News from Wyoming

Boy, it has been a while since I last blogged. My bad. I shall attempt the repentance process as soon as possible so that my evil sins will be cast away and scattered among confines of wicked practices.

Let's see, first the most important thing of all, volleyball. Yes the team has come through and won another state championship. We won regionals and played Burlington for the regional championship. It went 5 games and it was a great game. We prevailed in the 5th by a score of 15-8. So now we go to State and open with Arvada-Clearmont. We shut them down by holding there best player to just a few kills here and there. We won in three. Next we played Farson. Yes that is Farson. They won their first ever game at state by beating Hulett, the returning state champion. It was also a good game. We didn't actually play well, but we won in 4 games. This put us into the championship again and it was against Burlington. We didn't start out too well, until McKenzie went back to serve. Kennan took these pictures. McKenzie serving in one of the games. 

We were down 6 to 2. By the time she was done serving, we were up 11 to 6 and never looked back and won 25-20. The second game we had a let down. We lost 24-26. We trailed most of the time, but manage to come back and tie it at 24. But the girls never lost focus and came out and drilled Burlington in the third 25-12. In the fourth game we were way out in front. I kept thinking if we could just side out we would win. Burlington made a great run, but we held on and won 25-23, thus winning state for the once since 2001. It was great. 

We stayed the night and the bus was met by the Cokeville fans with a police escort on into town. We had an assembly the following Wednesday where the three seniors spoke, two of the senior dads, coach Toomer and I also spoke. I then showed a highlight of the state game to end all things. What a great feeling it is to win. Next year should be just as good. We have the players to replace the seniors with out any problems at all. We will be shorter, but we'll have more experience. We played 8 underclassmen all season long. This picture is of McKenzie and her friend Lauren Fiscus just before their first game at state. Mom thought it was a cool picture so.......

The football team had to go to Southeast to play in the semi-finals for football. It was a good game, but Cokeville just couldn't put the ball across the goal line. They lost 7-2. It was too bad, I really thought that they would win and that Hulett would beat Burlington and Cokeville would have hosted the championship, but it didn't happen. They boys did have a good season and they will miss some pretty good seniors. These seniors were hard workers in the weight room. Sometimes, you have to lose to light a fire under some people to get them to work hard. I just feel for the coaching staff. Cokeville's football coaches are by far the best in the state of Wyoming. We really don't have any good athletes, and they do a very good job for what they get. They always compete to the very end. Their only losses were by 5 or fewer points.

Kennan has started junior high basketball. He played in his first game last Thursday. He scored 3 points in the 8th grade game and 1 point in the 7th grade game. He plays a lot on the 8th grade team. I'm not bragging or anything, but his fundamentals are very good, probably better than anybody else on the team. Both junior high coaches came and talked to me about him. They both want him to play on their teams. I ended up refereeing his game. In the 7th grade, he started to get a little cocky and started to do some NBA junk. Afterwards I asked him if his coaches taught him those things. He said no and I told him then don't do them, do what your coaches want. This week the sixth grade is going to Yellowstone for the week, so he'll miss a couple of away games. His coaches told him to take a basketball with him. I really think that he will try to.

McKenzie is excited about winning state and now has a couple of weeks off to prepare for basketball. This past week she has been coming home and doing homework. I think on Monday she will stay after and shoot some hoops and try to get ready. She has also been practicing for the musical. She is excited about that.

Kandyce called and informed us that she will be able to graduate next fall. She is really excited about that. She is really tired of school. Mom and I went to Logan to the temple and took Kandyce and Breanne out to dinner. It was fun to visit with them for a while. We took Breanne with us to show her grandma's new home that she just bought. Grandma Norene is tearing down her old home and putting a new home up. We will move all of her big stuff on Tuesday of this week and start tearing things down on Wednesday. The guy told us that if things work out just right, she'll be in her home before Christmas. What a Christmas present. She'll have enough room in her new home that nobody will feel crowded. We are excited for her.

Brady is doing well on his mission. He told us that he got to meet Stephen R. Covey. He said that he is a really smart man and that Brady couldn't understand some of the things he was saying. He got to listen to conference in Latvian. He is still in Jelgava. This makes 7 months that he has been there. I just wonder if they are keeping him there to finish up creating a branch. He and his companion have been successful and have had some baptisms, but they want to find a special family. They had a pumpkin carving activity at the church. The people have never heard of such a thing. They had a lot of fun doing it as you can see from the picture he sent us.

Mom has been taking pictures of families and trying to do things like Breanne and Ashley. She just loves to take pictures. I'd like to get her a new camera that she can work with, but she keeps saying that she'll just learn how to use her old one. She has yet to do that, so maybe I should wait.

Now that volleyball is over, I can focus on getting Channel 39 up and running better. We've been having a hard time converting our programs over because the converter program that I had been using just crashed and it won't run and I can't find another program that I can use. Also things at the school are crashing and we keep losing connections. We have to find out why the connection to the auditorium won't work. Oh well, such is life.

The Lord has truly blessed our family and I know it is because of Brady serving a mission. We still have family prayers, family scripture study, and family home evening. The Lord, through his prophets, has promised us blessings and that we won't fear if we do these things. Until next time.