open invitation

Every year the Cheney family hosts a Christmas celebration the Saturday evening after Thanksgiving. It is a sort of a kick-off for the holiday season. If you are in the area, please come. It is always a beautiful experience. There will be a handbell choir, a brass quintet, vocal ensembles, instrumentalists, readings, and congregational singing.

Saturday, November 28
6:45 p.m.
Bountiful 13th and 53rd Ward LDS Chapel
1356 North 650 East
Bountiful, Utah

Sunday dress is appropriate.

Hope to see you there!

This is Halloween

Emma is Katniss from The Hunger Games

Kate is Glinda the Good Witch

Jane is a Zombie!!

Em had a party with friends. She made bones and fingers for dessert.

Please don't tell me you didn't get Where the Wild Things Are. My lands, this was the saddest movie I've ever seen. Tragic--but with flare, and finese, and heart. I was astounded by the depth of emotion I felt while experiencing this movie. Wow. If you see it, try to see it through the eyes of a torn child. It was nearly overwhelming for me. Maybe it's because I've just been reading the tragic autobiographies of 165 8th graders, maybe it's far more personal than that, but I just couldn't stop crying. This was one of those life-changers for me.

Salt -n- Peppa's here!

I haven't dyed my hair in over a year. It's a strange thing. I found my first grey hair at the ripe old age of 21 whilst serving as a young sister missionary-to-be in the MTC. I was horrified. I swore then and there that from where the sun then stood I would dye my grey hairs forever.

But the thing is, hair-dying is such a commitment. You can't just dye it once and forget it. You have to do it every 6 weeks or suffer the consequence of nasty roots. Therefore, I found myself with an inch or more of a floured path following my part every few months for the next dozen (or more) years.

Then I married Brock. He's a historian, most of you know, and it was his opinion that prematurely grey hair was the desirable feature in eras gone by. He suggested (read: begged) that I grow out my greys. He insisted that it would add to my youthful glow rather than detract from it. Grey hair frames a relatively young-looking face with the contrast of the unexpected. The idea being that the grey hair makes the youthful face look even more youthful. If you follow . . .

So I tried to grow out my greys when we got married three years ago. After about 2 inches of conspicuously contrasting roots, I caved and bought a box. I tried again the next year, but some event came along that required me to become vain and, therefore, I succumbed to the box again. I tried again the next year, and after a couple inches of growth, I decided that if I were to ever successfully grow out the greys, I'd have to chop my hair. So chop I did. And now I'm grey.

So . . . what do y'all think of my salt and pepper mop? (see pictures below) Am I:

a) waaaay too young for grey hair

b) looking rather age-appropriate (I turn 40 a week from Tuesday, yo!)

c) pulling it off like a pro. I mean, you can't BUY highlights like that. Ya know what I'm saying, hmmm???

*a cute aside*

One evening when Kate was 3 or 4 years old, I was in the process of my bi-monthly coloring job--my hair was dripping with dye and piled on top of my head. She came into the room, saw (and smelled) that I was coloring my hair, and said, "Hi Mom. Is your hair dead yet?"

Out of the mouths of babes!

Some pictures of this and that

Move along. Nothing to see here.

Well, it's been eleventy billion years since I last blogged, and . . . not much has happened, actually. The garden grew. We swam. We camped. We hiked. We family reunioned. You know--all the normal summer stuff.

The big news here is--school starts on Monday! I have to say I'm pretty excited for a new school year. I have new ideas for teaching writing. I'm planning to enhance the rigor of my curriculum. I am going to produce more writers, I've decided.

So now that that's out of the way, I need to figure out something really important. What am I going to wear on the first day of school????

organically and locally brought to you by . . .

We decided to take a stab at selling our produce in a small fruit and veggie stand in our front yard this summer. Today was our first day to give it a try. We put out cherries and peas--and we sold all the peas before noon. We've sold about a third of the cherries we put out so far. There are about a dozen little cherry stands on the stretch of highway where we live--but apparently not many peas for sale.

How exciting!

Trek

Up

Just cried my way through Up. Sheesh!

Happy Birthday Brock, my love

Memorial Day hike

I was going to post this last week, but the last days of school have been consumed with students buzzing around my head like a hive full of bees. "Mzzzzzz Cheeeeeneeeeey," they buzz, "Mzzzzzzzzzz Cheeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!"

Deep breath . . .

On Memorial Day, Brock and I took Emma, Kate and Jane on a 10 mile hike! They trooped their way up and down the mountain to see a really old tree--The Jardine Juniper. It's over 1000 years old. You can kind of see from the picture how gnarled the limbs have become. It's a pretty cool thing.

I was so proud of the little squirts. Ten miles is a long way for a 9 year old kid--but little miss Jane did it without a complaint. Kate had a bit of a hard time coming down the mountain. I think her long and lean legs were taking quite a bit of impact that she wasn't used to. Emma was very strong on the mountain as well. I was happy that she had this experience so she can feel confident about the pioneer trek we're going on in two weeks. If she can do a ten-miler, she can trek.

Kate thought this rock looked like the heads like those you see on Easter Island.

Good job little squirrels! Brock and I are so proud of you!

We have a lawn!

Hooray!

Plenty of work yet to do, but at least we have sprinklers and grass. What a difference it makes!

Poetry Slam!

We had a school-wide poetry slam at BEMS yesterday. The Ogden Standard Examiner came and covered the event. Read about it here. There is a short video with some pictures at the bottom. The chick pronounced my name wrong (that darned Dick Cheney and his long "a"), but oh well.

We wrangled some excellent poetry out of these 8th and 9th graders. One kid even brought a bongo drum and played during his poem called "I am a Soldier". It was seriously good stuff. I was proud of every one of them.

We had one slam for every class period throughout the day. All the kids enrolled in language arts that hour came down to the auditorium for the slam.

Emma got 2nd place in her class hour. There were four classes competing--so about 120 kids, give or take. She did an excellent job. I was quite proud. She won this impressive glitter ball for her efforts. (Love the black!)

But the coveted first place prize was . . . The Black Beret!

And since it's not exactly beret season in our local shopping mall, these are hand-crafted. By me, of course. Six lucky kids won the black beret from a sea of about 800 language arts students. It was a fun, fun day.