Helena is going to Preference

Yes, she is.

She asked me if it was a good idea and I said, "Absolutely!"

Then she asked me who she should invite.

My first recommendation was her close friend, Daniel.  He is one of her best friends, and she is not romantically interested in him, nor he in her.  Seems like a fun and safe choice.  My second recommendation was to ask the Bishop's son, Blake.  Blake is one of the most shy guys out there.  He is tall, well built, and a star athlete.  You would think that would give him the confidence to ask a girl out, no?  No.  Last spring, when I asked him if he went to Prom, he blushed deeply and said, "No", because that would have involved asking a girl out!  He is also a good friend of Helena's, so it wouldn't have been too awkward, I suppose.  Though, they have known each other ever since they were 8 years old, so maybe that would be weird, I don't know.

Anyways, Helena asked Daniel.

I should back up and say that Helena hates the "cloak and dagger" style of date asking that goes on around here.  Have you ever seen Single's Ward?  (If not, I have to say WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?  It is freaking HILARIOUS!  You have NO IDEA how much of that rings true to my BYU single's ward days!)  Remember the helium balloons scene?  Not even an exaggeration!  All you have to do is search my blog for posts about Prom and you'll see what I mean.

So, as I said, Helena hates that sort of thing.  She was much more direct and just asked him right to his face if he had been asked to Preference, yet.  When he said "No", she simply asked if he would go with her.  She told me (in a text right after the fact) that he said "Yes!" and that he was super excited!

Her best friend, Megan, asked Daniel's best friend, Westin, to go and has gotten a "Yes" back from him (she did do the cloak and dagger dating techniques), so now their double date is all set up.

Now all the girls have to do is actually plan out the date and pay for it!  Since the dance isn't until November 13th, they've got some time.

Lacrosse Begins, Sort Of.

A few weeks ago, Will got some e-mails inviting him and his parents to come to a high school lacrosse opening party.  He was quite excited so we went.  It was held at the home of another player.  His family lives up on the bench in Cedar Hills.  It seems to me like their family ought to be attending Lone Peak High School, since it is closer to them.  Anyway, the house was gorgeous, as was the view from the back yard!

The invite told the boys to bring a swimsuit and towel.  After eating (it was a pot luck BBQ) and listening to the coaches and HS lacrosse board talk about tryouts, Friday pick-up games, and the team fundraiser, all the boys jumped into the pool.

After a while, they started to pull the typical teen aged boy stunts in the pool as all of the parents socialized and tolerantly looked on.  First, they all got out and jumped into the pool together.  Then they started diving off the diving board with one boy on the shoulders of another.  Then, Will gave them all the fabulous idea of jumping off of the top of the slide.

There is a shot of Will just about to jump off the top of the slide.  And, of course, there is the breathtaking view!  Notice the temple all lit up?

Now.  About the fundraiser.  Someone in the lacrosse board has connections and arranged to get a BYU concession stand for the home football games!  We signed up to work in the concession stand for three of the six home games.  A portion of the sales go to the AFHS lacrosse team, and for each person working in the stand, Will gets $10 off his team fees.  That means that after the four of us work three games, his fees will be down by $120!!  Oh, yeah!

Yesterday was the first game that we worked at the concessions.  I was assigned to work as a cashier.  Helena became my right hand assistant, hollering out orders for me (although I tended to want to call them out myself) and working the soda fountain.  Will worked as a soda-jerk at another station down the line, and Bill was a man-of-all-work in the background.  He ran six or seven errands throughout the course of the evening down to the concessions supply depot to get stock we were running low on.  Of course, I didn't know that until the evening was over and he told me, because I was so busy at my station that I only noticed him when he paused to put a hand on my shoulder or something.

We left the house at 1:30 in the afternoon.  We were supposed to be at the stand at 2:00, but we didn't get there until 2:15 because traffic was pretty bad.  The pre-game sales started at about 3:00.  It was frustrating, at first, because everyone wanted to order a hot dog, but they weren't ready, yet!  The ladies cooking the hot dogs had never done it before and were having technical difficulties.  We had to turn away scores of people before the hot dogs were finally ready to sell.

The game started at 4:00, and we had a pretty steady stream of customers throughout the first two quarters.  Half time was unbelievable!  We served so many people!!!  I can't believe how many people will pay such outrageous prices just for a hot dog and a soda ($6.50 for the dog and drink, or $7.50 for a polish dog and drink)!  I handled more $20 bills than I can remember.  Oh, and it was shocking to me how many people just whipped out a credit card to pay for concession food!  I was SO GLAD that all of those sales were approved and I didn't have to tell anyone that their card was declined.  Only one gentleman asked for a receipt, too.  Out of literally hundreds that I served.

I was too busy during the game to take any pictures, so these shots are after the game and during clean up.  This picture reminds me of a famous painting.  In fact, I think I might paint this one!

Here is Will mopping the floor.  That is his friend, Coulson, to the right of him, and Bill in the background in the blue hat.

Helena made it clear early in the evening that she was only there under duress, and that she could have found much more pleasant ways to spend her Saturday.  However, I could tell that she was enjoying herself most of the time (except when she was embarrassed by her mother telling boys to get back to work).  Throughout the evening, workers from other concession stands would occasionally show up at ours asking for a refill on their courtesy cup (concession workers are allowed to drink as much soda as they want, as long as they are NOT in the stand at the time).  One boy, in particular, kept coming back to Helena's soda fountain for refills.

After the game was over, and while we were cleaning up, he suddenly showed up and began helping Helena do the dishes in our booth!  Seeing as the work area was small, I couldn't help overhearing part of their conversation.

He asked her if she was a freshman.  She said that, No, she was a junior.  He was impressed by that and asked her what she was majoring in.  Her answer of "oh, I don't know" took him by surprise.  It only took a little longer for Helena to realize that he was referring to college, not high school!  She quickly corrected the mistaken communication, and that seemed to make him happier, because he was, in fact, a freshman at BYU who had just turned in his mission papers!  They chatted in a friendly way for about half an hour before he finally headed on his way.  She later told me that he plans to major in engineering, but that she never learned his name, nor did she give him hers.

In the picture above, he is standing to Helena's right.  All you can see of him is the baseball cap.

Here is a shot looking down the length of the concession stand.  This gives you an idea of how crowded it is!  Now imagine 24 people working full speed in this little space!  It was crazy, and yet we did need every single person to get the job done.  Oh, you can see the mystery freshman's back in this shot.

In the end, we finished up at about 8:30 and didn't get home until 9:00 at night.  It was a long, long day, but fun despite the stress of it.  Will can't wait for the next game in two weeks.  I will be glad when all three of our commitments are filled.

My New Classroom

I thought I'd take this opportunity to show you what my new classroom looks like.  If you remember, the old one was orange, with dark blue accents.  This time it is purple, so I chose to use blue and lime green accents.  I am quite happy with it!

These are the class portfolio boxes and turn in boxes.  You can see that we have been quite busy in the art room!

Waves of Storms

This morning I noticed these beautiful cloud formations to the East of the school.

To the West, however, the skies were clear, so I left the windows of my car down just a little bit.

Bad mistake!  We had wave after wave of heavy rain interspersed with hail throughout the day!  At lunch time I went out and rolled up the windows, sure that Murphy's law would guarantee and end to the storms once the windows were up.  Nope.  The storms raged on.  We would have 15 minutes of sun and calm, followed by severe lightning, thunder, and more rain.  My first graders were quite jittery all afternoon.

We Live in a Technicolor World!

Be forewarned, this post is photo dense!

Last Sunday our family went on a road trip up American Fork Canyon to visit Cascade Springs.  We took the kids there years ago when they were little, but hadn't been back since.  I heard a co-worker mention that the colors in the mountains should be close to peak, so we decided to head up and see for ourselves.

Helena asked to drive (as always) and did a fantastic job for her first experience of narrow canyon road driving, even though I probably made her nervous by gripping my arm rest too often.  It really wasn't her driving... I am always nervous on canyon roads.

We were apparently not the only people to decide to head into the mountains for a Sunday drive, the place was packed!

Helena is taking a digital photo class this term, so she takes her camera with her everywhere.  Her teacher gave her a required shot list that encompasses the entire semester, so she can keep her eye out for any needed for the class.  I have to say, I met the teacher and I like her!  Such a nice change after her Commercial Photo class last year.

Bill carrying Helena's tripod.

Cascade Springs is a natural spring that then trickles down several acres before finally joining other streams.  To allow visitors better access without have to tromp through the bogs and damage the wildlife, these wooden boardwalks were built.  Bill remembers visiting Cascade Springs before the boardwalks were built.  He said it was a muddy experience.

Helena the photographer.

It was so beautiful and the lighting was just right!  Unfortunately, there were so many other people there that we couldn't pose ourselves into the photos, though there were plenty of families there trying just that.  There was one family in particular that had over 20 extended family members all dressed in brown shirts and blue jeans blocking up just about every good shot venue.  Oh. and another family in black and blue staked out one of the ornamental bridges.  It frustrated Helena, because she wanted to set up her tripod and take her time working on shots, but felt overcrowded and wasn't able to do so.

"If it was so crowded, why are there no other people in your shots, then?"  You ask.

Because I am a master of seizing the moment before the next group comes blundering through!

Ok.  So, years ago, when Helena was very little, we brought the kids up here for family photos.  She was probably about three.  At this exact spot on the boardwalk, all those years ago, we got a candid photo of her kneeling down and looking into the water.  This time, Bill took her camera and told her to kneel down in that spot and put her head close to the water.  She was highly distrustful of her dad and was reluctant to do it (not having a memory of the first time).  She kept asking her dad 'What's going to happen if I do?!"  "Is something going to jump out at me?"  You can tell from her responses that she does have several memories of practical jokes played on her by her father!

Helena has hyper-extended elbows.  That is why her arms look so strange in this photo.

Look over there, everybody!  No, really, I have no idea what they are all looking at in this shot.

Such a technicolor world!

It sort of looks like a movie setting, I think.

More pictures of Helena taking a picture!

I told the kids to go stand on the bridge and 'look like you like each other!'

It lasted for a couple of shots.

And then Helena was done with it.

A super rare photo.  Bill took this picture, that is why I am actually in it!

What a fantastic picture of Will!

Wrapping up and heading out.

After we finished up at Cascade Springs, Bill took over the driving and decided to take us up a gravel road to a less populated area.

Helena was tired and just wanted to go home.

Will was still enjoying the adventure, though.

Bill was looking for a place where he and his biking buddies had carried their bikes across the stream (more like river back in the spring when he crossed it) to continue on a trail.  He couldn't find the spot, and the gravel road was deteriorating rapidly.  We were in the Alero, not the Expedition, so we had to give up the search and just tool around at a few more accessible spots on the stream.

This looks much more impressive than it seemed in real life.  Still, it took a bit of balance to get back and forth across the logs.

Helena was finally able to set up her tripod and play a bit more with different ISO and exposure times.

The photo just can't quite do justice to the vibrant, burning colors on the mountain side.

I love water shots.  I think that is because water is one of the hardest things to paint realistically.

We got back in the car and drove back the way we had come, only to find this amazing spot!!!  It was right off the gravel road, so many of the plants were covered in a fine layer of dust, and unfortunately, some other family had found it earlier in the weekend and were camping here.  However, although their gear was all right next to this beautiful waterfall, they were nowhere to be seen!  So we took a few moments to steal these shots before hurrying on our way.  I am sure they never knew that we invaded their campsite for a few minutes.  Bill said that in the back country the rules state that you aren't supposed to set up camp within 1/2 mile of the road, but I kinda hoped to be the lucky camper to camp on this exact spot some other weekend! 

Driving back down the canyon, Bill suddenly exclaimed over the gorgeous sunset and pulled over for me to take a picture of it.  That involved me climbing out of the car and running across the busy road, waiting  for a non-car moment to snap the shot, then darting back across the road without becoming road kill.  I hope you enjoy the shot.