Petersen 911: November 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Winter Weather!

Jeffrey's new toy!

Becca's school across the street

View from our deck...winterized!

Every summer that we lived in Las Vegas and Mesquite I would curse the heat. Every year around May, I would begin to dread the sweltering heat that I knew was just around the corner. Why you ask? Because I REALLY hate to sweat! It ruins my day. Just when you think you're showered, clean, smelling fresh and ready for the day, you walk out the door and get blasted with what seems like an overpowered, overheated, blow dryer! Yes, the wind is always blowing in the desert! I hated it with a passion. I was one of those people that would hop from one air conditioned place to another as fast as I could to avoid the sweat streams that where just waiting to flow. This did little good because as it turns out, I'm a sweater! I always have been. I have ruined more shirts than I care to mention. So this is why I would dread life there every summer.

When we moved to Utah in August, the timing couldn't have been better with regards to this matter. I believe it was about 110* when we left and when we landed in Spanish Fork, it was around 80*. Much better!
We were able to really enjoy a real fall season! It was beautiful, amazing, wonderful & lovely. The trees were every shade of red, orange and gold. In fact, the BYU campus was so beautiful I really would have loved to take some family pictures there but we were missing some of our family...Uughmmm, our aloha kids!
Needless to say, I really enjoyed the fall weather here in the mountains.

Now it is winter and I was a little, tintsy bit worried about how I would like the white stuff. As it turns out, I kinda like that too. When the snow falls, it seems to be very quiet and still. I enjoy watching it fall from the comfort of my home. I like to turn the fireplace on and do some project of some sort. The kids have enjoyed sledding and snowboarding on the hills across the street at the school. And as long as I have hot choccolate available, they are fine. They've met some really great friends in our ward that seem to have as much energy as they do and they are a rare bread like our kids...they are NOT addicted to video games!
I know I'll probably get really tired of the white stuff come March, but for now, I like it.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Adventures in Volleyball

This is a blog dedicated to Amanda and Volleyball.

Before our family moved to Utah, I knew that we needed to make the transitions as easy as possible for the kids, and one way to do this was to get Amanda up here for try outs for the volleyball team. It was kind of fun to take a couple of road trips with my daughter. The first time we made the trip, we left Mesquite at 2:30AM so that way we could be up here by 9:00am Utah time. I have to admit, that was a pretty lonely ride since Amanda slept the entire way. That's okay because she needed the rest to be at her best for try outs.

This is one of Amanda's "favorite" jobs...line judging!

I can't remember a time that I was more nervous or upset than on that day. I don't know if I could fully explain all of the emotions that played into that day. I will just say that with wedding plan swirling around, moving plans wreaking havoc and just pure exhaustion weighing in, it was quite a day!

As we walked into the gym, there were several girls already there and I was looking desperately for the coach because I thought that she would at least be a "friendly" face".
At the same time I was really praying that Amanda would be accepted by the girls and not shunned by them.
To my surprise, the coach was almost young enough to be my daughter and she was all business. No nicey, nice there. She was direct and didn't show any enthusiasm about having Amanda there. I know that any good coach doesn't welcome a new kid into the "circle of kindness" right off the bat so I wasn't upset about that. I guess I was just a little surprised at how business-like she was. She needed to be skeptical about the new kid and just see what she could do. She held that stance for the next 3 days! You could tell that she had some of the girls in her "circle of kindness" but they where return players. Everyone else, stood outside that realm.
It was 3 long days of 2-a day tryouts. The first session started at 9am and went until 12 noon. Then the next session went from 3pm until 6pm. Needless to say, she was exhausted by the time she got done for the day. Luckily, we have some friends that live up in this area and they where kind enough to let us stay with them. Big shout out to Ricky & Candy!

After the 3 days, she was told that she made the team and was most likely going to be a starter. I was so proud of her. The other thing that made life good was that fact that the girls welcomed her in with open arms. She was invited to go to lunch with some of them, invited to go get shaved ice with some of them, invited to join in with the older class men to "welcome" the younger girls into the team by kidnapping them at 6am and having breakfast at one of the players homes. I was so impressed with these girls and Amanda felt like she was really part of the team.   After that we made another 2 trips up here and then Sarah & Amanda made a "sisters run" up here.