Drill Team Dance Camp

Karlee spent this week at BDT Dance Camp. This camp is 3 FULL days (12-15 hours each day) of techniques, dances, & workouts. The Girlzies were beat-up and bruised, but it's good for 'em!! Our Girlzies came home healthy & well, albeit tired & sore, but there were girls from other teams that had issues. Once girl fainted, one was ambulanced out, etc. Our Girlzies are tough, though!!! Here are a few pix from the dances the performed.

Karlee - 2nd from Left

Karlee - FRONT left!!!

So... before the awards were handed out, the teams were told to acknowledge & thank their families. I took a shot of the Girlzies giving us applause...but I didn't even notice what Karlee was doing until after I got home & looked at the pix. I've cropped it (next pic) so you can see that she's looking at me through a heart! She's such a darling girl. I sure missed her this week!!! I love you, Boo, you did an amazing job tonight!

They played a video for us, and you should have heard the teams cheer when their coaches pix appeared. I caught our Girlzies cheering our Awesome Nat!!! Love you, Nat!!!

Karlee & Shaylee - Dancing Sisters! All the girls are paired up with a "Dancing Sister". They work together all year, helping each other. Shaylee is new on the team this year, and Karlee says she is a darling girl, a great dancer, and she is so glad they're "Sisters"!!!

Karlee & her very best BESTIES!!! I truly love these Girlzies SO much!!! Morgan, Mikaela, Karlee, & Ayana!

Troyette Family BBQ

So much fun at our Troyette Family BBQ!

MY Girzlies: Morgan, Karlee, Ayana, & Mikaela!!! I LOVE these awesome girlzies!

So... this is the kind of fun we have at a BBQ!!!!

I have to be honest. When Karlee made the drill team, we had quite a few sincerely concerned folks telling us to "watch out" for her because I guess the drill teamers don't have the best reputation. WELL... now that Karlee's starting her 3rd year on the team I am so sad that people really think that about these fine young ladies. I know they aren't perfect, and I don't know EVERYTHING all the girlzies are up to, BUT I have to say that these bunch of girls (the Juniors) are AMAZING!!! They are GOOD GIRLS, they are kind, sweet, thoughtful, nice to each other, and truly loyal. I am SO GRATEFUL for each & every one of them! I love ya, Girlzies!!!

Garet @ County Council

Garet was so excited - NOT - to go before the County Council tonight to ask permission to proceed with his Eagle Scout Project. Garet wants to put up an outdoor sign for the Morgan County Library & Senior Center. His nervousness partly stems from when Jeff took the scouts to a very loud, heated, and emotional council meeting last fall. It was right before elections, and the boys witnessed adults loudly & clearly asking for some council members resignations. It was pure craziness that night...

Garet was on the agenda for approximately 7:30pm. We arrived at 6:30pm just in case they were ahead of schedule. So.... you know what that means...

Garet finally has his turn to speak to the 7 member council at 9:10pm. And that's only because some neighbors that were on the agenda ahead of us asked if we could go before them. They knew they would take a long time. (Thank you, Christy!!!)

Garet did a great job. He told them what he had organized thus far, who he's spoken with, and he answered all their questions. OF COURSE he got approval to proceed! We hope to have this project completed soon! YAHOO!!!

Our awesome & amazing fan club! Thank you, Pa, Gway, Julie, and Karlee for being there and for WAITING ALL NIGHT to hear Garet speak! We love you guys!

Then of course we were all rewarded with treats!!! Thank you, Gway & Pa, for the NUMMY Steph's milkshakes!!!

Summer-Fun-Packed Day

Today was an awesome Mom & kid day! We sent Dad to Scout Camp then we packed up & headed North. It was a PERFECT day for an adventure and we had a great day!!! Although I was a bit nervous (calling B with the "details" of our planned excursion just in case we never made it back home. I knew we wouldn't have cell service, and to top that, Karlee's cell was about dead and mine was only half charged...thank goodness Garet had a fully charged phone when we left!!!) Regardless, we had zero problems and saw a ton of cool stuff!

Stop One: Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promontory Point.

Stop Two: The Spiral Jetty. When I heard about the spiral jetty this last week. I KNEW I had to go see it. So...it's like this "art" thing that was created in the Great Salt Lake in 1970. (I never even knew it existed!!) Even though it's visible when the lake levels are 4195 ft or less, and today's measurement was 4196.8 ft, we went anyways. I stole this following pic so we can see what it looks like ABOVE the water...

This is what it looked like today. But we didn't care.

The CRAZY thing was the (on dirt roads) driving directions: "Drive 5.5 miles west then at the fork turn left. Immediately you will cross cattle guard #1. At the 2nd fork, turn right and go 1.3 miles until you cross cattle guard #2. Continue 1.7 miles to cattle guard #3. At cattle guard #4 and an iron pipe gate, the dirt road ends and high-clearance four-wheel drives are recommended." There were also other interesting directions, such as "you will see a white Dodge truck & trailer on the right". Needless to say we took the Rodeo. (But I forgot to mention that I left the directions on the printer & had to call B & have her give us the directions over the phone before we lost cell service and/or cell battery!) ANYWAYS... the roads had been improved this spring and although it was still dirt roads, with a few cattle guards, we breezed almost right to the spiral jetty. And this was the view en route... beautiful!

We even got to see some awesome pelicans!

We really were a bit trepidatious to walk the jetty for a couple of reasons. First, the water was red. Weird. We didn't know until after we got home that was to be expected and one of the reasons the artist chose this location. But, the second resaon we were a bit apprehensive was because of the bazillions of dead brine shrimp floating everywhere - YUK! But we put our big-girl panties on and did it!

The Rodeo as seen from the jetty.

Garet with the tops of the jetty rocks showing in the background.

We walked the entire jetty and made it to the center!!!

So when we returned to the Rodeo, we happily used our drinking water to rinse our feet & legs. It seems we'd rather die of dehydration than have this on our skin! This is a close-up of Karlee's leg showing the salt formations.

Stop Three: The Chinese Arch. This arch was formed by Lake Bonneville just a few short years ago. It is named the Chinese Arch to honor the thousands of Chinese immigrant railway workers. The kids had a blast climbing on it.

What darling kids, what awesome rock formation, what breath-taking views!

Stop Four: The Rocket Garden at ATK. It was so cool to see a rocket booster from the space shuttle. The rocket boosters are the two rocket engines that break away shortly after take-off. It was amazing to see just how big those suckers really are!

Karlee - the teeny, tiny girl standing to the right.

Stop Five: DINNER! Thank goodness we have no photographic evidence of our chow-hounding at Sizzler! Jeff - I've figured out how to get Garet to eat ALL his dinner!!! Starve him ALL DAY LONG! The kid ate a steak, endless salad bar, cheesy bread, 3 brownies, and 2 strawberry lemonades!