L-Train!

Today was the day, Lacey had her braces put on. The before picture:

The during picture. At this point, she has had some difficulty with the bands being put on and she is less than thrilled with the glue used. She says it tasted like a mouthful of pepper. Here, we have everything but wire.
All done, wire in place, teal blue bands chosen this time. She was disappointed there were only four brackets, but Dr. explained that he needs to do some moving around of teeth before he can bracket the others. Won't get bottom brackets for a couple of months, but the hard part (bands around the molars) is done so it will just be a simple visit to add brackets. Actually, not a simple visit as two baby teeth will be pulled and anchors inserted but a piece of cake compared to the bands.

Since she has new fancy tracks, and we enjoy watching the Blazers, she has decided to be "Lacey, otherwise known as L-Train!". Don't understand? LaMarcus Aldridge, Blazers, L-Train .......... I guess you just have to be there. = )

Our Hike

We spent plenty of time relaxing and soaking up the sun today. Nadine took us on a hike at some park that we cannot remember the name of. We saw Saguaro cactus and many other kinds that I also can't remember the name of. I obviously did not pay close enough attention to the names of things today. All of the pics of Phoenix can be seen athttp://picasaweb.google.com/familyhendrickson .

First, we had trauma. Niambh is administering "plasters" (bandaids in English). They are from Ireland and we have had many a hilarity at words that are OK here and not there, and vice versa.

This is a bridge over a.........river. They claim this is a river which apparently needs a bridge, but I feel like the character in Indiana Jones saying "You call that a river, THIS is a river!". = ) If this river doesn't have water in the middle of winter I really can't believe it has water any other time of the year!
Cactus, unknown name, even though I was told by Nadine I promptly forgot.
This one I know, it's a Saguaro.

Puzzle Box

I have been wanting to make a bigger peyote box for a long time. The only patterns I can find are for small, albeit very cute, boxes. So, I took the 5-sided box pattern and added many rows to it both for the base and the sides, drew my own "puzzle" pattern, picked out rather bright obnoxious beads and wala!

I tried to make myself keep track of the hours spent, but I kept forgetting to write them down. I know I have at least 50 hours and probably more. I need to transfer the pattern from my hand-drawn one to a computer design and then the computer program will give me a bead count. If I were to guess, probably about 9,000 beads.

Snow! I Love Snow!

Well, I do not love snow, that is just Lily speaking. Lily actually had her fill of snow in December 2008 when it got past the 20" mark she was pretty much done with it. This video is testament that Lily has a short memory.

The Obnoxious Talk Show Host

What happens when two 11 year old girls are bored? They write themselves skits. Hilarious!

Photo Contest - 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th!

I talked Lacey into entering a local photo contest, she never thinks her photos are any good and of course I do. You could only enter three in a category so we chose three for plant life, three for animals (Lacey's favorite subject) and one for scenic. We could have done more and have ideas for great candidates for next year's contest, but this was our first one so we started with some of Lacey's favorite photos.

There were not a whole lot of youth photos entered, but the competition with Lacey were all members of the local camera club. So, for being an amateur with no camera club experience we were thrilled for her to even place in the competition. Her winning photographs are on their way to the local Library to be on display for the next three weeks. Here they are:

First place ribbon in Animals, her picture of the Lynx named "Misa":
Second place ribbon in Animals, her black and white of Lily, named "Tiger Lily":

Third place ribbon in Animals for her sepia picture of Lily, named "Goobers":

Yes, if you are keeping track, she ran the Animals category! There was a fourth place ribbon won by another youth but Lacey took 1st, 2nd and 3rd! Lacey is conveniently standing in front of her competitor's picture. =)

Fourth place ribbon in Plant Life for her picture of a dahlia, named "Pink Petals":

She doesn't look happy here but she is, just bad timing by Mom.

These were the other pictures she entered. I think they are wonderful, especially the purple flower below and the picture of the trees. I use them for computer backgrounds off and on just to enjoy.

Looking at the pictures that other youth and adults entered really inspired Lacey to take some more photographs. She has as good of an eye for taking pictures as anybody in that camera club. I would like her to take some of the classes where they teach how to use the manual settings on the camera so she could do even more fun things but I'm not sure she will. The guy who runs the camera club encouraged her to join them as well and I hope she takes him up on it. I may attend one of the meetings with her and we'll see.......she is so talented and doesn't even realize it.

It's a Silver!

Sorry for the crummy picture but I didn't have time to grab the camera so the Blackberry had to do. Bowling alley lighting and 2.0 Blackberry camera capability make for a pretty poor picture. Picture aside......Seth had a great game at Regionals. He bowled 109 and 114 which are a few points above his average. His friend Tanner received the Gold and had an awesome game 30 points above his average! He was just on fire. Seth bowled really well and received medals right along side his good friends Tanner and AJ. He also found a ball at the bowling alley that is really cool looking. We might consider it for birthday. He throws his new ball (16#) well on some days and not so well on others so we may go to a 14 or 15 pounder for a break.

First Artwork

Seth's art class did their first piece of clay work. It is a clay tile about 4"x4". I think the general idea was to do a geometric design allowing for a border.
It's a miracle that this fragile clay survived getting home. The tile was diligently wrapped in newspaper many times and I cannot say enough for the buffer power of newpaper! It was dropped on the floor at school at one point besides being shuffled from class to the locker to the backpack. I was at the school and picked it up to bring it home so it wouldn't have to suffer through a bus ride home. I started to unwrap it when I got in the car and realized it was wrapped so tightly that I couldn't get down to the tile to see it so I decided to wait until I got home. Thank goodness! The tile was on my passenger seat with just a bit of the newspaper torn away. On my way down the hill by our house, a chocolate lab ran right out in front of my van, I slammed on the brakes so hard that everything in the car was projected forward and I still only missed the dog by a mere inch. The tile ended up hitting the dash and landing on the carpet of the passenger side. I figured it was toast (or crumbs in this case). I was amazed to see that it survived without any scar to prove it's adventurous journey.

Carving Time

It's that time of year again. Even though we never get trick or treaters so we are the only ones who get to enjoy the carved pumpkins, the kids always want to do them. Seth chose the witch pattern and Lacey a Halloween cat. Seth assisted by poking out the pieces after I cut them out (the cutting was rather intricate on his).
Lacey carved hers herself. Using a battery operated saw/knife. It was a little scary for Mom! She managed to do a really good job and no blood was shed.

Here's the witch:

And the cat:

They look pretty cool, huh?

Blazers!

Our seats at the Blazers game. Yes, they are nosebleed seats, but it is my inaugural jump into season tickets. We all have to start somewhere!

Anyway, the game was great, somewhat quiet due to it being a pre-season game and a pretty easy win over Golden State. The Blazers did let the Warriors get too close a couple of times but they managed a 118-105 win. Of course, when the Blazers get over 100 in a game everybody gets a free chalupa at Taco Bell.
Taylor was thrilled, I gave her my coupon so her and Jeff can have a free snack!