Homecoming Court

Here are some photos of the CHS Homecoming Court presentation last week.

All of the Homecoming King and Queen finalists (minus a couple of guys who are on the football team, and were thus busy getting ready for the big game, and one girl who hadn't arrived yet):




The Homecoming Queen candidates:



Walking out onto the field:



During the announcements:



Rachel being introduced, giving the "princess wave":



Rachel with Chris Hall, the Homecoming King (and the guy who took her to Homecoming last year):

Shooting

Some photos from a shooting expedition last week...
































And here are a few photos of the damage. .22 slugs aren't enough to do too much damage to a propane tank. And the vegetables were relatively unaffected by shotgun blasts, either.






Finally, a first -- if you look closely at this (you may need to click on the photo to get a higher-resolution version), you can see silvery streaks in front of the pumpkin. Those are the shot about to strike the target. For the first time, I caught projectiles in the air!

Powder Puff Football

Here are a few photos from Rachel's "Powder Puff" football game tonight.

There were so many girls playing that Rachel didn't get very much time actually in the game, but she had a great time, and the Senior team won.

Homecoming season

It's that time of year when schools have their Homecoming activities, and Rachel is in the thick of it.

This week she's playing in the annual "Powder Puff" football game, so she's been busy with practices nearly every night.

She's also in the running for Homecoming Queen, which is pretty exciting.

Getting nominated wasn't actually quite as impressive as it sounds -- each sports team and club nominates one candidate, and so as vice-president of the Japan Club she basically nominated herself. But then the whole school votes on the candidates, and she made it into the top ten finalists, which is pretty cool. The winner will be announced before the big football game Friday evening.

She has been involved in the Homecoming dance, too. These days it seems that you can't just ask somebody to a dance, you have to do some fancy, clever thing to make the invitation. Which is kind of fun (and rather less stressful than actually having to talk to a girl). The guy that asked her gave her a t-shirt with a bunch of letters on it, some of which were in permanent ink and some of which were washable, and then she was supposed to wash the shirt to learn the name of the guy asking her. (Daniel actually solved the puzzle without having to wash the shirt...)

In addition to getting asked, she's gone along several times to help friends make clever invitations and responses.

Then a couple of days ago we got another anonymous package doorbell-ditched onto our front porch. We were feeling bad for the guy that went to the trouble and would have to get turned down, but it ended up being for the Homecoming dance at a different school on a different night. So, she gets to go twice this year.

The second invitation was a package of Oreos that had a scrambled message hidden in the fillings:



And this invitation had the added advantage of being tasty. Here's Rachel snacking on what's left of the invitation...

Happy Birthday, Lisa!

It was Lisa's birthday this week. With school and Young Women's activities and violin and piano and orthodontic appointments etc., we didn't get much chance to celebrate, but it seems like she had a good day anyway. Lots of friends at school wished her a happy birthday, the Young Women all sang to her, the Bishop brought her a candy bar, etc. More celebration to come in a few days when everybody isn't so darned busy.

Here are some pictures of the Birthday Girl.

Her new Mia-Maid class gave her a "heart attack"...

Enjoying her new toy...

Swim Meet

This year Andrew decided to join the high school swim team. It's a lot of work, with practices every day, but he has stuck with it and seems to be enjoying both the swimming and the camaraderie.

Last week was the first swim meet of the season. There were at least five high schools participating, so it was pretty crazy. Andrew swam 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle, and 200-meter four-man relay.

Here are a few photos -- they're not too great, I still need to figure out the tricks to taking good swimming photos.

Way to go, Andrew!