The Road Show: Wizard of Odd

As you may recall, I was called as the Road Show Coordinator for our ward.  Each ward had to perform a 12-minute show on the topic of “Individual Self Worth.”  Thanks to my dear friend Karin’s help, we put on a great rendition of the Wizard of Oz with my three Laurels as the Dorothys.  The primary kids were the Munchkins, of course.  Including Celia.  Isn’t she cute?  And Sabrina tried to climb onstage every time she saw Celia.  They sang Katy Perry’s “Firework.”  Celia would love to sing it for you.  She sang it for everyone at DisneyWorld.  The Relief Society ladies were Witches who sang “Evil Queens” to the tune of “Dancing Queen” (again, Karin and I are geniuses).  Overall, it was fun, went well, and I’m glad it was only a month-long process.  Because of our unique stake (including the “Bush Branch” that calls into Church from all over Western Alaska), the roadshow was live broadcast through a website so everyone in the stake could see it.  It was fun that my sister and mom were able to dial in and watch too.  

And some nice mom of a Munchkin happened upon a Dorothy costume the size of Sabrina so she could really feel like she was a part of it for the night of the performance.

Remember Christmas?

Yeah, we tortured Sabrina at the ward party.  Classic pictures. 

Come on 3.2 inches!  If we're going to get this close, we might as well break record for snowiest winter in recorded history!

Remember Halloween?

I have a lot of catching up to do (mainly because sometimes it takes a really long time to get pictures from other people).  So here's that awesome Halloween party Tom and I went to.  It was a photo scavenger hunt.  So Batgirl and Batman and the rest of our team were spotted all over town.  

A member of the ward runs a mortuary, so they had us stop at the mortuary to do a few things.  Including having someone in the casket who then woke up to scare us (I totally saw it coming, but a few did not).

And they made us eat and drink nasty things and we got points.  See the guy in the back that looks like he has a wreath coming out of his head?  He ate and drank until all their points were gone.  And asked for more points since there was still food left.

A picture of us with someone "21" by Forever 21 (we didn't actually ask her age).

Probably my favorite picture of the night.  She's totally flying.

We ate some "local pie" at Burger King.

Met some nice, bored firemen.

Found some "Alaskan wildlife."

Asked about birthday parties at Build A Bear.

Spotted Harry Potter (and some owls).

And went a ton of other places.  Our team completed everything on the list and won.  And it was honestly the craziest, most fun ever.  Happy Halloween! (Only 5 months late!)

Celia: Family Pictures

Celia really likes drawing our family.  And writing our names everywhere.  Here is the progression of family pictures from the past couple of months.

This first one was drawn in preschool on January 19th.  Sabrina is flying, she told me.
On the back is a hilarious questionnaire where Vickie (her teacher that week) wrote in her answers to questions:
What is your name?:    Celia Stock
Do you have a family?:    Yes
How many people are in your family?: 3 girls and 1 boy
What are their names?:   Marel and Tom and Sabrina
What does your dad like to do?:   I don't know
What does your mom like to do?:    I don't know what my mom likes to do either.
What does your sister like to do?:   She likes to play with me
What do you like to do?:  I like to play a lot with my mom and dad.
What things do you do together as a family?:   Sing
How do you help your family?:   I don't know.
Do you have any jobs?:  Yes.  I paint and color.
What do you like to play with your sister?:   Play go away.
What do you like to eat with your family?:   Toast

"We're at the park and we're all swinging together.  And all the girls are wearing crowns."

This next one was drawn on Sunday, January 22nd.  Celia included her Grandma and Grandpa in this one because Grandma Sue was at our house at the time.

"We're all at church.  And Grandma is finding her Grandma class."

And this one was drawn on February 29th after we went to Benihana's for Tom's birthday the night before.  Again, all the girls are wearing crowns.

"We are jumping on the trampoline at Sophia's house.  Nothing else is happening.  Those are just dots (upper right corner)."

This one was drawn just yesterday.

"We're at the park.  That's you (upper right).  You are up above this.  Your wings are made up of special sponge so you can fly and it doesn't have any holes!  That's me and that's Sabrina swinging on the swings.  And there's my daddy and there's Sophie and there's her sister Evelyn, and there's her mommy.  And there's her neck.  She's really nice, isn't she?  That's a really special park."  (The rest of the picture is "part of the park" and right over Tom "is the slide".)

I think she's actually improving quite a bit.  

Aurora!

Last night we caught our first real aurora. We've seen it a couple times before this, but only quite faintly. This time we saw it in full force.

 They were bright enough to be seen even with a near-full moon.

 Marel of the North.

 At one point the aurora was right overhead assuming animal shapes. This one seems to have been taken as the firebird was morphing into a moose head.

 Before it faded away, we got an especially bright burst of green, white, yellow, and purple.

Keep in mind that all these pictures were taken either from our living room window or our driveway.  Don't we live in a cool place?  It never ceases to absolutely floor me.  And the Northern Lights were no exception. At times they would be gently flowing and billowing like clouds, then they would just go dancing and shooting across the sky.  They move so fast sometimes!  And they pulse.  As our neighbor said, "if I didn't know what these were, I'd be really freaked out right now."  They are not as peaceful as I expected.  They are wild and unpredictable and all-consuming (at least when they're this active).  They were completely awe-inspiring and I hope everyone gets to experience this at least once.  Unreal.

Iditarod 2012: It's happening

Yes, the Iditarod is happening right now.  They had their ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday.  We were putting in new cabinets and did not attend.  A lot is happening right now in the Stock house (see previous entry), so I will not be doing this year's commentary.  I just wanted to tell you that the Iditarod is happening, I want Jeff King to win (or a second-year win for Alaska Native John Baker would be nice too), and that you can follow it on the Anchorage Daily News website.