A Light

 My original plans were to travel to Utah on Valentine's Day night and drive up to Rexburg, ID. the next morning with my mom to see Victoria in her showcase that Thursday night. I hadn't been able to see her in the fall because it was the same weekend as Kade's nationals for the marching band/ color guard. With Blake's death, I changed some plans and flew out Monday evening to help with what I could for the funeral and the McDonald family before driving up to Rexburg Thursday morning, per the original plan. I hadn't been to Rexburg since we toured the summer of 2021 and didn't have any idea that Victoria would attend there and love it so much!

We arrived in time for her tap class she is the TA for. I brought my tap shoes since I am currently taking an adult tap class with some of my friends. I got permission to join this "beginner" class at BYU I, though they were much more advanced than the moms I tap with! It was fun being a part of the class, watching Victoria lead the warm-up, and trying to keep up with those kids! The teacher taught the Shim Sham that class, which, amazingly enough, our class had already learned. I already needed reviewing and I knew going in that the Shim Sham is different depending on where you live in the nation. So, the Michigan version is definitely different from the Idaho version. Afterward, they practiced a dance that was so amazing and they practiced it over and over, each time using a different song that progressively picked up in speed. Each time, more students would drop out and observe. The final time through was just Victoria and Ava (the head teacher) tapping so fast, I couldn't believe it! I had always known Victoria to be a good tapper, but it was never her favorite. I think she likes it better now.

The first crosswalk just after Victoria's apartment. The dance building is just after the stadium here, so she's super close to where she spends the most time.

The tap class allowed me to take a pic! Some had already left, though.

The hallway of her apartment complex.

We got a quick and cold tour of campus and of Victoria's apartment complex. Rexburg is definitely cold and windy, but it wasn't as cold as it could have been when we were there but was cold enough. Still, no one was wearing a coat or anything on their heads!

After I ate some of Victoria's tacos she made and we chatted with her roommates while she got ready, my mom and I went to our Airbnb while Victoria arrived early for the showcase. Our Airbnb was super cute and a place my mom and Jim had stayed at when they took Victoria up after Christmas. It's just 10  minutes away from campus. 

Making her mom tacos.

Her cute room.

She's make-up and hair ready!

We got a thank you note and cookies from the Airbnb hosts since Jim booked their place twice.

The moment we had been waiting for arrived and we got to watch the showcase. There were so many amazing numbers and styles of dance. It was nice to watch so much variety and see more male dancers than I did at Dancin' Feet. Victoria was in a jazz number toward the end, choreographed to a song by Frank Sinatra. The program notes on the piece said, "The intention behind this dance is to showcase Jazz Dance Technique within a non-traditional framework. The use of Frank Sinatra was intentional in seeking playful movement, textured variations, and comfortable ease." They danced in cute suspenders and hats and with chairs. Victoria is now known for her amazing ariels in many of her dances where it's appropriate. 

Frank Sinatra Jazz dancers

Victoria hanging with her male dance friends backstage, since she was dressed similarly. 

After the show we met some more of her dance buddies and went "to dinner" after 9 pm with her two besties and their moms. We were definitely trying to keep up with the college life! We knew this was the plan so I had only a small taco at her apartment around 4 and then got a veggie burger at the burger joint we were at so I could digest easily. My mom ate her own meal at the Airbnb. We're smart old people!

Late-night dinner group!

Friday morning had a fresh new pile of snow, so my mom and I did an indoor workout on my phone that worked us pretty well! We checked out and met Victoria and her dance friends after their morning class at their usual Friday lunch spot in the Crossroads, which is like a mall food court, only for college kids and much better! On Fridays, they have .99 pizza slices at the pizza place there and it was some of the best I had ever had! And it was so fun chatting with a lot of her closest dance friends before we left. 

Friday lunch buddies!

The next change in plans was to drive back to the Salt Lake area for the viewing. Victoria would have driven down with us, but the tryouts for the Danice Alliance team (the biggest travel team at BYU I) were on Friday afternoon and evening. She had been talking about trying out for the team for a while and was really excited to do so. She had already talked with the lady in charge and told her that if she happened to make the team, she wouldn't be able to attend the first practice on Saturday because she would be at her cousin's funeral. 

When she called me at the viewing to tell me that she had made the team, I cried different tears than I had been crying all that evening. I was so happy for her! It was a light in the weekend, as was being up to visit her, while very short. She left to drive down to SLC after she showered, where she stayed with my aunt and uncle that night. Her roommate had been planning to drive down and see an old friend, so she just waited a bit till Victoria was ready. Luckily, SLC is only 3 1/2 hours away from Rexburg. My aunt and uncle took her down to the funeral the next morning and I was able to enjoy being with her the rest of the evening and night after the funeral. I drove her back up to Rexburg Sunday morning in what turned out to be a white-knuckle drive for part of it. The storm got really bad in southern Idaho and I almost got off the freeway to wait it out, but Jason looked into it and informed us that it would improve if we kept driving. It did! But I didn't stay long in Rexburg because I was nervous about driving back down if the storm got in my way again. It turned out to be just fine and I got to eat Sunday dinner with my brother's family, his in-laws, and my dad and Mary Lou. 

I am so proud of what Victoria has learned while at BYU I as a student, a dancer, and as a young adult, taking care of herself. She sacrificed being in the opening number of the show this summer so she could go to Blake's funeral, which she was so glad she did. She's in a bunch of numbers and has been practicing super hard. I can't wait to find out where they will go on their tour in July!

A new trick she has!

Photoshoot sneak peek for the tour!

In Honor of Blake

 This post is dedicated to my nephew, Blake. I don't usually post about people outside my immediate family, however, I want to shine the light on him that he always deserved, though never wanted it here on earth.

Blake took his own life on February 9, 2024. He would have been 25 this September, about a month and a half after Jason's and my 25th wedding anniversary. My sister was well along in her pregnancy with him at our wedding and his older brother, sweet little Drew, was 2. 

I stayed with my sister's family for a few months when Jason was at military training. I believe Blake was around 4. I remember one morning at breakfast, he and I started playing peek-a-boo. He hid his face below the table and would pop up with a big smile and we'd say, "peek-a-boo!" together. It became a mealtime tradition between the two of us. Almost every time we sat down across from each other we would play.

I always wanted my kids to come earlier than they did so they could be buddies with Karina's kids, but I never had any until about 6 months after Karina's 4th, Natalie. We were in California together when Victoria finally became old enough to interact with her cousins. Kade was a baby, so Victoria was almost 3. She really wanted to dance with someone, so Blake was the one she danced with. They held hands and danced to the Beauty and the Beast song. Blake would have been almost 8 and looked slightly uncomfortable, but he was willing to dance with her anyway. She called him her "cozy boy" on that trip. He was always so tender-hearted with all little ones, especially his baby siblings.

I remember when the McDonald family got their first cats as pets. I think Blake was mostly in charge of naming them, but I think Drew and Mariah helped as well- Blueberry and Blackberry. Blake always loved cats. He loved all pets, but especially cats. That's my kind of kid! He also played the violin, just like me, though he was tons better. They played a recording of him playing at his funeral when he was like 10 and he was super good! I was never that good. 

As he got older, it was harder for me to get to know him, as is fairly common among teenage boys. I only saw their family once a year at the most and that was usually on a vacation somewhere fun. I know he loved all sports and sought thrilling activities. I was never good at interacting with teens, especially boys because I didn't have a lot of ways to relate to them. That's only slightly getting better now because I have my own children going through the teen years, but only recently teenage boys. I mostly wanted to make sure my nephews and nieces felt loved by me on their birthdays, so I always sent money and a card or a gift. 

Another memory we have of Blake is when we went to Costa Rica for the first time and he got a horrible sunburn the first day he went surfing. Many of the kids got sunburnt, but he took the cake. Victoria sat at the same table with him for dinner that night and I have a picture of them with Mariah and Natalie looking very red and miserable. But I never heard him complain. 

When I found out about his death, I immediately regretted not getting to know him better in his young adult years. I soon found out that I was not alone in that regret, even among his immediate family. While he loved his family and they loved him, he didn't feel comfortable opening up to them much. However,  he had a solid group of friends with whom he did open up to and spent a lot of time with. They were like his family. He served them and had fun with them. I got to hear some beautiful stories about him from them in the days leading up to his funeral. 

One of the hardest things about this is thinking about the pain he was going through in his mind. It makes me hurt. Also, the pain my sister and her husband are going through, as well as the rest of his siblings. Blake planned his death so that it would be the least painful to deal with for his family because he's just that kind of person. He never wanted to hurt anyone or ruffle any feathers. He also explicitly mentioned that the cats be taken care of. His window was always open and his door was always closed so the cats could come and go as they pleased without the dog entering and bothering them. They had all they needed in his room.

Blake's funeral was a celebration of his life. His beautiful anime art was displayed all over the room and all his family was wearing Vans shoes. He always wore Vans shoes and usually Vans clothes. I happened to be wearing one of my pairs when I traveled, so I opted to wear those for his viewing and funeral rather than my nicer shoes. 

Blake is with his uncle Aaron McDonald, grandpa Andy McDonald, uncle Erik Anderson, and many, many other relatives and ancestors. May he rest in peace.

Lots of well-wishers delivered to the home.

Koki was grieving with the rest of us.

Some of Blake's art was displayed at the entryway of the viewing along with his favorite candy.

There were pictures strung all along the room with more of his art displayed. He had designed and decorated this pair of Vans here.

Layla is one of my brother's daughters. Her mom, my brother's wife, is an important employee of the funeral home that her dad owns. Larkin Mortuary is where the viewing and funeral services were held. 

The luncheon at the Rose Garden at Larkin Mortuary.

Blake's resting place is at Orem Cemetary, right next to the Murdock trail where all the McDonalds exercise, as well as many other family members, including me. They can visit him often. 

February 2nd

 While we didn't have a groundhog in our yard Friday morning, we did have a mama opossum looking for a place to settle to give birth. It seems like a very spring-like activity for her to be doing, but then Punxsutawney Phil did say that spring is coming earlier this year. Though given that Phil is only correct 40% of the time, we could be slammed with a huge snowstorm in late March or early April which would make this nice weather we've been having this week and are supposed to have next week a horrible trick. I'd rather have winter conditions now when we're supposed to, and finish up another month of snow, ice, and extra cold temps. Plus, I still owe Austin another snowboarding trip or two. I don't think it's a good idea to go when the snow melts. Our ski resorts are not high enough to get good, natural snow. 

She snuffled along our fence lines for a while. The cats kept good track of her from the windows, but I had to go to work, so I don't know where she ended up going. 

Per tradition, the Plymouth Ice Festival is going on this weekend. We went on Friday evening for the youth activity. I had wanted to go anyhow, so I just tagged along, since Jason is an advisor with the Deacons and both Austin and Erik were going. We went after the sun had just set and so even though we actually had sun that afternoon and we had warmer-than-normal temps, it was cold enough to be walking along amongst ice sculptures. Jason and I got to witness a local meteorologist filming live from the ice fest, as one of the sculptors was carving his ice block. I didn't get a picture of him due to the crowd, but it was fun to see the local news cameras there and all the people behind her trying to get on camera. 

Here are a few pics of my favorite sculptures. 

These penguins were to cutest!

Pizza guy outside the restaurant.

Cupcake

Swans are in the middle and a chameleon on the right, which is the one that was being worked on with all the crowds around. We circled back around and were able to see what it was later.

The Hutch-Wagon

 I have never been a pro football fan, though I always support my local teams or teams with whom I have some kind of connection. The Detroit Lions have had a major losing streak since we've lived here, or so I heard. I never paid any attention to the games. However, when Ziggy Ansa was on the team 8 years ago or so, I was pretty excited because he was in the Canton ward and we met him a couple of times. Austin even got his autograph. Kyle Vanoy played for them and stayed with Ziggy for a bit before his wife joined him and they moved to the Northville ward. We met him and his wife as well. 

This season, again, I didn't pay much attention, but I heard about how we were having a pretty good season. When I was out shopping for Christmas gifts, I bought Austin a Michigan shirt and a Lions shirt, for a buy-one-get-one-half-off. I knew he needed a new Michigan shirt and at that point, I knew how well they were doing (Go Blue!), and when I saw the deal, I thought, "Might as well get him a Lions shirt too, since they're doing pretty well right now."

After they won their last home game, leading up to the 49ers game, my boss, who pays way less attention to football than I do, had noticed all the kids coming to school in their Lions shirts and realized we should make a bigger deal out of it for some school spirit. So she announced a "wear your Lions blue and white" day for Friday. When she was telling me her idea she mentioned that Aiden Hutchinson, a defensive end for the Lions, went to Red Bell as a preschooler and his parents live down the street! He played for the Plymouth Canton Steelers, where Kade used to cheer, and went to the private school where my boss's mom taught art. She was his art teacher. 

The best part about it was on Tuesday, a student said how he wanted to be a football player when he grew up, and I told them that Aiden Hutchinson went to Red Bell. One 3-year-old girl promptly raised her hand and said, "Aiden Hutchinson is my neighbor and I walk his dog!" Now, I usually take what these little guys say with a grain of salt, however, she said it so clearly and matter-of-factly that I almost believed her. Either way, it was about the cutest thing I heard last week!

Well, we ended up losing to the 49ers, and won't be in the Super Bowl after all, but this is the best they've played in 30 years. Yes, I did watch the game with my family and was rooting for Hutch, the Red Bell alumni, but our journey ended there. It was fun while it lasted.

I borrowed Austin's shirt for our Lion's Pride day at school. 

Snow Days

 Last week we had 2 snow days right after MLK Day. It wasn't a surprise since we knew the high school was going to cancel school on Tuesday, by midafternoon on Monday, because some of the heating wasn't working and the temps were in the single digits with high winds, so negative real feels. 

Erik was disappointed that he would have to go to school, and not Kade and Austin, however right after Erik went to bed, we got the call that they were going to cancel the rest of the schools due to the poor road conditions and extreme cold. 

I was really glad we had gone skiing on Saturday so that we weren't feeling like we'd been cooped up too much. On Tuesday, I still went to a couple of grocery stores, including Costco, and decided that going on a freaky cold day like that was a pretty good idea. There weren't too many people out so there were short lines. I found it interesting that the people who were out didn't seem as bundled up as me. A bunch of people didn't have hats on and some seemed like their coats were barely sufficient. I suppose since they were out, they must have not been too bothered by the cold to begin with. 

The kids had some friends over and I got some work done around the house. Austin and Erik had a birthday party to attend Tuesday night, which was a weird day for a party, but once we knew school was canceled for Wednesday, due to even colder temps, I was happy they had somewhere to go Tuesday night. It was at Chuck E. Cheese to play video games and they had a blast! Their mutual friend is between their ages and is new to our ward. He moved here from Utah to play competitive ice hockey and is home-schooled. He could only have his party on Tuesday, due to his practice schedule.

The friend that Erik had over earlier in the day had gone sledding with us last year and suggested that we go on Wednesday. I was a little hesitant since it was supposed to be so cold, but his mom was fine with it, so after we met some friends at the church Wednesday morning to run around with, we took Erik's friend, Nick, and went sledding at the "warmest" part of the day. I think it was in the single digits with a real feel of -8, but it was actually supposed to feel like -23, so we got lucky. 

Needless to say, we were the only crazy people there, besides one mom and her son for about 20 minutes. We were there a little over an hour. The sledding wasn't great because it was so cold that the snow was frozen solid, but Erik and his friends (we invited a buddy from church too) played some adventurous games after sledding. I was snowshoeing the entire time so I wouldn't get cold. I was actually warmer than when we went skiing because I had on my snow pants and the coat that Kade had worn skiing. The sun was shining too, so that was nice. 

The worst thing about it? I didn't take any pictures! I thought about it, but I didn't want to take my hand out of my glove to take one, so no pics to show- sorry. 

All I have is this of Erik on Friday when it wasn't as cold and he decided to play outside in the yard, just for the fun of it. He got his square of snow from one of our deck chairs. 

Welcome to winter!

Ski Trip

 For our gift for Christmas from my mom, we were all going to go skiing when Victoria was here, but we never had any snow. In fact, it was pretty warm. I think I mentioned that it was 55 on Christmas Day. Victoria will go at some point in Idaho, I'm sure.

Austin and I were supposed to go on Jan 6 also, since he wants snowboarding to be his winter sport, or at least as many times as he can go, using the money that would have gone toward the dive team. Well, that no-snow issue determined that we couldn't go then either. A few days later, it looked like the forecast of snow for this weekend was going to be correct!

We went to one of our favorite places, Mt. Holly, about an hour away. It was a freakishly cold day, but Sunday and Monday are even colder, so I guess we made the right choice. The warmest part of the day was supposed to be at 11am when the temp was 28 with a real feel of 11. When we left at 5, it was in the teens with a real feel of 1. The winds were blowing so hard that my skis were blowing up on the lift a few times, and then the final blow (pun intended) was when the lift itself was being pushed to the side from the wind and all the snow from the ground was blowing around like a blizzard. I don't know where Jason was at the moment, but he would have had motion sickness if he had been on the lift at the time! 

Even still, the kids had a blast and weren't phased by the cold. Jason and I had a lot of fun too, though I got too cold. It didn't help that I somehow forgot my snow pants, but I did have thermal underwear, plus my winter running tights, so it could have been worse. I ended up putting on Erik's sweatpants over my other layers just to keep my bum dry from the snow on the lifts. Erik only needed his long underwear and snow pants. Jason forgot his snow pants too (ours were together, hanging up by the door...), but his two layers of pants were sufficient for him. 

The kids coming down for a practice round. 

Just about a year ago, Austin broke his wrist in both bones while snowboarding. We're pleased to say that we had no injuries this time! 

I was on one lift and they were on another here. 

They are all pretty good at skiing/snowboarding. I'm pretty impressed when we don't go as often as we would like!

Just before we left we actually saw some sky!

Right now it's -4 with a real feel of -7. Brrrr! I'm glad we're not going today!

Winter Break

 We had some fun times over the break with Victoria here, besides what we did for the actual holidays and Kade's birthday. 

We went to the movies, roller skating,  watched Michigan beat Alabama in the Rosebowl, went for a hike, went to dinner with the Kish family, played games, and watched movies.  Those were the activities that most of us participated in together,  though Austin and Jason had their turns being sick for some of those and couldn't join in. Austin also had to recover from a sprained finger/hand that occurred just before the break on his run when he slipped he hit his hand on a guard rail. Luckily,  it wasn't broken,  but he had to wear a brace for two weeks and it sure didn't look good.  That visit to the urgent care with him made 7 visits to the urgent care or ER last year due to my children's injuries 😕.

I don't get into football as much anymore, but I was pretty stoked about this game, especially after we won!

 

Kade helped make the pizza dough for the game- I think I have a new pizza dough maker!

A warm spot!

Dos Fuentes- yum!

I went to a fancy mall with Victoria,  Barnes and Noble and a thrift store in Ann Arbor with Kade, and Sky Zone with Austin and Erik,  once Austin could take off the brace. Jason and I went to the temple and a wedding reception.

It's the Somerset Mall in Troy and is huge! It has a bridge to cross over to the other part of it, which we didn't get to because Victoria had to go to work. 

I assume Santa's castle isn't always there.

I loved the fountain here!

This was taken a couple of days after his injury.

You can see the bruising in this pic.

This was almost 2 weeks later- still had some bruising!

I know I posted this in the last post, but I wanted to post it again!

I am officially ready to return to school next week and happy to say that Victoria safely made it back to Rexburg.

A goodbye huddle.