A Peep at Some Art

I think you know by now that I appreciate art...all different kinds. I get excited when I hear about an art show of any kind. So I was thrilled when June took pictures of the Peep Dioramas at the High School. It is such a fun contest with such creative entries. Some are from students and some from the teachers, but I like them all. Most of them you can tell what book they are from. But I couldn't guess all of them.

Do you have a favorite? I liked so many, but my favorite was probably Winnie the Peep.

Robyn's High School had an art show, which I had to check out, mainly because Robyn did some pieces. Her art was very different from what she has done in the past. It was about emotions and looked a lot like cloud scapes to me, but very intense ones. I really liked them.

Then I took a few more pictures, but only of things I thought were really interesting. If you use stitching in your piece, I'm going to be intrigued.

This one was painted on a wrapped canvas. I liked this idea of how fragile these feelings are. They are on the surface and could so easily be destroyed as one tried to get to the center.

This one was also really cool. There are so many messages here. All the people around balloon girl were made with mirrors. And do you notice they are carrying pins? Yikes. I'm thinking she doesn't quite feel safe in her environment. 

It is always so interesting to me to see people's ideas come out in artistic expression. I'm so glad there is art in the world. 

April Hiking

June started doing hikes with her friends in April. They just needed the weather to shape up and they were out the door and up the mountains. I love perusing her hiking photos. Makes me feel like I exercised a bit and got some fresh air. (Is this what it means to live vicariously through your kids?)

June has such a great group of friends. I believe they made a hiking chat group and then whoever could come, would. You might see some of the same faces now and again.

I'm not even sure where they went hiking. Somewhere in Utah, most likely. You're welcome. 

Getting Fat from Skipping Class

I guess I should be clear. You won't get fat from skipping class. But if you take a cooking class and don't go to several of the lessons and then have to make the food at home and you feed your mother, SHE might get fat. (But she probably won't mind since you are making delicious food.)

That is all hypothetical of course. 

But this chica may have missed some of her classes, which ultimately resulted in me having to eat cinnamon rolls. (The sacrifices I make are never ending.)

What a way to go.

Sometimes You're Too Old to Play Spikeball

*Warning, this tournament has a lot of detail, because I want to remember this day. 

I love to play spikeball, and I would definitely say that you're never too old to play spikeball. But my back might say otherwise. (Curse you aqua scum!)

I sometimes forget that Karma and Murphy conspire against me to make sure I am damaged for Spikeball, so I don't know why I sign up for tournaments. Probably because I love to play. But June and I decided to try out a women's competition. It was actually a lovely day. The weather had been so terrible, the nice sunny day was a welcome contrast. There was a great crowd. You can look for us in this group picture, but only if you really want to and think your eyes are good.

The games were up at Rock Canyon park with the huge bowl. It is cool to walk over the rim and see all these nets and people. It is pretty awesome. They were almost at full capacity for that park. We dropped our stuff, checked in and found some gals to warm up with. Their names were Sunny and Megan and they were in women’s, so we would play them later. 

The great thing is that I felt all the teams were pretty cool this year. Sometimes you get catty girls or people that are high intensity, but I really liked all the women. They were nice and kind, although still fiercely competitive. It was a good mix. 

Pool play was up first. We played XX (Eliza and Lexi) first. Eliza is a staple in the Spikeball community. Everyone knows her and I see her at lots of stuff. She is engaged to another Spikeballer. I’m so excited for her. They were a good team. I wasn’t really thinking we were going to win. And we didn’t. (Don’t get excited…) Instead, I threw my back out. Yep, first game and out it goes. I was running to get a ball and I could feel the compression in my back as I stepped down hard and tried to slow down. It wasn’t twisting, it was simply compression. Wow, it hurt. But what was I going to do? We had just started. So I told June that I was injured but I would do the best I could. It meant I couldn’t get anything low or run for anything. I was almost a lump. But I did my best lump playing. 

We went through pool play, meeting all the teams. And losing to almost all of them.

*Not Church and Stokes (Jess and Amanda) - Great team. Jess is around my age and amazing. Amanda is a spitfire.

*The Ducks (Rachel and Hailey) Nice girls. I was sad we lost because I thought we could take them in normal conditions.

*Fishy Sisters (Alissa and Cameron) Young and spunky. They had good serves and sass. 

*Cardboard (Aleah and Hailey) I’ve seen Aleah at a lot of stuff. Her serves have gotten much better. These girls are young and motivated.

*Well Rounded (Whitney and Chloe) These two were favored to win. They didn’t lose any games in Pool play. They are quiet and concise. They are like a machine.

*Ball Busters (Sunny and Megan) These two were fun. They are the only team we beat. Not surprising in my state. But losing so many pool play games meant we would go up against a really good team to start.

After pool play, we grabbed some lunch. I was hurting but it was just part of the day. I usually feel like it is good to move around after hurting myself and I was definitely doing that. Later when I looked through the photos they take during a tournament, I only found one of us. Somehow they didn't catch us playing, but one lady did take a picture of us together. That is fun.

All too soon, it was time for bracket play. I apologized to June in advance. Sad to be the weak link. Sure enough we were up against Jess and Amanda. There was no way we were going to win. We weren’t smashed, but we were thoroughly creamed. No worries. Jess noticed I was hurting. She asked about my back and after learning that I couldn’t move well, she didn’t serve short to me anymore. I couldn’t have gotten any of them and she could have aced me every time, but she didn’t. She was a really good sport. Then killed us anyway, naturally.

That dropped us down into the Consolation Bracket. The best we could do from here was 5th. That seemed unlikely considering my condition, but we would give it a go. We played The Ducks next. I was actually really happy to play them. In pool play, I knew we could beat them, so I wanted to try again. 

How cool though that before we played, Jess came over with Ibuprofen and muscle relaxer cream. She is the best. So kind and just all around amazing lady. I heart her!!

June was holding up our team through all of this, but you need two players and I was happy to say that I wasn’t a dead weight. There were plenty of things I missed or couldn’t run for and I always felt bad and apologized, but June was so nice about it. And we won! First game was 15-5. Easy win. Second game was 16-14, so much closer. (Btw, I like consolation bracket because the games are shorter.) Yay!! That meant we wouldn’t get 8th place. (Yep, shooting for the stars.)

Then we had some time to rest. We watched Sunny and Megan take on Aleah and Hailey. That one seemed like a no brainer, but it did go to 3 games. Good job team Sunny. The whole day was full of networking. That was one of my favorite things. June got so many numbers of girls that play. I met Anna, who is getting married and she told me to use fake flowers. How genius!! I talked to Mario, Sunny’s boyfriend. It was just a blast to talk and meet people. So many great people that love Spikeball.

Aleah and Hailey won, which is too bad since I figured we could beat Sunny and Megan. So we took a moment and then it was time to play Cardboard. (Weird name. I never asked them why they chose that.) It was such a close game. We would stay neck and neck the whole time. Ball exchange was mostly based on errors, when one of us messed up. We took the first game 16-14. Wow!! That was awesome. Then somehow we did it again. 16-14!! 

That means that we won the consolation bracket! We came back as much as we could. Fifth place out of 8 teams. Not bad I say. The top four teams were so good, so I am thrilled with fifth. We stayed to watch the championship. Fishy sisters upset the scores and beat Well Rounded (who was thought to win). They went on to play Not Church and Stokes and beat them too! It was so close. They went to three games. Those ladies are amazing. 

Such a fun day! We finished it off with Peanut Butter Smoothies from Roxy. Those are the best ones. I think June had fun. Our stats look horrible since we lost so many in pool play, but I will forever remember this as the day we came back after my injury. In the evening I was so sore. My back definitely froze up some more. But this is one for the books. I sure love my June bug.

Hunting and Cracking in Style

We did all our Easter stuff on one day. June and I were out of town on the actual Easter day, but we usually do the hunt the day before, so I guess it doesn't matter when you do it. At least the girls didn't seem to mind that we were a bit behind. 

It just so happened that I was practicing prom hairdos on that day. I was trying to find one I liked and the girls are good guinea pigs. Ivory has so much hair, it is hard to squish it into an up-do. :) But they all looked lovely.

Then we had our egg hunt. I recall that I threw my  back out the day before, so I had Tyler and June help me hide the eggs. But June kept hiding the wrong color in the wrong places, so by the time we were done, everyone had a new color to look for. (The eggs all have the same things in them.) K kids, get your buckets and let's do this. 

They were all hidden inside the house and each girl had a different color to find. I like it much more that way than everyone looking for the same eggs. There were also a few other random gifts that the girls could pick up. No one seems to outgrow the hunt. June still likes it as much as everyone else.

Tyler was hunting for other things, like sustenance. Nothing like a peanut butter sandwich after all that hard work hiding eggs.

We still had the camo eggs, although Tyler forgot to mark where they were so we didn't find them all. (They'll turn up eventually.) Daisy was our big winner, finding the fiver.

I hid some games for the kids to find. We played some of them that day and by far JUST ONE was our favorite. That game is quite fun.

But it didn't end there. We also had our Crack Off that day. We haven't had friend or school Crack Offs for a while because of Covid, but Tyler did have a Crack Off at work where his eggs depicted his epic battle with the ice machine.

We used the same color packets that we used in Washington, so we had the nice bright colors again. Here are everyone's eggs from youngest to oldest.

Time to judge these bad boys. Do you have a favorite?

Tyler's Roxy egg was the clear winner, although I like to call him Orko. I came in second and June was third.

They were all so lovely. But beauty fades, or in this case is smashed to pieces. 

The Crack Off is always a fun competition. Tyler took us by storm. I mentioned that in Washington I'd never seen the same egg win both competitions, but we almost had the same thing here. Except that Tyler won with his other egg. Close enough.

Good job you winners. 

Then the only thing left for these eggs is egg salad. It looks like Death comes to us all. 

Happy Easter everyone!