Scattering Sunshine

The Junior High basketball season was fast and furious for Ace and his team.  They worked hard and learned a lot! Larissa's SVU Volleyball Team at the National Tournament - they took 3rd place! One of my favorite stories from the entire season was when the coaches planned a team night at the National Tourney, and surprised the girls with a visit and testimonies at the Louisville Kentucky temple. The coaches, Michelle Mahaffey and Chelsea Whetstone are awesome women and great examples for these girls - so grateful!

Kix had his debut as a lead actor in the fall drama production at school this year.  Carrie Mann has established an incredible tradition of quality in the drama program at Merino - it always far exceeds expectations - especially for our tiny country school.  As for Kix, he received high praise and critical acclaim for the way he pulled off the lead role of Jerry, a talk show host who weaves quite an intricate web of lies throughout the story - all with good intentions of course ... but it was hilarious. Cast and crew above ... Jerry (Kix) and Eve (Danielle Rinaldo) below. This shows one of the coolest stunts in the show ... Dani was being "thrown" up to the window by a mob of communists outside. The 3 amigos, otherwise known as the only sophomores in the production. Kix doing his own stunts :) And the video version: 

Halloweeen at SVU ... Oscar the Grouch ...with the volleyball team. She was trying to go all-out with the limited "stuff" she had available to dress up with.  Even spray painted her jeans silver for Oscar's trash can ... which ended up leaving a cloud of metallic silver dust behind everywhere she went.  :)   After many years of valiant efforts by me on Halloween ... I'm finally and officially pathetic at helping my kids do something homemade.  The night before, I took Taysa and Cade out to the shed and let them pick something out of the supply of store bought costumes that I had collected while teaching. They didn't seem to mind.  :) Ya gotta love snowmen!  just sayin ... It'll be fun when these two are playing for the same team next year!  :)

This sweet boy actually loves to read scriptures. It's entirely unfair that life is so busy that eating dinner and reading scriptures doesn't happen until kids this age should be tucked in bed for the night. Precious.  :)

  SVU 2011 Volleyball after winning their first tournament   SVU Volleyball! Our new favorite team in the nation :) They've been doing great! Suffered the first losses of the season this weekend at a tournament in Lexington, but off to a great start.  Larissa absolutely loves the girls on this team and she's having a blast!   Rissy and teammates: Tori, Shyanne, Brynn, and Camille   These 4 girls are the only freshmen on the volleyball team - Camille (left) is from Utah, Morgan (in the back) is from good ole Sanford, Colorado, and Meghan (front) is from Massachusetts. They're headed to the football game :)

Thanks to Larissa, we noticed that the date today was 9, 10, 11 ... Did you?  :)  kinda fun, right? Here are some of our highlights: Cade is #31 - This 18 second clip shows him completing his first minor league pass for a TD!  This one shows Cade (#31) running around the defensive line and into the endzone for a 2 point conversion. Pretty fun way to start a Saturday morning! :)    Taysa, Cade, and a few puppies 9/10/11 We occasionally flood irrigate our lawn, when Larry has water for the hay field. This is Taysa and Cade enjoying the standing water with a few puppies. This was a tree removal project that the kids ... "helped" with. This poor tree was huge, at the edge of the driveway, and seemed healthy until last year. Then it very suddenly and completely died.  :(  so sad. 

Tallest to Shortest . . . .? How many "New Year's" opportunities do we really have??  There's the obvious January 1st, but then for people like us who work for the government, there is the fiscal new year as well. That's when we get the new insurance cards, and the paycheck comes on July 1 instead of June 30th. (This is because some genius in the Colorado government a few years ago discovered that they could balance the budget one year by pushing all of the state employee paychecks into the next fiscal year. . . . Enough said. If I start rambling about politics, this post will get way more off track than it already is.) Anyway, THIS time of year is another "new year" because, of course, we're all starting a new school year!!  And yes, I do mean WE. All of the Conger's are currently enrolled in school full time. Larry is the only one who doesn't actually attend class, write papers, or take tests ... but we'll give him credit for part...

Well . . . She's really gone. Her room has a freshly shampooed carpet, thanks to Grandma. Her bed is there, stripped of the green and blue bedding she loved, and there are a ton of empty hangers in her tiny little cabinet that we called a closet. Some of the posters are still on the wall - thank goodness - because some small things like that make me feel like she'll be back in a few days . . . ?? Not. Love you Rissy! Thanks for sharing 18 years with us side by side. Even though I don't have the backseat driver view that I've enjoyed so much, I'm so excited for this next chapter in your life. I know you've got amazing things coming your way - and I will be cheering you on with my whole heart - just from a different view.

Larissa (senior) & Kix (freshman) I will find the title of this play and edit this post later! In case you can't tell, Riss was cast as one of the 3 little pigs, and Kix played one of the 3 billy goats gruff. Fun times!  ♥