Highlights from New Years Eve

It's still 30 minutes till the clock strikes, and five of us Binghams (the five who aren't at teenager parties) ended up at home by ourselves this New Year's Eve. As part of the celebration we ended up playing our new game, Quelf, which we got for Christmas. Quelf is a game in which you end up doing many silly, random things. As part of the game, I was required to write a haiku about my armpits. I thought it was good enough to share with our readers:

Armpit Haiku

Hairy, fuzzy pits

Stink when not washed everyday

Love deodorant.

Also in this game, Jayson had to not use his arms for the entire game and Bryce had to act the entire time like "a fiery little gnome who just burnt a batch of cookies." I also produced the following piece of artwork, which started with Kyla drawing some random lines and shapes and then I had to complete a picture and title it. Combined with the haiku, this is probably the pinnacle of Bingham art achievement for 2010 so we will share it with you as well.

"Big-Eared Susie's Nightmare"

Christmas 2010 Highlights

I can't believe Christmas has come and gone. This whole month has just flown by. It's hard to believe that the new year is just a few days away. This year for Christmas, we really tried to simplify things and keep our focus where it should be. We didn't have a lot of gifts, or spend a lot of money, but we had fun. We had a lot of fun watching old movies, playing games, doing puzzles and spending time with most of our family. I feel very blessed to have the family I have (our family, my family and Jared's family). They are all wonderful people, who have taught me so much, and I love them all!

Every year, the kids look forward to opening their pajamas on Christmas eve. This year, I sewed pajama pants for all of us. You can see the kids pj's in this picture, but unfortunately, they are covering ours. If you would like to see them, feel free to stop by for your own personal fashion show.

Also, for your enjoyment, I have posted a few random shots from Christmas morning.

Christmas Message 2010

Well hello again everyone. You can tell I'm not a real blogger, since I haven't blogged anything since Maui. It's my assignment to write the Christmas family update - if you bother to look this up after getting our card, it must mean you really love us.

In the interest of not being boring, I've decided to update you on some things our family hasn't accomplished this year:

• Once again, none of us ran a marathon. (Check with my sister Lori's family for that). As far as exercise goes, I think I fouled out of ward basketball a couple times and found out that from our house to Woodland Hills Drive is exactly a 2 mile run).
• No one graduated from any universities anywhere with any degrees. (But the older kids are well on their way with their 4.0 GPAs, and Amaya got a more than respectable 25 on her first crack at the ACT).
• No one got married or had any babies. (Thankfully! At least 6-8+ years on that please).
• There were once again no job changes or moves (again, thankfully. We plan to keep it that way).

And a few things we DID accomplish in 2010:

• Over the years there have been a few Mom-Dad only exotic vacation trips. As our kids have gotten older, the guilt trips they have started to throw at us over these getaways without them have become increasingly burdensome. As a result, they got to come along on an exotic vacation to Hawaii. (See earlier blog entries). We had an awesome time and were glad we got to bring the kids. (Note: this story is not meant to imply that whining should get you anywhere. It's just that our kids have gotten old enough that it's actually fun, and not just more work, to bring them along).
• 2 out of 2 of our sons survived their first tackle football season without major injuries. We feel good about this ratio.
• Jared finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of taking his boys along on a deer hunt in which they (at least Bryce) could actually legally hunt. Those familiar with Jared's past hunting success will not be surprised to hear that this hunt lasted approximately 30 minutes and resulted in no deer seen. The first half of the intended hunting day instead became a baby-delivering day. After that, all we had time to do was drive around in a blizzard and try not to get the truck permanently stuck.
• A couple of old beat up picnic tables at the Utah State Developmental Center now have nice new roofs and new paint jobs. In related news, Bryce became an Eagle Scout this year.
• We had decided previously that in our family, those completing their Eagle Scout and/or Young Women Recognition Award would be rewarded with receive an iPod Nano as a gift. After Bryce completed his Eagle Board of Review and was officially an Eagle Scout, there was discussion as to whether he should get the iPod at that time or wait until his court of honor a month or two later. We decided to give it to him before the court of honor, and learned that a month or two is plenty of time for Bryce to leave an iPod in the pocket of his pants and run it through the laundry at least once. (In case this is unclear to some of you, iPod circuitry does not respond well to total immersion). By the time Bryce actually received his Eagle badge, he was once again Nano-less.
• Kyla continued to amaze us, of course, with a lot of triple-back-twist-flip-somervault type things, and just by being a generally awesome kid.
• Between the six Binghams we racked up, by my count, about 40 nights of camping, including finally making it to Lake Powell.

In all seriousness, we're grateful for the blessed and eventful year we've had and for the chance to appreciate our Savior more fully this season. We wish you and yours the best of times and hope we can get together soon.

Gold Medal Champion!

Today, Kyla finished up her first competitive gymnastics season. The state meet was held at Salt Lake Community College. She had a great meet! In her session and age category, she placed first in the uneven bars, 2nd in beam and floor, and 2nd in the all around category! Congratulations Kyla on a great season!!

Sweet 16!

It is hard to believe that 16 years ago I brought this sweet little girl home from the hospital. The years have passed quickly and I feel so very blessed to be her mother. She was such a good baby and has grown to be a wonderful and remarkable young woman! I love her so much and am so proud of all she has accomplished in her 16 years. Happy Birthday Amaya!! Here is a look back at her life with 16 cute pictures of my beautiful daughter!




















Thank you for being a wonderful part of our family! We love you!

So Long Maui, Wish We Could Stay Longer

In case we failed to mention it, we managed to throw together a family trip to Hawaii for spring break. (I know I haven't written a blog in forever, I guess it took a vacation to give me the excuse - didn't feel like complaining about the president and stuff). We've been too tired at the end of the day from playing too hard to think about things like posting pictures on the web, until tonight we saved a little time to chill (or the kids' new word, "chillax.")

Supposedly it's been spring for almost a month at home, but hasn't been acting like it. More snow the night before we left made us even more happy to run away for some actual nice weather, and laugh at you suckers back home.

Our adventure began on Monday, with a super-early flight itinerary that was supposed to get us to Maui by 11:30 AM. We had a tight connection in LAX and barely made it on, then while taxiing, the pilot announced that we were heading back to the gate because of a warning light about a possible hydraulic leak. They left us on the plane for 90 minutes, then sent us off to get some lunch, and finally ended up switching us to a backup aircraft. A 4 hour delay followed by a 6 hour flight makes for a long day, but if the alternative is having flight control failure while 1000 miles from the nearest land, I'll take the delay.

Arriving at the condo 4 hours late, we didn't have time to do much Monday except hang out at the pool and cook some dinner. Tuesday was beach, sun, and snorkeling day (the kids got it started while I attended medical classes till 11AM), and we definitely knew we'd left Utah's spring weather behind.

The highlight of Wednesday was surfing lessons! Here's some shots of our pro surfers, with Maui Waveriders instructor J.P.:











Apparently if you play on a surfboard for 2 hours without long shorts, there can be leg chafing resulting in some grumpiness:



The grumpiness was short-lived, though, and this may have been the biggest hit activity of the week.

For Thursday, I skipped the classes, and we did the all-day drive around the east side (the lush, rainforest-y side) of Maui to the town of Hana and beyond. We were on the road for 13 hours including lots of stops, but were rewarded by some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen:









Today was another beach day and a shorter day, since we have a 6:30 AM flight to Oahu. We'll be staying on the north shore here (I'll be honest, I picked it more for the funny English than anything else) and meeting up with the Baker family, who I'm told have some fun stuff planned for us.

More to come later!

Happenings

Kyla set a hula hoop record. She hula hooped for over 1 hour non-stop.

Amaya (after waiting for over a month for the new medallions) received her Young Woman's Recognition award on February 7th.

Bryce turned 14 on February 15th, passed off his Deacon's portion of the Duty to God, became a varsity scout, and was ordained to the office of Teacher on February 21st. (The cake tasted a lot better than the picture makes it look...White Chocolate Coconut!)

Bryce and Jayson earn 7 merit badges each and Jayson is awarded his First Class Scout rank. Bryce also earned his "On my Honor" award.

Amaya's club volleyball team also won the tournament that they had this week end. She played very well!

Judges please!

At Kyla's second meet, she thought she did really well on her floor routine. I thought she did really well, too. Apparently we know crap. The judges gave her a 6.55, which was the lowest of her team. Other girls had some wobbles, some failed tricks, etc. and still scored higher, but even with a pretty good looking routine and completing her tricks, she got the lowest score. She wants to know what she is doing wrong so she can improve, but besides a few minor things, we don't know what she is doing wrong. Any gymnasts or coaches out there who can clue us in?!! Please!!

The weekend

What a crazy weekend we had. Kyla had her first gymnastics meet on Friday up in Salt Lake and Amaya had her first volleyball tournament (club) up in Ogden, at the same time. That made for a bit of a parent scheduling conflict. Since Amaya's tourny was on Saturday too, she ended up going with a friend and her dad and we stayed with Kyla.

Kyla did really well, especially considering it was her first meet and she didn't quite know what to expect. Here are a few photos and videos for those of you who care.

Well, after 2 weeks of trying to get the other 2 videos to load unsuccessfully, I give up. If you want to see her floor and beam routines, look at my facebook page!

After the meet was another adventure. As we started home (around 9pm) on super snowy, slick roads, I got a HYSTERICAL (screaming and crying) call from Amaya that went something like this:
Amaya: "Mom, WHERE ARE YOU?!!!"
Mom: "What happened"
Amaya: "WHERE ARE YOU?!!!"
Mom: "were you in a wreck?"
Amaya: "YES"
Mom: Were you hurt?"
Amaya: "NO!"
Mom: "Was Jenny hurt?"
Amaya: "NO"
Mom: "Was her dad hurt?"
Amaya: "NO"
Mom: "If everyone is fine, settle down! All that matters is that everyone is okay! Settle down, stop crying!
At that point I pulled of the freeway at the prison and called Jared (we were in 2 cars) and he joined me to wait and try to figure out if one of us was going to have to turn around and go to Ogden to rescue her. Luckily they got ahold of another mom who was at the tournament and she was able to give them a ride home. We both had left around 9pm, and we got home at 11pm and Amaya at 1am. That was a LONG night of worry!

Amaya and I got about 4 hours of sleep before we had to wake up and drive to Park City on snowy, icy roads for the second day of her tournament. She played the whole day, not sitting at all. She did a great job.

What a crazy weekend we had. Kyla had her first gymnastics meet on Friday up in Salt Lake and Amaya had her first volleyball tournament (club) up in Ogden, at the same time. That made for a bit of a parent scheduling conflict. Since Amaya's tourny was on Saturday too, she ended up going with a friend and her dad and we stayed with Kyla.

Kyla did really well, especially considering it was her first meet and she didn't quite know what to expect. Here are a few photos and videos for those of you who care.

After the meet was another adventure. As we started home (around 9pm) on super snowy, slick roads, I got a HYSTERICAL (screaming and crying) call from Amaya that went something like this:
Amaya: "Mom, WHERE ARE YOU?!!!"
Mom: "What happened"
Amaya: "WHERE ARE YOU?!!!"
Mom: "were you in a wreck?"
Amaya: "YES"
Mom: Were you hurt?"
Amaya: "NO!"
Mom: "Was Jenny hurt?"
Amaya: "NO"
Mom: "Was her dad hurt?"
Amaya: "NO"
Mom: "If everyone is fine, settle down! All that matters is that everyone is okay! Settle down, stop crying!
At that point I pulled of the freeway at the prison and called Jared (we were in 2 cars) and he joined me to wait and try to figure out if one of us was going to have to turn around and go to Ogden to rescue her. Luckily they got ahold of another mom who was at the tournament and she was able to give them a ride home. We both had left around 9pm, and we got home at 11pm and Amaya at 1am. That was a LONG night of worry!