Ellie Sings on Temple Square Dec 2017

In early December this year Ellie and the Vox Anima choir had the opportunity to sing their arrangement of Christmas songs in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square.  That to me sounds like a bucket list thing.  You couldn't pick a better place or reason to get the Christmas Spirit. They were also invited to sing to the first presidency at the Church Office Building. 

 It was inspiring and edifying. As we were listening to them this older lady who works there asked me who this choir was.  I told her it was the Skyridge High School Chamber choir called Vox Anima.  She said  she had been there all night listening to ALL of the high schools sing and this one by far was THE BEST!  She was so impressed.  Ellie has had a wonderful time singing with Vox Anima this year.

Ellie's Plays 2016-18 (Dam Yankees, Beauty and the Beast)

Ellie has been way into her drama during her time in high school.

Her 1st big play was Beauty and the Beast.  She was

Beauty and the Beast

Ellie Birthday Dec 2016 cake wars

Ellie wanted her birthday to be a Halloween wars party.  To prepare for this we split everyone into groups so we had 3 groups.  Each team got their own colored aprons to unify them.  I bought a bunch of different candies from the bulk section at Winco.  For the small scare challenge I baked 3 very large sugar cookies.  Each team had to decorate their cookie based on the prompt they received. I don't have a picture of them but they were pretty well done.  Ellie's team had a whole starry night at the cemetery scene. The winner of the small scare challenge get extra time for the large scare challenge.

The large challenge was to decorate a cake.  I baked 6 cake rounds that they were free to cut and shape anyway they wanted. I also make fondant and plenty of butter cream frosting they could tint any color.  I think the theme was "Your biggest fear" These are the final entries.  The winners received golden pumpkins.  It was a fun twist on a birthday party.

Ellie Volleyball Sept 2016

Ellie finally tried a sport.  She chose volleyball.  She did pretty good with it.  Her team mates were very supportive.  That was my favorite part about the whole thing.  She didn't take it as seriously as I would have liked but baby steps.  

California Vacation Beach Aug 2016

On our last day of our trip to California we just had to head to the beach.  Oh how I miss the beach.  We pretty much had it to ourselves because it was a little too cold for the natives.  The kids played in the waves while I played in the sand.  It was a little too cold for me to get in the water. We dug for sand crabs finding some pretty large ones.  When we were done we cleaned up and found a place for dinner.  We were sitting at Island Burger waiting for our food when Ellie leaned over to color and all of the sudden water just started streaming out of her nose.  I'm not talking about a little drip, it was more like a faucet.  I looked at her strangley and asked, "Are you ok?" She was fine.  It was just some ocean water caught in her sinuses and finally found its way out.  All through dinner she had to hold a napkin to her nose to wipe up the water.  I've never seen that before.  We jokingly told her she really was a mermaid.