December 12th-18th

People were feeling better by this week. Monday night was our usual Family Home Evening. With weeks like we've been having we are so grateful for this counsel from our prophet - to hold regular Family Home Evening. It gives us a dedicated time to be together as a family with no other distractions and it is so nice to have that time. Just as Rachel finished her lesson we heard a truck go by, for the second time. We chose to investigate and found that the local fire department had lit up their truck and were carting Santa around to visit the neighborhood.


Rachel had a concert Tuesday night. They did a good job but I've decided I like marching band music better than concert band. Wednesday night there was a talent show at Ponderosa and Jaron was selected to participate. Pine-tones was also asked to perform so Anna and Jaron both were involved with that. Jaron told some jokes and did a great job of it. At the end of the show they had a sing-along and it was great fun to do that as a community.

Late Thursday afternoon we got a phone call from IGT offering Jason a job!!! We were so excited. But before calling anyone or negotiating or anything we shoved the kids in the van and took them to....Red Robin to celebrate where we broke the news to them. Jason didn't get an official offer letter with all the details until Friday afternoon and we started making phone calls.



Friday evening Rachel had the opportunity to do something kind of different and cool. Eastern Washington University, which is just about 30 minutes from Spokane, has a football team that was playing for the semi-finals in their division. Unfortunately, the game was being played after finals were over. This meant that most of the students had already left campus for winter break. The football game was being televised nationally.

A plea went out from the University for any musicians in the area to come and help participate and make an "Eastern" band. I took a group of kids from U-high out to Cheney and stayed for the evening. It was so cool to see all the people who came. From retirees all the way down to HS freshman (like Rae) there was a BAND! They dressed them in the red Eastern jackets and football jerseys. They practiced from 4-5 and then hit the stadium to play the fight song and other songs for the crowd. The game was well supported by the community despite the frigid temperatures and they won. (This post is being completed so late that it should be known that the team played in the final game in Texas and also won.)

Practicing in the band room before the game.

A sea of red.

Taken from far away.

You can't see her in this one because she's way towards the back on the left hand side up by the tubas.


Oh yeah, the game.