Kylie's Graduation Day

Yesterday my little Kylie graduated from high school. It seems like just yesterday I was sending her off to Kindergarten. Hey! she was true to her school colors even back on the first day of Kindergarten! Time sure does fly and here she is, ready to embark on the adventures of being in the grown-up world!

What a great day it was and Kylie looked so awesome in her cap and gown! Her graduation was held at the BYU Marriott Center in Provo and it couldn't have been a better day! Grammy and Papa were here to help us celebrate, along with some friends and family.

Way to go Kylie! We are so proud of you!

Carson's Dance Festival and 6th Grade Graduation

I can't believe this school year has come to an end and also an end of another kind for us. Our family is officially done with elementary school.....kind of sad! We went to our very last dance festival at Barratt Elementary School. Over the years we've enjoyed being able to go and watch our kids dance with their grades, and at one time had 4 kids in the school and got to watch 4 dances. For our last year we watched Carson and his 6th grade dance to the 70's song, "I Will Survive". They wore tie-dyed shirts they made in school and really put the groove on!

Carson and his group of friends and brothers

Carson and his 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Patlan who we absolutely LOVE!

The next day we watched as Carson graduated from elementary school and accepted his certificate of completion. It was a fun day with just a touch of sadness.

Kylie and her best friend Kenzie made a poster and got balloons and gift bags for their little brothers who are also best friends, Carson and Chance. When the boys saw their sisters approaching with all "the stuff" they ran because they didn't want to draw attention to themselves. As you can see by Carson's face, he doesn't like the attention. What studs and what great big sisters!

Memorial Day 2009

Grandpa and Grandma Turner's graves

Grandpa and Grandma Crump's graves

Uncle Larry's grave

Most Memorial Days our family has been out of town and our kids haven't grown up with the memories that I have of Memorial Day, which were visiting the Bluffdale Cemetery in the morning followed by a big family barbeque. This year since Mark was working in Oregon and it was just me and the kids home, I decided that I would take them to visit my family members graves at the Sandy and Bluffdale cemeteries. I think the kids enjoyed walking around the cemeteries and not only looking at our family headstones, but looking at the various other headstones and being amazed at how old some of them were....they were seeking out the oldest headstone at both cemeteries. We were able to visit the graves of my Dad's twin brother Larry, his twin sisters Betty and Bonnie and his parents (my grandparents) at the Sandy cemetery. At the Bluffdale cemetery we visited the graves of my 3-year old cousin Emily, my Uncle Reed and my mom's parents (my grandparents). This cemetery is my favorite cemetery to visit because the majority of the graves are of relatives of both sides of my family. I even have great grandparents and numerous other distant family members buried there......too many to name all of them. Back in the day, Bluffdale was an extremely small town where both sides of my mom's family lived and even my Dad's family.

After the cemetery we went to Cowley's for a family barbeque and had fun visiting with family and playing games with the cousins.

Busy! Busy! Busy!

Today was an absolutely crazy day for the Good Gomer Family. It was one of those days where we had to keep an hour by hour list to check off tasks/events as we finished them. Kortney even had to step in tonight as Taylir's "parent" because there were too many places to be at one time where a parent needed to be.

First of all today, TAYLIR GOT HER DRIVING PERMIT!!! She has been nagging and nagging and nagging since October to get it and she finally accomplished some pre-requisites in order to get it. Now that she has it she is going to be nagging nagging nagging to take her driving.....SCARY!!

Then tonight Taylir had her year-end track banquet where she was honored along with the team.

Also tonight, Colton had his year-end band concert. Jean was able to go to that with him and he looked like a stud in his tux for the FINAL time this year. Colty will miss wearing it....FYI he asks to wear it to almost every event we attend.

Also tonight, Kylie had her Senior Recognition Night at our church. This was a ton of fun! With Kylie graduating high school, there has been a ton of events leading up to it....PARTY! PARTY! PARTY! There are 15 kids in our ward who are Seniors this year and they are such a great bunch of kids. Kylie has had a lot of fun growing up with them. It was kind of sad watching the slide presentation of them over the years because you know they are all moving on to a different phase of life and most are leaving home. They have great things ahead of them though and the world is a lucky place to have them in it!

The night had a red carpet theme and was honoring the FAB FIFTEEN. The ward members were suppose to bring cameras and flash away like paparazzi. It was a lot of fun.

Once again, a proud mommy!

What a fun bunch of girls! There were 12 girls and 3 boys in the FAB FIFTEEN

Kylie with me, Kristi, Daxton and Jett. Neither of the Dads were able to be there. FYI, it was Doug's birthday today too but there wasn't enough time for celebrating.....Kristi says maybe this weekend when it's slowed down.

Carson had baseball tonight and came late with his friends to crash the party!

After a busy day like today, I think I deserve that MUCH NEEDED trip to Oregon that I'm taking in the morning! I need some fresh northwest air to clear my head and refresh me for my crazy week we have next week with the last week of school and 3 kids graduating from elementary, jr. high and high school....AHH!!!!!!!

Family Update

We have been on the go BIG time lately! It seems like May is always busy with all the year end school stuff and this May has been no exception. Here is a little re-cap of what has been going on. There aren't a lot of pictures because our camera was malfunctioning for a time but is back working properly again.

Mother's Day Weekend our whole family traveled to Billings Montana for Grandma Colton's funeral and burial. We took the fifth wheel and made a family road trip out of it and had a fun time like we usually do on a road trip. Mark (aka Clark Griswald) always makes our road trips fun! I wish we had pictures but oh well.

Mother's Day was spent on part 2 of the road trip and getting home in just enough time to make it to the Crump Family Mother's Day Party at Kris and Steve's house. We had a great time there and a yummy barbecue. Brady got to call home from his mission in Atlanta and that was fun to see Kris all excited to get to talk to him. Again, no picutres!

This past weekend was the State Track Meet at BYU for Taylir. She was 1 of 21 girls from 5A who qualified to compete in the high jump. She was the youngest girl there and the only freshman. She was pretty pumped going into it but that quickly diminished when she didn't jump over 5'0. She ended up taking 7th place which was fantastic if you ask me, being the rookie there. I can only imagine what her soph, jr. and sr. years will bring her. Way to go Tay Tay!

Carson also had two baseball games that same day and won both of them. We were able to go to the second one and it was a real nail biter. The game ended in a tie which sent it into another inning. The game ended with Carson's team up to bat last having the last batter up with 2 outs, full count, and the bases loaded. The tension was incredible! The batter ended up getting walked which led to the third baseman walking in to score and winning the game!

Last night Kylie graduated from High School Seminary. We didn't actually find out about it until we were at church yesterday so we didn't have all the family there. I had just enough time to drive Mark to the airport so he could head back to Oregon and hurry home to pick up the kids. It was a wonderful evening and I am so proud of Kylie. The kids her age are such awesome kids and have such strong testimonies. I guess there is a reason they were saved for these last days. Way to go my Kylicins! And YES, the camera finally was able to take a picture!

I'm a VERY proud mommy!

Taylir Region High Jump Champion!

This is going to be a quick post and probably really sloppy but it's late and we have to be up at 5 am tomorrow morning to travel to Billings for Grandma Colton's funeral. But I had to do the mom brag thing and let you all know how proud I am of Taylir. It was the Region Track Meet today and Taylir took 1st place in her event, the high jump.....and she's only a FRESHMAN! What will we see when she is a senior?!?! Her coaches and of course me and Mark, couldn't be more proud. Taylir herself is on CLOUD NINE and said she is too excited to sleep tonight. State is a week from tomorrow and she's pretty pumped.

WAY TO GO TAY TAY!!!!!

She was really excited to be interviewed by a newspaper reporter!!

What a busy couple of days!

What a busy couple of days we have had! I guess when you have a lot of kids, you can expect to be busy but some days are just plain CRAZY!!

Yesterday was not as busy as today but the preparation leading up to yesterday has been a lot of busy work. Carson's 6th grade had their annual Renaissance Fair and we have been busy preparing for that. He and 3 friends had to come up with an idea for a booth and then make the booth. They did a game booth and had to make prizes for it. Colton being the great brother he is helped Carson make homemade swords for it. We also had to come up with a costume that was typical of the Renaissance era and Carson chose to dress up as a Jester. This was the last big school project of the year and I am now breathing a sigh of relief. The fair was a success and the rain stayed away....it was just a little chilly.

Last night we got to help with the cleaning of our church but that wasn't a big deal. It was actually kind of fun and the kids of course goofed around and made service fun. We were teamed up with another family in our ward and we had it done and completed in no time.

This morning our day started out bright and early with Taylir being involved in BYU's Track Invitational for Utah high schools and even some in Wyoming. She was suppose to be at the school at 7 am to meet the bus but because she also had a violin recital this morning we had to do some fancy footwork and scheduling to be at two places at one time. Luckily the recital was in Orem at 10 am and the meet was in neighboring Provo. She was able to quickly play her piece, make a quick change of clothes in the bathroom of the recital hall and off we zoomed her to the track meet.



I haven't mentioned that we also had Carson's baseball game at 10 am in Highland. Since it was raining and had been most of the night, the fields were soaked and the game was cancelled....but not until we had already fretted most of the morning on how we were going to be at 3 places at once. He was also scheduled for a second game at 4 pm in Highland that we had to keep an ear open for information on whether or not it would also be rained out. While we were at the meet we got word that it was cancelled and knew we didn't have to leave the meet early to get him to his game. I think that deep down Carson was thrilled to have a break. He plays 4 games a week and had already played Tuesday and Thursday with practices on Monday and Friday. Right now Baseball is pretty much Carson's life. Today he was able to relax and hang out as a spectator with the family for once.

The meet went until about 6 pm, but we were forced to separate the family at about 2:30 so we could get Kylie home to get ready for Senior Prom that was this evening. Mark stayed with Taylir and I went with Kylie. Me and Kortney were able to primp and make a fuss over Kylie, which is a RARE chance in itself. Kylie is the tomboy of the family and she absolutely hates getting foo-foo'd and playing dress-up but is somewhat of a good sport as long as the hair doesn't get too puffy and absolutely NO up-do's. Korney waved her hair and just clipped up a few side pieces while I put on her makeup. We were even able to put lipgloss on her! She looked so pretty and I was so excited and took a ton of pictures. I was the proud mama bear and followed the group to the park to take their pictures and then even followed them to the home where they were having dinner. Don't worry, there were a few other helicopter moms hovering overhead so Kylie didn't have to be alone in that department :)

Mark and Taylir just arrived home and are cold and wet. Today the weather was both a blessing and a curse. We loved the rain cancelling the baseball games but it made for a miserable track meet. Mark has built a fire and is thawing next to it now while Taylir is actually asleep at my feet.....ahhhhhh! She did awesome at the meet and placed 16th overall. There were a ton of girls there and like I have posted in the past, she is only a freshman at the Jr. High and the majority of the girls are from the High Schools. In fact, today she was the only freshman there and still placed as high as she did. She didn't clear what she had hoped but she has already qualified for State with 5'0. Thursday she cleared 5'2 at practice so she is hoping for that at the next meet. Way to go Taylir!

Tonight I am going to relax and hope to read my book or even watch at least one of the television shows that I have recorded from earlier in the week that I haven't gotten to. Tomorrow will be a nice change to a busy couple of days. Maybe even an afternoon catnap!