Aiden's Eagle Project

So this was Aiden's eagle project. He had been stalling getting it together for several months. As summer began, I took away all his video gaming paraphernalia and told him he could get them back as soon as his eagle project was 100% complete. That kicked him into gear. Two weeks later, he had it all planned, scheduled, and completed. He had to work hard to accomplish it in that amount of time, but he did it!

Aiden chose to record stories for the blind. He contacted The Society for the Blind in Sacramento. He gathered all his friends' computers to the church. And people came in and read stories into a computer set up in a classroom. He had to get trained by the Society, and then train his fellow scouts to help the people that came in. This was the check-in table.

Here is Sis. Barker sitting at a computer just about to record something.

Aiden organized a system for people to find the necessary classrooms. The doors were numbered, and they could follow the tape on the floor.

Here are people in the waiting area waiting for a computer to open up.

This is Aiden and Dad cleaning up at the end of the long day. Aiden's project went from 10 am to 4 pm. He was at the church from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.

When Aiden got home, he crashed on the couch.

After the recordings were finished, Aiden and his friends spent several more days burning them onto cd's. This is Aiden outside the Society for the Blind headquarters delivering his cd's to the volunteer coordinator.

TNT's Silent Auction

Stone belongs to a Shakespeare acting troupe called Take Note Troupe (TNT). Every year they have a big gala dinner, and a silent auction. For the past two years I have donated 2 quilts to the auction. These are the quilts I am donating this year.


I always have fabric left over from the quilts. So I started making matching tote bags to go with each quilt. The tote bags are sitting on top of each quilt. I will let you know how much they sold for after Friday.

Going, Going, Gone!

Aiden asked if I would mind if he shaved his head. He said he wanted to try it atleast once in his life. He was a little surprised when I readily agreed. I have been trying to get him to cut his hair for months. I thought his longer hair made him look like he was still in 7th grade. I think a shorter hair style would make him look older. I was right. So this is the beginning stage where I just whacked away at his long hair.
We played around with it a little. First we did the mullet. This is the mohawk stage.

Another shot of the mohawk.

Then Richard jumped in to try his hand at a flat top. That was not successful.

This is once it was all shaved off. I like the look of his dark eye brows with the shaved head. He has a nice shaped head atleast.

Here is am just cleaning it up a little. As we were rubbing his head, Aiden said it felt like we were rubbing his brain. He will have to be careful about sunburns on his head now. Although that would require the sun to come out at some point this summer.

And here is the final product. He kind of looks like a juvenile detention candidate, but that's okay.

More Road Kill

Richard has a bad habit of finding clothes along the freeway and bringing them home to wear. Jeff Woods likes to encourage this behavior, and when he finds something "good" along the road he scoops it up for Richard. These are Jeff's latest kill. They are running jerseys from a 10K marathon that took place in Utah. Jeff found a bunch of these on the road while riding one day. He couldn't wait to tell Richard about them. Now this jersey was a bit too small on Richard, so that one had become mine. Lucky Me!
This jersey fits just perfectly though. I am sure Richard will get a lot of use out of this one. Thanks Jeff!?

Candice's Salsa Throwdown Party

I knew this was going to be a fun party when I saw there was a sign introducing the event!

Here are some of the invited guests. Most of you know Candice, Parker, and Tracey. Then there is Katie Roskelley, and some unknown young man from the Single's ward.

These two party goers you should recognize. As usual, Aiden is thrilled to be there, but he chooses to keep his excitement on the inside.

Stone and I are showing off the decorations. It is hard to tell, but these glasses have little red chiles in them.

Now the fun begins. Candice made blindfolds for the Salsa contest. She wanted to eliminate the possibility of any bias based on the appearance of the salsas.

Here is a photo of the tasting table. Complete with hand made "I (heart) Salsa" table runner.

Richard and Claire were the first people to be led into the tasting room.

Next we had Aiden and Stone. I stopped taking photos after that because I had to help Candice with the other participants.

And here are the winners. Katie won first place with 4 votes. Parker, Me, and the unknown young man from the Single's ward each received 2 points a piece. So we had a three-way tie for second place.

I am showing off my salsa and my second place "loser" prize.

This is a close up of the second place "loser" prize. After the contest we all enjoyed a wonderful taco and burrito bar dinner. Michael and his girlfriend, and Zach were also there, but for some reason I did not get any pictures of them. Sorry about that guys.

Cookie Decorating with Grandma

A few days before Easter, we went to the Estioko's house to decorate "Merry Cutouts" with Grandma Wright. I think it is fair to say that everyone loves grandma. Most people would not like being so squished, but you know that Grandma loves it!

Here is Claire and Sydney carefully decorating their cookies.

And VIOLA! The final product. Claire was the only child I have left who would come with me to decorate cookies. My other kids are too old and too mature for such foolishness. But as you will see, they are not nearly too mature to receive an Easter basket from the Easter bunny.

Easter 2010

The night before Easter Claire and I did the traditional egg dying. I couldn't interest any of the boys to join us. It is a good thing I still have Claire or my holidays would be very boring. We decided to only hard boil 6 eggs, and then we dyed 6 raw eggs. Who says they HAVE to be hard boiled?

Now Easter this year coincided with General Conference. We have our family tradition of cinnamon rolls for Sunday morning conference and Easter or not, we weren't going to break with that tradition. So when Claire and I finished the egg dying, we began the cinnamon roll making.

Stone and Aiden are not much into the Easter traditions anymore. They are too old for that. But they are not too old to get a basket from the Easter bunny. And they want it hidden as well. We are down to only three kids at home for Easter morning now.

Lindsey had to work at the bakery on Easter Sunday. So we brought her Easter basket to her. Her basket is the white one on the counter. She stood on the corner with her bunny ears and a sign advertising the bakery. She said it was absolutely freezing. I mailed an Easter basket to Richard at BYU-I.

This was our Easter table. I decided to try my hand at lamb this year. So we had ham and lamb, along with alot of other good stuff. Of course Grandma and Grandpa Hoopes joined in the fun.