Celebration

Last night, to help celebrate the re-dedication of the Boise Temple, they held a "youth cultural celebration."  Basically, it was a big dance festival, held at the Pavilion ("Taco Bell Arena") on the Boise State University campus.  Lisa and Daniel were excited to get to participate.

The theme was "Treasure the Light," and most of the presentations were related in some way to the history and culture of the Treasure Valley.  There were dance presentations related to the settling of the Boise area (pioneers, Basque, Mexican, and Chinese), industry (farming, logging, IC manufacture), and more recent culture (Boise River, BSU football).  Some were more generically Church-related, and some were generally patriotic and historical.

There were over 9,200 kids participating, so there wasn't time or space for all the kids to take the floor and dance.  The 12- and 13-year-olds just sat in the stands and sang one song, and there was also a large choir that sang several numbers scattered throughout the program.  I'd guess that about half the kids actually got out and performed.

The 14- to 18-year-old kids have been practicing once or twice a week for two months, and spent all day yesterday (starting at 7:15 AM) putting it all together.  It was after 10:30 PM when they finally got back home.

Lisa was part of the "patriotic" section.  Her group did a swing dance to the Andrews Sisters' WWII hit song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."  The girls in her group also had really cute period hats, but they turned them back in before leaving the arena, so you don't get to see that in these.

Here are a few photos shamelessly stolen from someone who was there.  They're a bit like "Where's Waldo," but if you look closely you can find Lisa in these.

They also joined with another WWII-era group (that danced to Glen Miller's "In the Mood") to portray a giant American flag.  (Photo shamelessly stolen from our stake YW president.)

Lisa and Daniel both had a really good time.

With that many kids performing, plus their drivers and advisors, there was almost no room left in the Pavilion for other spectators, so the performance was broadcast to church buildings around the area.  Yumiko got to drive, so she saw it in person.  I didn't, so that's why there are no photos of the event itself.


P.S.  Outtakes.  Here's why I take a lot of photos -- it's because a lot of them end up looking like these:

Whole Lotta Leaves

We've gathered up a ton of leaves this year -- literally.  Here's what we put out for collection last week.

That's 18 bags.  We put out three the previous week, and have four more ready to put out this week, for a total of 25.  I think I've put the equivalent of about 10-15 bags on the garden, and we have probably about 2 bags worth still on the lawn or on the trees.

That's somewhere between 47 and 52 bags.  If each is nominally 50 pounds, that's right around a ton.

I wonder how many individual leaves that is?

Fear the reaper

Today's safety tip: make sure that your lawn mower blades have come to a complete stop before attempting to adjust the catcher chute.  Don't try this at home, kids.

(It looked nastier a couple of days ago, but I didn't have the presence of mind to take photos then....)

The Gamblers

Last weekend was the Sadie Hawkins dance.  Lisa and 17 of her friends went together as a group.  They took photos at a nearby park, had homemade pizza for dinner at our house, then went to the dance.

(The theme of the dance was "casinos," hence the logo on their shirts.)

Here are some photos...

Empty Garden

Fall is here, and winter is knocking on the door.  Yesterday we finished cleaning out the garden.

The growing season started late, and was pushed out even more by a late frost that killed most of what we had planted at that point, but in the end things worked out pretty well.

At the beginning of the season Daniel was wondering how much we grew in the garden, so this year we tried to keep track.  The following stats are very approximate, and in most cases probably somewhat low, because we didn't always remember to write things down when we harvested.

So, here is a look back at this year's garden in numbers and photos.

Raspberries - 60 lb

Strawberries - 30 lb?

Blackberries - 20 lb?

Corn - 83 ears

Cucumbers - 130

Delaware grapes - about 5 lb

Concorde grapes - about 11 lb

(not a great year for grapes -- we had more last year)

Green peppers - about 40

Green beans - 30 lb?  We didn't measure these, but we picked probably 10-15 large bowls.

Carrots - 20-30 lb? (we didn't measure these at all)

Onions - about 40

Green onions - 100-150

Eggplant - about 10

Tomatoes - about 600?

The tomatoes made 30-35 pints of salsa, 3 quarts of whole tomatoes, 11 pints of pizza sauce, and 7 pints of tomato sauce.  Plus enough for eating, and lots of tomato basil bruschetta for Rachel's reception and other events.

Potatoes - 210 lb

Cantaloupe - 34

Watermelon - 15

Apples - 30-35

It was a good year.

Reception (pro)

Wedding photos (pro)