And then there was one!

My girl--still in, but by the looks of the previews, she's going home this week!

The princess' guy, voted out this past week! And he needed to go!!

The prince's guy, long gone!

It had to happen...

It had to happen. The prince is now taller than the queen!

1964

Look at me just blogging away!

Since the king and I were both born in 1964, here are a few fascinating financial facts from that year:

Annual tuition to Harvard: $2,400


Hershey chocolate bar: $0.05


Ford Mustang: $2,330 (starting price)


Movie ticket to "Goldfinger" (starring Sean Connery as "007"): $1.00 (THAT ONE WAS FOR YOU, MARY BETH!)

I*KID*AROD

Okay, so here's the deal. Every year the 7th grade class follows the Ididarod races. Each student aligns himself with a real racer, and they follow the progress. At the end of the week they get to watch the movie, Eight Below (about the race) and have their own race. They are broken into teams with one musher, a lead dog, and then 4-6 other dogs. They travel a 1.5 mile course (see the hill in the background of the photo) that includes climbing a big ol' hill TWICE. The musher has blankets, pillows, etc (the things you would need if you were doing it for real) in the sled. They stop at check points where they have to answer school-related questions. If they get a question wrong, they lose a dog! Mitch's team finished with only THREE people so they were awarded the "Most Inspirational" award! It's very fun and it was a pretty nice day yesterday!

From the Gazette:

A team starts the Ikidarod cross country sled pulling race Friday at Lockwood Middle School. The teams pull one member in a sled more than a mile over a hilly course. Along the way teams must stop at five check points where they answer academic questions. An incorrect answer means a member is dropped from the team. The race also has mandatory rest stops like the Alaskan dog race it is patterned after.

This link takes you to raw video shot by the Gazette. In it, toward the end, you'll see Mitch, in the black tshirt and glasses and hear him say, "Who's going?" He's famous!!

http://videos.billingsgazette.com/p/video?id=1758199

American Idol

This is Michael. He's beautiful. And I believe that he will be the NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!!!

Dodged a Bullet

Mitch's loser who dodged the bullet. Possibly the weakest man EVER!

Sharmi's loser--she bugs the &*^% out of people.

Cara's loser. Pretty, but already gone--thus the black/white photo!

Calling all Survivor fans!





The kids and I are in a Survivor pool--winner takes about $50. Cara's guy was voted out last week, but we dodged a bullet this week when a strong player was voted out instead of Mitch's weak one. Not to fear, my weak one would have been voted out had the other tribe not won immunity!! It's hard being a reality tv junkie!

But stay tuned, you know we do!

Birthday Blues

Could this little sweetie really be turning 44???? Given the dated toy and carpet, probably! And check out the bells on my shoes!!

Wrestling Mania

Congratulations to our fabulous nephews for BOTH placing in a state wrestling tournament this week. You boys are the BOMB!!!!

Grandma's so funny!

My mom and sister are in Disneyworld right now. Today they went to Disney's Hollywood Studios where they promptly took Grandma on the Tower of Terror. She loved it! So they headed over to the Rockin' Roller Coaster--with high speeds and a loop-de-loop. When they got off, my niece asked her, "Grandma, did you like it?" My mom looked at Becky and said, "ARE YOU CRAZY?????" Tomorrow they're going to take in the more mellow Pirates of the Caribbean and It's a Small World. I hope they make it to Splash Mountain too--that's not Rockin' Roller Coaster, but it's better than It's a Small World!!!

Congrats to Beck!

Our congratulations to cousin Becky for placing 1st in a HipHop dance competition at Disneyworld this week. She and her teammates were pretty excited that a bunch of Caucasian Mormon girls beat out a black team from Los Angeles! HipHop on, dancing queens!!

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm"

Most mornings, driving to work, we listen to Paul Harvey's morning broadcast. Thursday, February 28th, he said this:

"We have been worrying about the wrong thing: a new scientific alert relating to global COOLING. There’s been a 12 month long DROP in temperatures. North America right now has the most snow cover in 50 years. All four of the worlds temperature-tracking outlets, including NASA, are updating data. Global temperatures have dropped precipitously, wiping out all of the world’s global warming for the last hundred years."

Meetin' the Gov!

We were honored to have the Governor visit our school, and my lab full of 4th graders--along with his wife, Nancy, and dog, Jasper--to promote their math/science web site for kids. The governor was kind enough to ask me first, before letting the dog get up on the desk so that the kids could take a better look. Jasper was very well-behaved (better behaved than some of the 4th graders) though I did notice I had some doggy drool on the desk when he left! Good times! If you're interested in the site, the address is: www.mathscience.mt.gov

How Cool

Our congratulations to cousin Amanda for being selected the county-wide winner of the "I like Charlie Russell because" essay contest. She beat out 800 other 5th graders, won some cool stuff, and got to be on tv and in the newspaper! Go AMANDA!!!

Yellowstone

Elk

Bison

Mitch and Cara. Can you see Kipler falls behind them?

Old Faithful

Sledding--sort of

We spent the weekend in West Yellowstone and snowmobiled into the park on Saturday. You have to have a guide to go into the park now, but that turned out to be fine because he took us to some spots we never would have gone to on our own. Lots of wildlife and beautiful scenery, and the kids got to drive the snowmobiles when we got back to West Yellowstone. Cara thought the bison looked like big rocks, and I was awed by eagles flying overhead! Life is good.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

Libby and Mom in Cabo San Lucas.

Sharmi, Libby, Mom, Shelley in Mazatlan.

Shelley singing Kareoke--and moving in on my man, Kevin!

We all had a little bling, and would trade it out nightly, to match our "fine dining" apparel. I think Miss Ariana ended up with all the bling after the cruise!

Arriving in Cabo San Lucas

Cooking School in Cabo

First you learn to make the perfect Margarita. Cheers!

Next you marinate some nasty fish, wrap it in a banan leaf, and fry it.
Sometime in there--hard to remember with the Margaritas you're drinking--you grind your own salsa in a lava bowl. And I mean "HAND GRIND." It looks nasty--due to the green tomatoes we used--but it tasted delicious!

Finally, because you're in Mexico, you make French Crepes for desert. Huh???? Yep. These pretty beauties were made my mom.

Shelley does get the "good sport" award because so much of what we did involved alcohol! You go girl!

Cabo San Lucas Sunset

Churches

Our Lady of Guadalupe CATHEDRAL in Mazatlan

Incredible interior.

Our Lady of Guadalupe CHURCH in Puerta Vallarta.

Cliff Diver in Mazatlan

This is not an organized sight-seeing activity. This is not his "job." After he gets done, his friends ask for donations!

Sand Art and Ocean View in Puerto Vallarta

Tequilla Factory in Puerto Vallarta

Tequilla is made from the Aguave plant. (My mom has some in her yard in Arizona.)

Before drinking, you say, "Salude!" This guy gets paid to give tours of the factory and drink 6 shots of tequilla per tour. He said he never drinks at home because he drinks all day at work!

There was a restaurant at the Tequilla factory. We thought we should have "authentic" Mexican food while in Mexico.

The chicken tacos looked and tasted very similar to what I would cook, which was a little disappointing!

ShipBoard Fun

Bathing beauties--never warm enough for swimsuits!

Shelley and I split a bingo pack and won a trip for two on a 7 night Caribbean cruise. WAHOO! We've got a year to take it!

Celebrating Libby's birthday. Cake anyone? We'd already had desert!

Sharmi's new boyfriend--he totally bought into this--Avil (Libby called him "Advil") from India! Oh yeah, and he's Catholic. Go figure!

Tornados in January???

The wind woke me up about 1:00 AM on Monday morning. A mini-tornado was hitting the Heights, but I thought it was just our regular wind storm! Here's a link to the KULR8 site, if you're interested in reading more!

http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/15532037.html