Greg's Engaged!

Greg is engaged! He asked Kristina Fancher to marry him on Easter... he put the ring in her Easter basket, what a fun surprise. Greg and Kristina have been either very good friends or dating for a few years now, so this did not come as a big surprise to our family.


The date they have set for their wedding is October 10, 2009 and they will be married in the Logan Temple.

Sounds like they will be busy the next few months making all of those fun "wedding plans".

Greg has been living here in Logan going to USU majoring in Computer Science and Kristina has been living in SLC this past year working on her Masters Degree. She got her Bachelor Degree from USU. Greg plans to move down in May and work this summer then start up at the University of Utah this fall. They will live in Salt Lake while both of them continue to work on their educations.

And so their lives and journey together will begin....

Congratulations Greg & Kristina! You make a cute couple!

**STATE CHAMP**

Abby totally rocked her tumbling meet last weekend! She is state Champ in TWO events -- Trampoline and Tumbling (floor). She was simply amazing in these two events and she deserved 1st place for sure. Although, the older she gets, the stiffer the competition gets and we are just never sure if it will be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd... but we can usually tell if she would be lower than 3rd -- for some odd reason (ha, ha!).

Her meet was in Heber, UT and she actually had 2 events on Friday evening and one on Saturday morning. Her first event was double mini tramp. Abby had been working for the past two weeks to get her double back flip off the tramp for her 2nd pass on double mini... but when she went to do her first pass, she had a really weird bad bounce that kind of kicked her off the trampoline. She wasn't even able to do her skills for her first pass. Sitting in the stands Brad and I could tell that she was devastated and extremely upset. Her second pass went fairly well, but with only skills on one pass it just doesn't work and she ended up getting 8th place on double mini. She came up in the stands to talk to us and was verrrrry bummed. She understands that you make mistakes and sometimes you get bad bounces..... but she had worked so dang hard to get her double back flip!!

Abby on top the podium after placing 1st in Tumbling

Well, she had to perform trampoline in about an hour so she had to shake it off -- and she did that very well. Her trampoline routines were BEAUTIFUL!! Unless you are a parent, or hang around the gym watching these girls and guys practice you don't really notice the details, but at the end I have posted video; notice what good form Abby has, her legs and toes are together, her legs are straight, she kicks out beautifully... she just looks so good when she performs. Plus there is a rectangle on the tramp that they are suppose to stay within during their routine. Well, Abby got FIRST PLACE!! There were 12 girls competing in trampoline.


The next morning she competed for tumbling. There were 13 girls she was competing against in tumbling. Now all of these girls are in Abby's same age group, and they have all registered to compete at the same level... it starts at level 5 and goes up to level 10 then jr elite etc. So, they are all very competitive with each other, and their skills and abilities are similar. Once again she was right on. Her passes down the floor looked great! Abby has such great form on floor also. Now at the end of the blue floor there is a red line then a yellow mat.... the athletes score higher if the they start their last skill on the blue and land on the yellow mat. Kinda tricky to measure this all out when you are flipping down the floor, like they do!! Abby landed perfectly on both of her passes, which was really super for her score and her routine! Great Job Abby! (Once again, I have posted all of the videos at the end.) We were nervous waiting for the awards, there are a few really good girls competing against Abby... where would she place?? We figured she would be in the top 3, but would she? YES she would! Abby Larson got 1st Place in Tumbling! Hooray!

Abby on top the podium after taking 1st place for trampoline... she competed against 12 girls, but it was late at night and most of the girls had left for the night. Happy girl! :)

Lots and lots of trophies to be given out. Trophies are only given out at the state, regional, and national meets. The rest of the meets the girls receive medals.

Hanging out, waiting for the awards....

The two above videos are Abby doing her Tumbling passes. Watch her form, her legs are together, her back handsprings and whips are long... she just looks grand!

The above videos are Abby doing her Trampoline routines. She is so amazing, you might want to watch them 2 or 3 times to appreciate how great she really looks! :) In the top video she does her double back flip and lands perfectly, then her very last skill is a rudi (a front flip with 2 twists) she lands this like a true champ also!!

This video is a practice pass that Abby did on double mini.... it has her doing her double back flip off, so you can kind of see what she had been working on, but she would have been a little more on target if she were being judged.....

Once again, here I am brag, brag, brag... but I guess I have got something pretty good to brag about! Just a proud momma!

p.s. This is Abby's 3rd year in a row taking state (1st place) on trampoline.

HAWAII

WARNING: long post with a ton of pictures.....





Two of my sisters (Kathy and Stacy) and I took our boys to Hawaii April 4-12. It is their "Senior Trip" although Tanton is just a junior, because the other two (Taylor and Chad) are seniors.... We flew into Honolulu and then we got on a cruise ship and cruised the islands. It was a blast and our boys had so much fun. They are all within one year of each other in age and have all basically grown up together. Although we didn't have the best weather, like we were hoping for, we sure enjoyed some nice fresh Hawaiian rain! :) We did sneak in a couple of sunny days for working on our tans.

We left port from Honolulu on Saturday and docked in Maui on Sunday. We stayed on Maui for 2 days Sunday and Monday. Here our boys took some wind surfing lessons and we spent the other day shopping downtown Lahaina.

Kathy and Stacy on the beach while the boys were wind surfing.

Taylor, Tanton and Chad

These are both pictures of us eating at a pizza place called BJ's pizza in Lahaina while we were shopping.

Stacy, Kelly and Kathy

After Maui we sailed to the "Big Island" of Hawaii and docked on one side in a city called Hilo. We spent Tuesday in Hilo, then we sailed to the other side of the big island and docked in a city called Kona. Both of these cities were quite large.

Stacy, Chad, Kathy, Tanton and Kelly having dinner with our sons... Taylor is missing in action from this photo. Each night we could choose if we wanted to go eat at one of the buffets or have a sit down meal and actually order our meal. We had super dates and got a lot of comments on how cute that the "moms" were out with their "sons". It actually was quite cute and quite a lot of fun. We took the boys while we had them, because they met up with some girls on the boat and most of their evenings were spent hanging out with their "new friends".

Have no fear though, we met some new friends of our own. In this picture is Lisa (back row) and Marcy (front row). They are some friends that we actually met while at Karaoke on the boat. Marcy was a killer at singing! They were really nice gals and we ended up attending a few shows and eating a few meals with our new friends from Chicago!

Some really cool trees in Hawaii.

After we left the "Big Island" we sailed Kauai and spent our last two days (Thursday and Friday) on this island. On Kauai we did an excursion called Kauai ATV -- it is Mud bugging! and man on man did we get muddy....It was raining this day and in Hawaii when it rains it POURS! (pics at the end)

Friday night we set sail again Saturday morning we docked back on Honolulu. Our cruise was over, but our flight did not leave until 9 pm that night so we wore our bathing suits and hit the Waikiki Beach! It was awesome because it was SUNNY and we were able to work on our tans, relax in the sun and come home with a bit of a sunburn.... which fooled everyone! :)

The boys getting windsurfing lessons from their instructor who was IRISH!

Chad rockin the boat..

Taylor Hangin Loose....

....and Tanton enjoying the fun!

Our boat "Pride of America"

The three Amigos - Tanton, Taylor and Chad.

Chad, Taylor and Tanton (in deep thought apparently).

Eating at a diner one of our last nights on the cruise.

The three Amiga's - Kelly, Kathy and Stacy.

Some beautiful Hawaiian mountains as we sailed in the ocean. In one of the pictures you can see a rainbow. The mountainsides were such a dark green and so lush, it was amazing!

This is where the DIRT begins...Kathy, Taylor, Stacy, Chad, Tanton and Kelly.

So, we go in our little mud buggies and we were very naive as to what lie ahead. I could tell it was going to be cold and I tipped our guide an extra $20 to wear that coat I have on (YES! I am a huge wimp). But it was dark clouds, rainy and cold - even for Hawaii. We drove these machines through the biggest mud puddles ever! Now remember..... our 17 and 18 year old sons are driving, we didn't miss a puddle the entire way! I think it was like 11 miles up to the waterfalls. Now, the plan is great. Once you get to the waterfalls normally you take off your clothes and jump in (swimsuits are on under clothes, of course!) You wash off then get out and dry off in the warm sun -- but remember that is on a normal sunny Hawaiian day. We got up there and man, we were FREEZING. Our boys braved the cold and jumped in, but the moms... we just hung out, ate lunch and waited for our 11 mile trek back down the mountain! :)

Half of the time it was raining, oops I mean POURING. Oh what the heck! It just made more mud puddles for us to slam through. Now honestly, I will admit, I was freezing cold, chilled to the bone --- but I would do it again in a heartbeat..........It was a BLAST!!!

Here is the part of the story about the boys braving the cold and jumping in the waterfalls, and the moms just freezing.... check out the MUD!


Tanton and I are in the orange buggy. Kathy and Taylor and Stacy and Chad both had red buggies.

Below is our whole group that went on our mud bugging adventure!

We had a great trip to Hawaii, we had been planning on doing this with our boys for a few years and now it has come and gone and I can hardly believe it! Now Abby says that I will be "too old" when it is her turn to go for her "senior trip" and that is only 7 years away.... Hello, how old does she think I am?!?

Aloha!

Tumble, Tumble, Tumble...

All her Medals and Trophies!

Abby 1st place on Floor

Abby's tumbling meet in March went well. She had to take the week and a half before the meet off from running too much because when she was practicing a double back flip on the double mini tramp she landed on her 

ankles weird -"crunching" both of them. So they were a bit sore and hard for her to run to practice either double mini or her floor routines. So, she did very well. She ended up taking 1st place on her floor routine - out of I believe 10 or 11 girls. Trampoline is usually one of her best events, but she ended up brushing the pad during her routine and they stop scoring at that point - she got 6th. We are pulling for a 1st place at the state meet which is next month. :) Like I have said before, she always amazes me... she is so small yet packs so much power and talent.. I am always proud of Abby, no matter what place she gets. But she is always much happier when she gets a little higher on the podium. I guess that is natural after all the time she spends at the gym practicing each week.

I know there are a lot of pics and video, but I have to blog every little thing about her meets, they only come along once a month for only a few months... and I am a bit proud. 

The girls waiting for their scores.. oh, oh... hair malfunction!

Double mini tramp

Floor Routine

Trampoline Routine