Dance the night away

Cynjyn took three dance classes this past year. She had two ballet and a hip hop class.  She's not a big fan of ballet, but realizes that it's good for the body.  She is at a high enough level that she had to have two ballet classes a week as that is the policy of the studio.  Her recital was June 15 and 16.  She was in one dance number on Monday and all three classes dances on Tuesday.  It was at Cashman Center.  We all met up there for her performances.  Tanner, Taz and Garry came straight from their respective work and we all gave Cynj our support.  The number she performed both nights was from her ballet 2-3 class.  It was a 15 min. performance that included all levels of ballet and choreographed by her teacher.  It was a can-can dance and Cynjyn's portion lasted about 2-3 of those 15 min.  They did not take professional pictures of this class/costume.  So when she gets back from her summer adventure, we are going to do a photo shoot in that outfit.  In the meantime, here is a picture she had her friend snap even though she has her hip hop jacket on. 

She did her own hair and makeup for both shows.

She's really good at that.  Her hip hop costume is a little skimpy, but luckily they zip up the jacket!

Her performance was done by half time so Tanner and Taz left.  Garry and I stayed the whole time.  When we got home, her friends and YW leader from church had left flowers on the doorstep with a note telling her that they hoped she did awesome!.  She was feeling loved.

The second night was her big night.  She spent a long time getting ready in our bathroom. 

Make up and hair was quite the production.  She had a ton of bobby pins in that bun to keep it all intact especially during her hip hop performance. 

I went in to get ready by combing my hair for the day.  It was the least I could do. 

Then I figured I should put on a little makeup since she was getting all beautified.

She managed to get her fake lashes on today.  She glued her eye shut the day before and gave up. 

After a great performance, she came home not in the least bit tired and ate some string cheese to calm down.  The whole show was long each night starting at 6:30 and going until 9:30.  But it was worth it because she was so good and so fun to watch!!

I made these two layouts with the professional pictures that we had taken.  She is beautiful at ballet, but excels at hip hop.  She's got rhythm!!

When mom's away, the kids will play

Remember I told you that all of us except Taz and Alexis went on a hike Sunday morning when we were camping. Well apparently they went on their own little hike.  Ours was too easy because it was a trail...they needed something more fierce.  They hiked up above our campground basically straight up the mountain, with no trail.  Thanks to Alexis for making Taz take pictures along the way.  I had threatened them that if they did anything fun while we were gone, they'd better document it!!  Here they are climbing up.

Taking selfies at the top.

Look  mom how high we are!

Meanwhile, Cynjyn was having a great time at the 8th grade dance.  Here they three amigos are on their way to the school.

The ticket.

Hanging out at the dance.

Snapchatting it all.

Fun with the boys.

The next day she headed off to Disneylan!!

Ms. Richie photobombed Cynjyn and Kaela's snapchat.

Cynjyn is in the very back!

Lovebug is Cynjyn's name for Norma on her phone.

She took a picture of the castle all decked out for the 6oth anniversary celebration.

And a photo with her all time favorite Disney character!!

Cynjyn is in the back once again.

And finally, her good friend Danielle made sure she had somewhere to celebrate on Memorial Day...that would be at Danielle's house for swimming and a BBQ!

 And finally, Taz had to take Cynjyn to a dance rehearsal at the Cashman Center.  They got there a half an hour early since they gave themselves plenty of time as it was there first time going there.  Since they were so early and the Old Mormon Fort was right next door...they went on a little tour of it!!  I know nothing about what's in these pictures and why they took them, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

 I do know that they saw these coins and took the picture just for grandma and grandpa because they know they like old coins and they've ingrained that into them so they like them now too!

And that's how the kids play when mom's away!!

Memorial Day Weekend

We have been going camping on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends for a few years now.  It has become a nice tradition for our family and makes us go camping at least twice a year.  We go with a group of families from our ward and we really enjoy the time spent with them.  This year, we headed to Arizona down by Sedona.  I believe it was called the Pine Flat campground.  We arrived on Saturday and checked into our campsite.  We were right by the bathroom which was good and bad.  The bathroom consisted of an outhouse toilet in a nice enclosed room.  There was no odor when you were in the bathroom, but if the wind blew right, we had an odor at our campsite.  We set up and Tanner approved of the layout in the tent.

We had a beautiful view of the mountains surrounding our campground.

Our site was next to the Shafer's and Tanner had several visits from his friend Madeline.

Taz always has a S'more and always makes it look so delicious!!

The boys had no trouble sleeping in in the mornings.  The first night there, we were all freezing at bedtime.  Garry and I never warmed up, but Taz said he slept warm. 

We are sure enjoying our new camp chef grill we got.  Garry has no trouble whipping up a delicious meal in no time. 

We decided to go on a hike Sunday morning.  We went down the road about 10 miles and headed out.  It was seriously about 15 degrees warmer down there than our campsite.  Alexis and Taz and Heather were the three that stayed back at the campsite and didn't go on our hike with us. 

We did Allen's Bend hike and Tanner was a help to his little friend again. 

At the end of the hike in, we had a great view of the river below us. 

It was pretty and quite warm. 

The campsite were sticklers about what we could and couldn't burn.  Taz went against the camp rules and burned this stick he found.  Luckily, no one caught him and we made it work. 

In the afternoon, we convinced Taz and Alexis that is was warmer down the road and that they should go cliff jumping.  The agreed and we all went. You had to cross the river to get to the cliffs.

It was a pretty little area with differing heights of cliffs and a small pool to jump into. 

Robbie and Heather were the adults that went with the kids, the rest of us were spectators photographing and videoing the jumpers. 

Some people needed a little help navigating the cliff climb.

Here are Taz and Alexis on the highest cliff debating whether or not the water is deep enough to jump into.  Robbie went first and didn't have a problem, so they decided to go for it. 

Tas was a little leary about it hurting his ear since he really hurt it bridge jumping last summer, but he said it was ok.

We made all the jumper's do a grand finale jump at the end.  Our vision was for them all to jump at once, but they lined up and ended up going one at a time.  Poor Seth (Between Alexis and Heather just peeking through) was freezing and didn't want to go again, but he was a sport and did it for the sake of the picture.  (L-R: Taz, Alexis, Seth, Heather, Tyler, Robbie, Camryn and Audrey)

We rode back to the campground in the back of Dave's truck so the jumpers could be in the warm truck since they were still cold. 

We were back to our freezing campground and enjoyed time visiting around the Hill's campfire. 

Taz and Alexis really wanted an adult fire and a kids fire.  They determined that if you were old enough to legally drive you could be at the adult fire.  So everytime a kid said something that annoyed them they were shout 'kid's fire!" It became the standing joke of the day.

We were glad we brought hot chocolate.  We were sad we forgot a pot to boil the water in.  Luckily, the Hills let us borrow one and we warmed up in the evening. 

We had a last night around the campfire talking and telling blonde jokes and scary stories (I told them about Talon's haunted prison night) and roasting marshmellows. 

Our last night there it rained all night after we went to bed.  We had to pack up wet stuff and bring it home and reset it up to dry out!

But inspite of the rain, we had a last morning delicious breakfast.

We headed into Sedona.  Trey had told me about the Javalina Cafe which apparently housed a squadron of Javalina's.  So we decide to go find some.  The mall that it was in was very pretty with nice sculptures and windmills and little ponds and waterfalls to look at.  So we went all through it on our search for javalina's. 

Nice statue, but no javalina's.

Beautiful flowers and sculpture, but no javalina's.

We loved the windmills, but no javalina's.

Tanner mimicked the cool sculpture, but no javalina's.

Finally I settled for a picture with the sculptured javalina because there were no real ones to be found!

Sedona was beautiful and we would have toured a little more if we hadn't been unshowered for the past two days.  We headed home calling the weekend a success.  Least you think I favored pictures of my son...Cynjyn did not go with us because she opted to attend the band trip to Disneyland for the weekend.  She had a great time there.