I'm Half Alien

Amy won a blue ribbon (only 4 out of 25 kids) at the school 4-H club level and now will compete at the county level in January (~2min long)
The title of her speech is "I'm Half Alien" which outlines her mom's resident alien status, the path to American citizenship and its benefits. 

You can view her speech on YouTube at: http://youtu.be/KE5ncrMZ-VU

Also, this week Amy secured herself a place on the school's Jump Rope team.  The team performs at local schools and community events.  It's all choreographed to music and is pretty amazing to watch.  Way to go Amy!

Halloween 2012

Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West

Mary Poppins and Bert

Successful Trick-or-Treating

Shockingly impressive loot

Hoot, Scoot & Boogie

Our elementary school's mascot is the Owl and every year we hold our one and only fundraising event: "Hoot, Scoot & Boogie."  It is a carnival event where the kids can play games (purchasing tickets ahead of time) to raise money for the PTA.  This year the girls enjoyed dunking their teachers in dunk tanks, winning cakes via the cakewalk (like musical chairs), and they even won a 2-litre bottle of root beer at the ring toss.  Best of all, though, is that they each got some time to wander around with friends and no parents.  These days, it seems, parents become un-cool much sooner than generations past.

 

The second part of Hoot, Scoot, and Boogie is the Silent Auction.  This year I served as co-chair on the Silent Auction committee on the PTA board.  We spent many hours, weeks, and months planning and working on this event.  It brings in tens of thousands of dollars for the school each year and I was determined to set a new record.

Our big day was last Friday.  We had a great team working on gathering all the donations, compiling thank-you's, and setting up/taking down on the day of.  Here's a view of our fine work:

 Each classroom contributes a themed gift basket as part of the silent auction as well. We had a great variety of donations - everything from gift cards, barbecues, camping, legos, e-readers, etc.  Class baskets ranged in value from $200 - $800.

 Each class also provided a class project to be auctioned - something made by the children in the class and put together by a parent volunteer.  I headed up the class project for Emily's first grade class.  Their auction basket theme was "Ice Cream Party" and featured a Cuisinart ice cream maker, matching sundae bowls, toppings, mixes, etc.  So I let the kids trace ice cream cones on fabric remnants and we appliqued them onto cotton squares.  They fingerpainted the red cherries on top (using their thumb prints) and then I pieced the fabric together into a quilt.  The PTA provides $25 'starter funds' to each project.  Because I used a lot of scrap fabric from my personal stash, and some 50% off coupons for batting and backing fabrics, I only had to spend $1 of my own money.  The quilt sold for $60 at auction.  Yay!

Amy's 9th Birthday Party - Olympics

Amy turned 9 years old during the Olympics this year.  So we decided that it would only be fitting to celebrate as Olympians.

 

 

We started with a craft (not pictured).  The girls each got to create a flag using Perler beads, which were later melted together with the iron.  Matt printed out some pages wtih various flags of the world to use as templates.  The girls were very creative and chose some very obscure countries.  Some even made up their own flags.  We used the flags as markers for the discus and javelin throw (shown below).

 

We used frisbees for the discus and corn stalks (minus their leaves) for the javelin, which works surprisingly well.  The girls each got a few tries and then we measured their best distance.  (Matt was the score-keeper/timer for all events).

 

We had 4 other events besides the discus and javelin.  Softball toss, basketball shoot-out (they each got 1 minute to make as many baskets as possible), obstacle course (designed and tested by Amy and Emily)

and everyone's favorite:

hurdles - over laundry baskets (Mom's idea).

 

We finished with fish 'n' chips for lunch in honor of our host city, London. Then we had a Medal Ceremony and opened presents.

 

I made the medals out of frozen juice concentrate lids (spray painted gold, silver and bronze).

 Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun, in fact many of the parents wanted to try some of the events too!

Tolley Family in Canada

Another trip out west for another family reunion.  This time a bit further north.

We flew into Kalispell, Montana where my parents live.  We enjoyed reuniting with my sister and her little girls, and my brother and his fiancee.  We spent the afternoon out on Grandpa's boat.

The next morning we drove up to Alberta, Canada to my grandmother's house in Lethbridge.  My other brother and his wife met us there.  We ate lots of good food, played games and ventured out to Henderson Lake park for some of that beautiful Canadian air.

Canada has the best parks.  The equipment was newer and the trees a bit taller, but it is the same park I went to as a little girl with my grandpa.

We paid our respects to Grandpa Brooks

and then spent the evening with some of the aunts, uncles, and cousins dining on Chinese food.

The next morning we went out to Uncle Greg's acreage and marveled at his amazing garden.  We picked buckets and buckets full of raspberries.

 

Then off to Park Lake for the Tolley Family Camp:

 We enjoyed great food all weekend, campfire tales, swimming in the lake, and catching up with my cousins (I have 26 cousins on my dad's side!)

The kids became friends quickly and enjoyed games, races, and prizes.

We celebrated Grandpa and Grandma Tolley with a birthday cake in their honor.  If they were alive, Grandpa would have been 100 this year and Grandma would have been 90.

Uncle Verl showed us how to make rope.

And of course, it wouldn't be a real Tolley event without ice cream, especially Canada's specialty: Tiger ice cream (orange with black licorice).  Uncle Cal had a freezer full of 3-gallon pails - an unlimited supply available 24/7.

After camp, we went out to Fort Macleod (where I grew up) and visited the family homestead in Orton.

And the really old family homestead (where my dad grew up)

And the new oil well... that we all hope will fund an amazingly exotic family reunion again in a couple years.  ;-) 

Aspen Grove Family Camp

June brought the much-anticipated Dobberfuhl family reunion at Aspen Grove, Utah.  This trip was booked more than a year ago and was the first time we got all of Matt's sibs, their spouses, kids and his parents together since before we moved to England.

We enjoyed beautiful weather and spectacular scenery.  We kept busy with many fun activities, games, arts/crafts, and being together.

Ropes Course

Family Games

swimming

fishing

  

arts and crafts

eating, but not having to cook

Games!

Pit!

 

power tools - making pens

air rifles

 

archery

Hiking