A Glimpse at our World

2 Minutes to Get ya'all up to Speed!

If you are indeed a good friend to us, you already know that Carson's little U8 team won first place in The Vegas Cup over Civil Right's Day Weekend!

It's a fun little story. This little team wasn't even scheduled to play, but one of the mother's figured that we should put their team together considering they were all going to be there with their older brothers anyway. After 3 days of playing on a horrible field-and quite frankly, smoking their competition-it was down to the final game on a very cold Monday! They ended up playing the Premier Vegas Club team. This team was all dressed up to the nines-easily each kid under 8 was wearing $350-$400 in apparel, backpacks with their names on it, full jerseys, and the coaches were even all dressed up in their matching gear! I'm sure the coach figured that they just had this game in the bag. Our team walks on the field with their cheap $5 t-shirts that have been washed way too many times, we looked like complete white trash! Anyway, we won with a 3-1 victory and it was absolutely FABULOUS!!! Carson was so happy, and loved telling everybody his story on the long drive home back to Vegas. I think his main key to success was the "Kel-power" that my cousin bestowed on him before the game. We loved having the Peery's there to celebrate and spend the weekend with. By the way, if you ever need a true "rock star" to go shopping with, Mekel is your gal! We had an amazing time! My students have definitely noticed a different "edge" to my style these days-Thanks Kel, love you much!!!
Soldier Hollow-February 27th

We are all now experiencing the true "winter blues"- the way I fight it is to have fun in the snow! We love Soldier Hollow-definitely pricey-but well worth the experience. We were a bit bummed after spending $100 on the day because it was the warmest day of the year so far. On our first run, we had to push our way down to the bottom. But we learned from our experience, moved on over to the last run, and flew all the way down to the bottom. I am currently the reigning queen with the fastest trips down to the bottom. We always have to finish up with a cup of hot chocolate and fresh donuts, the kids loved it! Clayton keeps asking when are we going again?

A few pictures of Grandpa Ecalono

I had to include these priceless and oh-so-rare photos of Chris's father, Charles "Bud" Ecalono. He past away when Chris was 9 and unfortunately we'll have to wait until our next life to truly meet him. But we have definitely felt his presence when needed, we love him and can't wait to get to know him. Can you see where Chris gets all of his italian good looks from? Actually, it's scary how much he looks like Uncle Chad.

My First Hunting Trip

If you can call it hunting. Basically, I shot my rifle 4 times at nothing in particular-just to say that I did. Chris and I both quickly realized that we feel really bad killing live animals. It was quite sad, basically it was skeet shooting with live birds. We paid to release 5 birds-knowing that I'd be lucky to hit one, hoping that the other four birds would fly away forever. Well, you can probably guess with that many guns, if we couldn't shoot them, somebody else would. So at the end we had 15 sorry dead birds, we bought five, so I was to take 5 different pheasants home and cook. You mean, I have to actually clean the feathers? I wasn't born in the pioneer era for a reason! A hunter I definitely ain't!

Connor's Recital-February 1st

Connor is working so hard this year learning two different instruments. He plays the piano and clarinet. Thanks to Lea, who is an amazing instructor, he is learning so fast!

Connor's 10th Birthday

Connor scored this year and had his party at the new Pirate Island in Orem. He invited 10 close friends from school and from his soccer team. They loved it, we reserved the Smuggler's Cove, which was cozy and very private. Just a little tight for over 17 people. It's sad to think that Connor is so old. He's in 5th grade writing research papers! Crazy!!!

Learning to Ski/Snowboard as a Family

Last year, I posted how much I love skiing, well due to all of Chris's extra coaching we were able to buy ski-passes for our entire family this year. We are loving it, just about every weekend we spend the afternoon together on the slopes. Connor and Carson are learning to snowboard-doing absolutely fabulous I might add-and Clayton is learning to ski. He flies down the mountain and anybody who gets in his way beware because he isn't slowing down for anything. It's delightful and it's nice to experience the positive side of winter for a change.

Well, that about does it, hopefully you are all up to date on our family. Until the next time, I have an extra hour or so, to update the blog...