Teenager at last (and stuff)

This post is a little late, but Lauren turned 13 years-old on April 10th. She is officially a teenager. As usual, she wanted to organize a party. She loves that type of thing. She had several friends over. They did a scavenger hunt at the mall. They ate pizza and they watched "Tangled" which Lauren got for her b-day.

Here are some pictures of the happy day.

Lauren with her loot



Cupcakes with curly candles

The Easter Bunny also put in an appearance at our house recently.

A couple of eggs in the easter baskets

Lauren also recently had a piano recital. She played "Baby Elephant Walk" by Henry Mancini. She did great! Check it out for yourself below. (Sorry about the shakey-cam.)


Lauren Recital - Baby Elephant Walk from Derek Lindsey on Vimeo.

You are awesome, Lauren!

Happy Birthday Mr. Bowling

Joseph's obsession with bowling started at an early age. Just before his second birthday, he came across two tiny plastic bowling pins. He found out he could set them up and roll a tennis ball to knock them down. He entertained himself for hours with this sport and his love of bowling took off.

About six months later we got him six foam bowling pins with a big foam bowling ball. He played it constantly. He called them "color pins."

For christmas the next year he got his "big ginormus bowling pins."

Joseph turned five on April 8th. He had some friends over for a bowling party. He had a bowling cake.

They then went bowling.

Most of the kids were done by about the seventh frame. Joseph and Andrew (the one to the right of Joseph in the picture) stuck it out to the bitter end. Joseph ended up getting two spares and a strike during the game.

We were happy that Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson were here for his birthday as well.

Happy Birthday, Joseph. We love you.

Addendum:

Shannon reminded me that I forgot to mention that Joseph was a bowling ball for Halloween. I had meant to include that, but forgot. Here is a picture of Joseph as a bowling ball.

Glass Blowing

A few months ago we went to Thanksgiving Point (a place about 2 miles from our house that has a dinosaur museum, movie theater, petting zoo, out door amphitheater, gardens, shops, etc.) At one of the buildings, the Art Institute of Utah teaches art classes, does glass blowing and other things. We went to watch the glass blowing one day. We found out that you can pay $25 and create your own glass flower with help from the glass blowers at the art institute. Ryan watched for a minute and was obsessed. He wanted to create his own glass flower really bad. We told him that he needed to save up his own money to do it. As time went on and he had his money saved up, he would constantly badger us to take him glass blowing. Last Saturday was finally the day to take him. He was so excited.

The guy in the background of this picture is the glass blower who helped Ryan with his flower. He has just pulled the molten glass from the furnace and is starting to shape it into a cone that will become the flower.


Glass Blowing from Derek Lindsey on Vimeo.

This video shows Ryan actually pulling the glass into a flower shape.

He couldn't take his flower home that day because it had to cure. We picked it up on Monday. The following pictures show Ryan with the flower and just a picture of the flower.

The Tophams came for Spring Break and actually accompanied us to Thanksgiving Point. While they were here we went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU museum of art. For those who don't know who Carl Bloch is, look him up. He was pretty impressive.

While we were at BYU, we also stopped by The Brick Oven for pizza.

We had a great time with the Tophams while they were here. The kids played a lot of video games and watched some movies. The cousins had lots of fun playing together. We are glad the Tophams live close enough to see them occasionally.

The Quiet Extrovert

People who know Mark, you know that he is a man of few words. His worst nightmare involves talking on the telephone. Those that don't know him well may think that he is shy and introverted.

We have a different term for him - the quiet extrovert. He is involved in so many activities it makes my head spin some times. He keeps surprising us with other things that he has signed up to do. He likes to be involved in groups, but likes to stay on the fringes of the groups - as little talking as possible.

Many people are aware of Mark's great skills on the piano. He rivals that on the violin. He is first chair violin in his chamber orchestra at school. The following clip is from a concert the orchestra put on last week. Close your eyes and pretend you are driving a sports car through the Swiss Alps or in a diamond commercial. The piece is called Paladio.


Paladio from Derek Lindsey on Vimeo.

He has early morning orchestra starting at 6 AM every other day. With that and his heavy class load this year, you might think that he would have enough on his plate. He's just getting started.

• Weekly piano lesson
• Weekly violin lesson
• Marching band in the fall - someone talked him into playing the synthesizer for the band. It was a time committment similar to playing a sport.
• Technology club - someone asked him to help program a game for a programming competition. (It appears that he is no longer doing that.)
• Chinese club
• Jazz Christmas ensemble - He was going to play the piano for them. It didn't work out, but he was ready if it went ahead.
• Piano festival - played a Bach Prelude and Fugue and a Rachmaninoff piece for a judge. We call them his Bach and Rach pieces.
• Prepared pieces for orchestra solo and ensemble competition and is going to state for his solo piece.
• Accompanied three people on the piano for their solo pieces for the same competition.
• Is on the tennis team. (The piano and violin lessons stop while tennis is going on because he has no time.)
• Took the American College Test (ACT) for the second time.
• Is studying for three AP exams.
• During summer "vacation" he plans on attending as many of the following as he can: Summer Music Festival at BYU (week long music camp), Priest Quorum High Adventure Camp, Disneyland, Family Reunion, Especially For Youth (EFY), state technology camp.

Wow, I'm tired just typing it.

In addition, and much to his dismay, Lehi High School has large number of girls choice dances. He usually manages to get asked to them. (He hasn't actually managed to ask any one out yet. See comment about the telephone above.) This picture is of him just before going to the valentines dance. His date's name is Jessa Bates.

Kind of a funny story about one of the invitations. We were sitting at the dinner table when there was a knock at the door. Joseph loves to answer the door so he thundered in there to answer it. He came back and said, "Mark there is a fairy at the door for you." The girl had her younger sister dress up like a fairy and deliver a pumpkin to Mark with the invitation inside. Mark knew what it was for and did NOT want to talk about it. Lauren and Ryan could not figure out why there was a little girl delivering a pumpkin to Mark and could not leave it alone. Finally we had to tell them to cool it and we would tell them what it was about later.

Another girl (Jessa) asked him by creating a code and then creating some matricies that Mark had to solve in order to get the right number combination to find out what the message said. The way to a man's heart is through his mathmatical equations.

We are glad Mark is part of our family.

Handel's Messiah

Here is an awesome version of The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.



Merry Christmas.

The Rock Star

As seems to happen every year around Thanksgiving, Ryan had another birthday. He is now seven years old. A lot of elementry school classes have a student of the week for the kids with birthdays that week. In Ryan's class, they have a funner title - Rock Star (teacher's maiden name was Rock.) Ryan talked about this for weeks leading up to the day. He got to make a poster of himself and things he likes to present to the class. Here are some pictures of Rock Star Day.

Ryan presenting his rock star poster

Ryan with his teacher Mrs. Sylva

Ryan has already had two birthday parties and is gunning for a third. Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson and Aunt Christine were in town for Thanksgiving. We had a party with them before they left.



Ryan loves pumpkin pie, so we always have to have a pumpkin pie cake.



Opening presents from the grandparents

 Ryan's second party was on his actual birthday (11/27.) The Meyers were in town for Thanksgiving as well. They were here to help celebrate on his actual birthday.



Ryan with the traditional birthday pancakes



Someone is excited about the Legos he got



Cute kid



Cupcakes that night

 We are glad you came to our family, Ryan. You are our rock star, too. Happy Birthday!

Crazy Stories

There is a creative writing exercise that we have turned into a game that we like to play with the older kids in our family. We have played this with some of you before. The rules are simple. Everyone starts with a blank piece of paper. Everyone writes one sentence as the beginning of a story and passes the paper clockwise one person. The next person writes the next sentence of the story, folds the first sentence down so the next person can only see the last sentence and passes the paper on. This continues until there is no more room on the paper (one side only is usually long enough.)

We have had some really entertaining stories. Here is a sampling from tonight. Enjoy the bizarre from the Lindseys.

Story 1: Universal Language

Once there was a man that was in desparate need of a potholder, but he didn't have one. So he ran all over the whole universe trying to desperately find one single potholder. He was able to find just the right one at Bed Bath and Beyond and he just happened to have a 20% off coupon.

"Now I can hatch my evil plan!" he shouted at the surprised checker. The checker just said "King Me," earning himself strange glares and stares from passers-by. Finally one passer-by said, "Man, what the heck are you talking about?"

The man said he was just practicing some new phrases he had learned in Klingon and switched back to speaking English. "I knew I could be bilingual!" he shrieked as he flashed the "live long and prosper sign" to his mother. His mother glared at him and said, grudgingly, "You'd never be able to learn Zulu!"

Story 2: Celebration of Cheese

One day som mice stumbled upon some cheese bearing the label, "Made in China." Everyone felt bad that the mice had eaten the cheese because they would surely die. They only felt bad for a moment before a wild celebration of cheese broke out. The small cluster of lactose intolerant celebrators looked stunned as the cheese was consumed by young and old alike.

"How can they eat so much, these amazingly adapted creatures from the distant future?" the intolerants said in shock and awe. "Well, I think they can eat so much 'cause they each have 36 stomachs," a stranger burst in. Everyone stared blankly at such outlandish news and said, "No wonder you are a stranger - you are strange!" With truth staring at them in the face, they sat down and composed the first sonota that had the devil's tritone in every measure.