The Fresh Princesses of Bel Air

As YW leaders, we knew we had to do something spectacular for the Ward Talent Show. It started with Melissa's idea of doing a lip sync dance to an 80's song, her choice being "Hey Mickey". It evolved from that one song to snippets of several famous 80's songs, including Thriller, Walk Like an Egyptian, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Eye of the Tiger, and Vogue. With a last throw in suggested by Sommer - our opening sequence was to the song Jump On It and we copied the dance moves by Will Smith in an episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air - we had our masterpiece. We met several times to put together our moves, ordered our 80's attire, and arrived early at the church to crimp and style our hair. Some pre-show pictures...

We were ready to rock it!

The talent show was filled with a bunch of really fun and entertaining performances. Even Savannah had jumped in on an act where a bunch of the little kids were dancing and Savannah stepped in to show off a few moves of her own. We were slated to be the finale which meant we had that much more time to get extremely nervous and start second guessing actually doing our performance in front of all those people. But the time arrived and out we went. The video is so much better but for the blog, pictures will just have to do.

My lead part of our act was the Madonna role for Vogue...I was chosen because, surprisingly enough, I was the only one in our group who remembered the music video for it and some of the moves. Yep, I'm definitely the oldest!

About half way through, I got the worst case of cotton mouth and dry lips and I was frantically struggling to get some moisture in my mouth so I could actually look like I was singing, ha ha!

We made it through all 7 1/2 minutes with only a few little mistakes. As we exited the stage and ran out into the hallway, we all just started busting up laughing. We had overcome our nervousness, our fears, got a few cheers, and just had a blast doing it. Serving with these ladies has been one of the highlights of my adult life! We always have so much fun with each other! This is one performance I will always remember!

Some final pictures and boomerangs (of course) in the hall before it was time to get back to the 21st century.

A New Sport

For quite some time Noah has wanted to give fencing a try and in April he got that chance. I signed him up for an 8 week introductory course and he absolutely loved it!

He especially loved being able to face a foe!

As with all things Noah loves, I ended up with the cutest drawings of his fencing experience.

Sav's Last Soccer Tournament

Mid March we received the news - Coach Angie was stepping down as head coach of Celtic and the team would be ending. My heart just sunk. It was going to be so difficult to find another team this late in the game so Savannah's future on a club team was up in the air. Although the team still had a few  tournaments left to play, Savannah would only make one of them due to out of town trips we would be on. So, at the end of March, Savannah's Celtic team played in the Baltimore Mania tournament, her final club soccer tournament.

The girls played tough in their first game but it ended in a tie. Hangin' with her sweet teammate Alexa!

Gettin' game 2 started!

Throughout the game Savannah and this girl had quite a few fights over that ball!

Up against that girl once again. It was seconds after this picture that Savannah scored a goal...with her jaw!

Savannah was going after the ball, trying to get set up for a shot. The goalie came rushing out to try and snatch it away from Savannah before she could get a shot off. Unfortunately for the goalie, her own defender stepped in front of her, giving it a powerful kick to clear it, but Savannah's face was in the way. The ball ricocheted off Savannah's jaw, going right back past the defender and the goalie. When Savannah got hit, her head snapped back so far that I knew she had to be hurt; I almost ran out onto the field and had to stop myself. I was watching my poor daughter amazingly stay on her feet but clutching at her face and it wasn't until I heard some of the yells start up that I turned to look at the ball slowly roll into the net. Savannah didn't even cry, she just kinda laughed as her teammates all ran up to congratulate her.

Savannah rubbing her jaw...it HAD to hurt! Savannah definitely knows how to go out in a final game!

Despite Savannah's goal and goals by Payton Long and Peyton Radomsky, our girls fell to the other team 4-3. We were so proud of the way they all played, especially against this second team who were quite physical. Since it was her last game, I grabbed a few final pictures. Coach Angie has been amazing!  She was just the coach Savannah needed at this time.

One last team shot! We will definitely miss these girls.  Thank goodness a bunch of them will play with Savannah at Edgewood for her final season of high school soccer.

Seminary March Madness

I came across what I thought was a great idea for my seminary students - Doctrinal Mastery March Madness! We had a selection day where each of my students picked doctrinal mastery verses out of a bowl and then, for the next two weeks for devotional, two students played a "game" against each other. Through pictures, power points, object lessons, or pure testimony, each student would explain the importance of their doctrinal mastery verse and what it meant to them. Great idea, right? Except the very first morning, after the two students had done their presentations and everyone was voting on who had "won", I had the worst feeling in my heart. How do you determine whose testimony is better than another's? How can one vote on which doctrine is better? Both Harrison and Grace had done an amazing job preparing and both shared fabulous witness to the truthfulness of the doctrine they presented. I felt terrible and wasn't quite sure what to do.

I was in a quandary and prayed for an answer. The next day, one of my students was late so I quickly did a different pairing and, with that one change, the tournament was now set up to have every student win one game and lose one game. There would be no ultimate elimination, there would be no supreme winner or loser. My answer had come. However, I didn't tell the kids anything, I just let them prepare, present, and vote. Over the next two weeks my students did a fantastic job bearing testimony of their doctrinal mastery verses. The spirit in our classroom was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed our wonderful devotionals each morning!

I love getting new artwork for the classroom!

Using treats to sway the voters!

On the final day I told them about what had happened - how on the first day my heart just sank to my toes when I realized the direction this activity could take us. I bore testimony that Heavenly Father had answered my prayer and had turned the whole thing into an amazing experience. I have a few highly competitive students who I could tell were a little disappointed that there wouldn't be an ultimate winner but I think the majority of them understood and felt good about what had taken place. I truly do love teaching seminary!