Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Snow, Nor Hail. . .Shall keep us from PLAYOFFS!

Okay, so I didn't even BOTHER to try and edit these few pictures. There was NO POINT!

Lets just say that Dallin had a football game on Wednesday. It was at Firth. When they play at Firth it is at the High School Football Field. Parents have to sit on the bleachers. Although it is a good view for High School ball, it makes it really hard to see when the kids are shorter - like say. . . 5th grade!

Just take my word for it, he is playing Nose Guard there.

I was hoping it would show up in the other two pictures, but you can't REALLY see as well as I had hoped, BUT it is SNOWING AND RAINING like CCCRRRAAAAAZZZYYYYYY! Poor kids, poor parents, it was just generally icky.

Snow in the lights

Snow on my Jeans


Basically, we just froze. On the GOOD side - THEY WON!!!!! 39-6!!!!! This means we get to go to the PLAYOFFS!!!! (In the rain, and the snow, . . . )

Danielle

Tacey's 14th Birthday!

Well, for Tacey's birthday, I have told her she is too old for parties, so she can invite a few girlfriends to lunch. This usually means there are some serious decision to be made about who is invited. I usually cave and let more girls come than we can actually afford. . .
This year there were 4 friends and a trip to Olive Garden.
First Present. . .

Kaydee. . Abbey & Jessica

Katelyn

The inside of the present

Chocolate present. . .

Randon Olive Garden people singing. They didn't even give her a free dessert. Lame.

Abbey and a breadstick. I swear, and this is not an exaggeration, they went through 9 baskets of bread sticks!

Dessert!

Katelyn hard a hard time keeping it in her mouth!

Photo session outside the restaurant

Carzy girls high on bread sticks!

Yup.

Taking pictures down by the river.

Abbey went running across the grass, ot realizing the water level was high and things were overflowing. It was like 35 degrees, and she slipped in the very wet, very mushy mud.

See?

Posing. . . like models (?)

We were going to spell YMCA, but there were too many of them.

Friends

Jumping friends

Running friends

Galloping friends

Friends around a flag pole, friends on the railroad tracks (no train in sight). The birthday girl!

This is what silly girls high on breadsticks do at stop signs in rural Idaho. Yes, it is a Chinese Firedrill.

She opted for brownies, not cake.

Singing Happy Birthday!

All in all, a good Birthday Week!

Danielle

This week

We finally had a semi-normal week. And by semi-normal I mean that we only had our mass of usually scheduled activities - mostly. No big events like Spud Day or the Fair or whatever.
The big stress of the beginning of the week was that Tacey had open gym for Basketball. This happens before tryouts. Unfortunately tryout won't be for several more weeks because

We are on HARVEST BREAK!

We have the next two weeks off, so when we get back the game is on, so to speak. Keep your fingers crossed and those positive thought coming!

Dallin had a game on Saturday. I thought it was an AWESOME game - mainly because Dallin got to play a lot and play some new positions. Oh, yes, they did win! Warm Ups. They had them behind the bleachers instead of on the field because the 7th graders were playing their game. A lot of the Shelley teams had games that day. We had at least one team from each grade level. the schedule went 6th, 7th, 5th then 8th.

There seemed to be a lot in injuries this game. They all also seemed to be short-term injuries - and all on the other team. Most of the time the kids laid there for awhile, then eventually ran off. Either way it is a tradition in football for both teams to 'take a knee' while they take care of the injured player. Kinda cool!

This is Dallin getting set to be part of the kickoff team. New position for him! I know he is a little-type guy, but I don't think he will be for long. Do you see how much thicker he is than the rest of his team?

Kick off Team!

This is Dallin playing 3 back. He is running up to number 14 there, then he will grab the ball and push through the line - or at least try to. This usually when he ends up on the bottom of the pile of kids.

This is him carrying the ball in for the extra point. Remember he is number 38. He ALMOST made it. He slipped. Don't know on what. Probably his shoe laces. . . (They don't usually try to kick for the extra point at this age. None of them can kick)

Blocking as an offensive player. Look for that number 38! His coach loves the game so much. He is so intense - in a good way.

The Final score: 54-6. It was a nice win.

After game coach pep-talk. He was a happy coach.

They should win their game on Wednesday, then we will see if they make playoffs. Right now it looks like they should. Keep hopin' other teams lose! I really want them to make playoffs; that would be cool.

As I said, we are on vacation this week: AND we have Tacey's birthday coming up (with Dallin's not too far after). There should be a ton fun in store!

Danielle

Spud Day 2009

I am not sure there are words to describe how VERY MUCH I LOVE SPUD DAY! Spud Day starts very early at our house as the parade lines up in front of our house. The parade technically begins at 10:00 am, but we had one lone float on the street the night before, but it doesn't take everyone else very long to follow suit. This is the view from our porch at 8:30 am. To the North

directly in front

This is from the driveway. The theme this year was 'Potatoes on Masquerade'. Honestly, where else in the world would people make big paper mache' sculptures of potatoes with Marti-Gras masks on? I LOVE Spud Day! I was honored to have them basically in my own front yard.

View to the South

Okay, so I have several driveways. However, that does NOT mean they are PUBLIC driveways! I went outside and the one white car was my Brother-in-laws car, so it was all good. However, this scooter, yeah, didn't know who it was and WHY they felt it was okay to park in MY driveway! Usually I have people park IN FRONT of my driveway (totally rude and illegal), but this was the first time someone parked IN the driveway (TRESPASSING!!!!). I took this picture so I could go to the police station later and complain. I didn't need to after all, as one of my friends in the parade said to me when she saw me 'Hey! Parked in your driveway! Hope that's okay!'. At least it was a friend! (No police necessary!)

My favorite masquerading potatoes in parade! Yeah, those are people sitting amongst the potatoes.

And here we have the FAMOUS Shelley Mascots. The King and Queen Russets! Its okay to laugh, I do. ALL. THE. TIME.

More potatoes.

This is my neightbor, Matt. He was watching from the roof of the shed. The only problem with this seat is that you can't pick up all the candy they throw!

Now THIS is one of my favorite pictures I took at Spud Day. That cute little Bee on the back is one of my students, Kelsey Cox. She is dressed like a Bee for the Cox's Honey float. Well, not really float, more series of men dressed like beekeepers walking and driving bright yellow four-wheelers. The beekeepers were giving out honey sticks, but Kelsey was throwing 'Bit 'O Honey's'. Isn't she the CUTEST!

Now to THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the parade. Tacey marched with her Dance Team at Elite Studios. She's holding a BIG bag of Cinnamon Bears that they were throwing to the crowd.

She's also wearing her cute team warm-ups and has her hair and makeup done for the performance on the free stage.

Yep. People do things like this on purpose on Spud Day. Gotta LOVE the Potato Sack Dresses.

This also one of my favorites. It is the float from the local grocery store. Bet you couldn't guess that, could ya?

At the end of the Spud Day festivities they have a Demolition Derby. This car must have been mine: It had my name on it!

Yep. They made a potato out of potato sacks. Yep. I don't know who made this 'float'. All I know is nowhere else do you see a fake potato this big.
Now, THIS is BY FAR my favorite moment of the Parade. This guy (I assume it is a guy, although I doubt his masculinity after this pictures) is the 'Anytime Fitness' guy. He is a living Logo! My neighbor almost landed in the hospital from laughing so hard. He thought, and rightly so, that the guy looked like a Nexium Pill. He SOOOOO TOTALLY DOES! And, yes. Laugh. Laugh HARD. Laugh HARD at this guy. If he has the guts to wear this suit, he deserves the laughter.

Koda ALWAYS gets to go to the parade, but this year we took him to the park as well. He was HAPPY! See? He is smiling!

Another AWESOME part of Spud Day is the potatoes. THEY ARE FREE! And you get free milk too! They come complete with butter, sour cream and cheese! Enough cholesterol for a week in one simple little meal! I was talking with the organizers and this year they had 10,000 potatoes on hand to give away. They ran out. . .

Oh, yes. Another AWESOME part of Spud Day. The Spud Tug. Yep. This is the pit BEFORE the infamous mashed potatoes.

Tacey and her team performed on the Free Stage. She is the third one.

In performance. She the one all the way on the left in the front row.

Little Video Clip.

Oh. YES!!!!!! They have to mix up the INSTANT Mashed Potatoes in a concrete mixer because it is the only thing big enough!

It takes most of the Fire Depatment and those GREAT BIG boxes filled with potato flakes to make this AMAZINGLY Funny event take place!

Spreading the potatoes evently in the pit. Hee Hee!

Lots and lots of Mashed potatoes!

One of the privledges (?) of being Miss Russett is that you get to determine when the potatoes are ready for the Spud Tug. She gets to do this by EATING A FORK FULL OF THEM!

They began this year with Celebrity teams. This is Channel 3 losing to Channel 8.

This is Channel 3 after the fact. They are just about to lose again to KUPI 97, one of the Radio Stations.

This is Channel 8 also losing to KUPI. Then KUPI lost to the Kiwanis Club. (The sponsors of Spud Day.)

Then comes the kid's heats. This is my neighbor Holly right in the front. Either her team was going to win the whole thing or she was going in.

They won several matches and made it to the finals, but in the end. . .

She went in!

This is an example of how NOT to Spud Tug. See the guy sitting? Yep, that DID NOT help his team AT ALL!

The best ones are when they pull so hard SEVERAL of the team members go in. 5 of the 8 people on this team went in. It was AWESOME! I did miss the picture of the kid who was hanging on the rope OVER the pit like a Kapuchin Monkey. He finally fell in, but it was completely CLASSIC!

The best part of the Adult competition is watching the LDS Missionaries compete in their white shirts, ties and suit pants. Every team has a name, this year we had Tater Tots, Curly Fries, Spud Muffins, and several other potato inspired names. The Missionaries were the Strippling Warriors.

In the end they weren't Strippling enough.

I've actually seen years where the Missionaries were a lot potato covered than this. This Elder got off easily.
Shane and Dallin had a 'cool' dessert at Spud Day. Sub Zero is an Ice Cream place where they put all the ingredients for Ice Cream in a bowl, then insert liquid nitrogen to make it into Ice Cream.
How 'cool' is that? It's a nice frosty dessert and a science project all in one! I stuck with the yummy traditional Strawberry Funnel Cake. Nope, no calories in THAT one!

Dallin opted for a Chocolate one. He has since decided that he should stay with Strawberry next time!

Mac. It was a hot day.

It was an AWESOME day.

I LOVE SPUD DAY!

Danielle