of July.

And her moms toenails even match. Bonus!

3 Hour Tour

The weather started getting rough, but we were undeterred in our trip around Manhattan Island last week.
The Hubby took some great pics.

Photographer needs to give the memo about no glasses in this pic. Sorry.

 Should probably change camera lenses if we want the city and the visitors in the same pic.
 "Oh, you wanted to know (see) where this picture was taken?"

The rest of the week Ellery call her "The Lady" without even being prompted. Very appropriate.

 So many bridges, so little time.

This tour gave me many ideas for subsequent trips to the big apple.

Megan's Wedding Deux

We have little mini reunions whenever a cousin gets married and this time was no exception.  Out of the 19 grandchildren, we are down to the last few singles and so we are going to have to come up with other means of getting together. Many were able to come for the wedding including 9 big boy cousins. A couple of second generationers were shooting around at the beginning and were enjoying the scene.
This particular day following the wedding luncheon which was held at Kathy's church building, the big boys all played some hoops while they were killing time before the reception.

You will never see as intense a game of cousins basketball than exists in my extended's. That is a FACT.

Some of the rest of us shopped and played in other venues for the afternoon, but these boys had the most fun.
Thanks Megan, for providing a little cousin bonding time.

Nieces Wedding

We went to Portland for a wedding a couple of weeks ago. This seems to be turning into a habit. Every year we have been heading to PDX for a wedding.
Well Megan, one of our girl cousins (we only have 2 out of 14 on my side of the family that are female), found herself a nice man and they went to the Temple and got married.

 I've been a little reluctant to post about this because apparently there aren't a lot of pictures out there for this fine event and I wanted to make sure I got ours to the bride before jumping all over it.

But ... it looks as if they apparently like one another, so this is a good thing.

 I like this pic

 And the father helping out his adorable last child.

 The cute mother of the bride.

 Nice cousins abound.

 Happy and unhappy nieces and nephews.

 Proud grandparents,

and siblings.

Thanks Hun for always being there to take great pictures. The hired help is always so slow and not nearly as fun.

Memphis the Musical

My good friend Laurie told me this was the play for me and she was right.

 The music, voices, dancing and costuming were outstanding.

This is an interesting piece of history being retold in a fun way. How out of the oppression of black people came this white man who loved their music and wanted it to be heard.
I loved seeing the dresses and suits that were popular during the decade of my birth and I'm copying one dress right now for my DD to wear. It's an "I Love Lucy" dress, so hope it's not to old fashioned for her. I do think she'll look great in the style.
This play is going out from Broadway to a city near you, and it is worth buying a ticket. The Hubby, DD, and Her Hubby liked it a lot too.
Thanks Laurie.

Yankee Stadium

My DD Kathryn and her little family of 4 met The Hubby and me in NYC this last week for a fun experience.  We did many touristy things as Austin, Her Hubby, had never been to this great city.  I'll do several posts about the vacation but this one is about our baseball game.

We went to the brand 2nd year new Yankee Stadium to watch them play the Rockies. Who should I cheer for???  I'm not a Yankee fan at all, and I am from Colorado, but don't keep up with the Rockies like I do the Giants, so I'm not really their fan either.  The event was still enjoyable as could be.

The Hubby always gets us the best tickets. Great seats huh?

The MLB always puts on a good show and we got to watch Jason Giambi hit an RBI immediately in the first inning for his former friendly fans of NYYanks, then come in for a score himself in the same inning.

We also got to see A. Rod hit a nice double and make a great play.

Before the game began there were several troops of the US Army introduced. All were missing at least one limb, and many were missing several. They all waved and were cheered on proudly as the fans of baseball happily remembered for a brief minute, who it is and what it is that is truly important to us all in this free, democratic country of ours.
My favorite grandchild moment of the game came when the crowd all stood and sang/danced "The YMCA," by the Village People. Ellery, who had danced it with me teaching her all the right moves, turned around to her mother and said, "Mommy, we sang the ABC's." With as much enthusiasm as she could muster up. Very cute.

My other favorite grandchild moment came at the close of and following the game on our subway ride home.

Yes, this is Cossette. Sleeping face out and standing upright on her daddy's chest. She looked so funny, I couldn't stop laughing. If only we could sleep so easily, we would never be grouchy again. Why does my neck hurt? I always make sure that I sleep perfectly sideways on a nice medium soft bed.