Activities, Friends and Family

      "When Eric was four he started swimming, so we had three kids swimming at Bishop  Estates. The Bairds were still swimming  – this is before they moved to Benicia – the Bairds were still swimming and we had – I talked to Kristy about it and she said, “Mom I had such happy memories of swimming.” I’m very thankful for that because sometimes it was very hard to get her into the pool. We would go to the swim meets before Eric – actually -  even when Eric swimming, I would bring – I would load up the stroller with all the stuff we needed, bags of towels and we had a little half shell tent that we would bring, plus a couple of blankets, and we’d set up ‘Lambert land’, and we’d have a bin of cars for Eric to play with, and there would be books to read and toys, and some crayons, markers, and coloring books and usually the current book that I was reading to the kids, a chair for me to sit on. 

     "We would set up a house tent, put a couple of blankets in the bottom there and then we had all the towels and then a couple more blankets so that when they were done swimming, they would dry off and snuggle in the blankets while they waited for the next race to come that they would be swimming in. Amy excelled at freestyle, backstroke – she was really good backstroke(r) and she was good at the butterfly. Eric was the same, he was very good at backstroke, and good at fly, really good at freestyle and neither one of them were good at breaststroke.  Kristy on the other hand really liked backstroke and breaststroke and freestyle. She did not like butterfly at all. 

      "But happy memories of swimming and when we had a little break for a little while and the kids didn’t have to swim for 20 or 30 minutes we would go for a walk with the Baird kids around the block. It was great, Debbie’s mom Ruby Rossberg would come with us to some of the meets so she that she could see her grandkids swim. Ruby Rossberg was the wife of Bruce Rossberg who was the bishop there in Concord Third Ward for nine years and he was the one who called me to be the Relief Society President there and I worked with him. And so much love for this family and great connections with them and just very happy times.  

     "We would bring food to eat and all kinds of snacks and hot chocolate or cold lemonade just depending on if it’s a hot day or a cold day. Blankets and lots of jackets -  a lot of this I did on my own because of the fact that Ralph was still doing a lot of traveling for work.  

     "Ralph worked for Ecology Environment and he traveled all over the place but that’s another story, I’ll get into that later. So we did swimming, we did swimming up until the year that we were in the Manti Pageant - which was I think 2004. So 2004 was the first year that we did not swim in quite a while. We swam up till 2004, and we didn’t swim for the 2004 season because we were going to be in the Manti Pageant.  So 

     "We traveled to Ralph’s sister Linda who lives in Ephraim, one of the assistant directors of the pageant and she invited us to come be in the pageant. I figured now would be a good time to do it because of the fact that the next year Amy would be in high school. They started rehearsals on June 1^stso that meant I would have to take the kids out of the last two weeks of school. 

     "That’s what I did, I took them out of the last couple of weeks of school and nobody was going to miss anything crucial, I gave the teachers lots of notice and warning and they were fine with it and since they were pretty good students they were – said not to worry about it.  So we piled everybody in the car and Ralph helped drive us on up and we lived with Aunt Linda while we were doing the Manti Pageant.

     "Ralph flew back home and then flew back up right at the end to see one of the performances and then helped drive us back. That was a very fun experience. We were pioneers on the hill; we were there for the first two weeks of rehearsing and then we had two weeks of performances every evening. And then we just hung out with Aunt Linda at her house, the kids played in her yard and the kids did reading and we would go walks and go down to the playground and it was just a delightful time. 

     "Ephraim’s a small town and the kids could just run around and play and have a good time.  We really enjoyed our time there. Kylie was two at that point. Two going on three, she turned – no she was three going to be four that fall. Eric was eight, and Amy was thirteen and Kristy was eleven. We were in the pioneer scenes, one of the big group scenes pushing handcarts, before that we were Nephites at the time of the appearance of Christ – and that was a very, very powerful scene to be there at the bottom of the hill when Christ appeared and to show the reverence and awe that we saw as he appeared at the top of the hill. So very sweet experience. 

      "The next year we – I had decided that they had a really great swimming program and there were a lot of people in our ward that were over at Forest Park and so we decided at that point to move over to Forest Park. There were some issues over at Bishop Estates, a lot of squabbling amongst parents, I did not like that. And we didn’t have super attachment as far as my kids swimming with their best friends and so it was – By that time the Bairds had left they had already moved to Benicia and so we didn’t have any super big attachments to Bishop Estates, there were some families that we knew over at Forest Park and it was a bit more competitive which I felt would be good for Eric who is a decent swimmer and I thought that might challenge him a little bit more. 

We started over at Forest Park at this point. Amy and Kristy decided  - Amy was going into High School and she had felt great attachment to Bishop Estates Swim Team but she was going to be going into High School and she wouldn’t have time for swimming anymore, so she stopped swimming at that point and she had been swimming for eight years. Kristy no great attachment to swimming, she was a beautiful swimmer, she was safe in the water so I met my goal – and like I said I like swimming because it provided structure for the summer. 

     "They would get up they would go swimming and then they would come home and then it was time to read and to play and to work around the house and yard and doing whatever chores needed doing, it just got us up and going – I really liked that about the swimming. There was another thing I like about the swimming, the fact that there was one swim meet and all of my children could swim at the same swim meet whereas when we did soccer – I at one point had three different kids, three different age groups, three different fields playing soccer. A little crazy! But that’s ok, that’s the next story. 

     "After we moved over to Forest Park – at this point I just had two swimmers, Eric was swimming, Kylie was four at this point, she’d be turning 5 and going into Kindergarten that fall, so I started her with the Mini Flyers over there at Forest Park. And within about three weeks, she was swimming in the meets, not very fast, be she was a little four year old, I remember her very first race was freestyle and I think it took her about 2 minutes to swim the length of the pool, but she did it!  And she enjoyed it and so there weren’t very many six and under girls so that was really kind of nice.  So we have been swimming over there – this summer 2013 is the first summer – since the Manti Pageant that we have not had anybody swimming. 

     "Kylie stopped swimming last year and this year, so she finished swimming in 2011 was her last year of swimming. She enjoyed the swimming but – she likes to swim in the water - but she didn’t like all the practice’s where she’s being told you have to do this and you have to do that. She just decided not to swim, whereas Eric swam since he was four until - he swam last year when he was sixteen. But this year he needed to work because he is going to be going off to college so he did not swim this year. Some really great families, some really wonderful fun times at swim meets and kids just getting to hang out and play with friends and – it’s been a good activity and the fact that there was some good physical exercise. Eric was a decent swimmer; he was also able to do that in High School so that’s good.  

     "Another activity that the kids did was soccer. When Alex Baird – it seems like a lot of things that the Baird’s were doing was what Amy was doing cause they were very close friends. Yet again another opportunity for the kids to run around and swim, and it was a different season than swimming, It started in August, but then it would take them clear through September, October, and into November – with running around and kicking the ball and Amy enjoyed that and so Amy and Alex were on the same team for a couple of years until they moved to Benicia. 

      "And at that point we got Kristy started, and then we got Eric started, and so for awhile there I had three kids playing soccer. I enjoyed making the banners for the soccer teams, I could usually do it for about two or three dollars a person instead of the ten or fifteen dollars that they would do for painting it on or airbrushing it on with paint. They weren’t as fancy but I thought they were pretty good and I did a pretty good job of using the felts and getting them there and so that worked out really well. 

     "It was crazy sometimes with three kids at three fields and I definitely felt like Lambert Limo service all those years of driving kids to all the different practices and sometimes I’d just have to explain to the kids, I’ll get you there when I can but I’m sorry I’ve got to get three other people to where they need to go. 

     "Somewhere in there Kristy had one year of Ballet down at Dance Connection – actually one year of Dance. I thought it was really kind of expensive for not a lot of what they were getting and so we didn’t do that very long. I wish I would have known about the CYC for Kristy because she would have loved it. 

    "And CYC is where Kylie is taking Ballet and she would have loved that. Somewhere in there Eric also did one year of Catholic Youth Organization – CYO track. He got to run and so we would do that. Nice organization, a lot of nice people, he really enjoyed that. Eric likes to run.

         "Trying to think of other activities, outside of school, that the kids have been involved in, Kylie started Ballet down at CYC which is Community Youth Organization – great organization - just a wonderful place you can go and take all different kinds of  sports and different activities for not a lot of money. It’s a fifteen minute drive down there so that takes a bit of maneuvering to make sure we have time to get her there but its been a really nice situation.  She done Ballet there for six years (?) now maybe – five years – and enjoyed it very much. 

     "Every year they do theNutcracker and then they always do a Spring show, several years she was a party girl and then she was Clara in the Nutcrackerone year – and oh how fun that was!  She really enjoyed the dancing.  Sometimes its hard to get her there. We’ve learned Kylie doesn’t like transitions very well. Once she gets to some place she enjoys it and she’s fine – sometimes getting her there – “I don’t want to go!” 

     "She’s busy doing what she’s doing and it’s a little crazy.  Now that she’s in middle school it’s a little challenging sometimes to have the time to do the Ballet when she’s busy trying to get the homework done. It’s been a worthwhile activity for her and she has enjoyed it a lot.

    "Some really nice people from good teachers that she’s had - Miss Katrina was excellent and then she’s had Miss Ashley the last couple of years so that’s been a great opportunity for her.  Kylie did soccer for one year and she just didn’t enjoy it a lot. She doesn’t like running and so just to run around the field was not her happy thing. 

     "Whereas Eric enjoyed soccer, Amy and Kristy both finished up with soccer with AYSO and Eric was still doing it.  Eric’s final year was right before he went into High School and that team he was with, actually came in second in the State. When they played in the State Championships, Ralph drove him down in Central Valley somewhere and they played the finals - that was great! It was really, really good. 

     I’m trying to think of other activities outside of school activities… I think that’s it.  

School Activities my kids have done – So when Amy was in fourth grade – actually when they were over at Mountain View Elementary School, they had Mr. Peter Valia – we started going to Mountain View Elementary School he was the music teacher there and he would put on amazing musicals and productions that the kids would do. They always did the Nutcracker in the Fall, a big huge production, then they would do a different musical the second half of the year in the Spring. 

     "Lots of kids involved, lots of parental involvement, I mean they did “The King andI” when we first came there.  When we first got there, Amy was in third grade and Kristy was in first grade and they were doing this production of the Nutcracker and in the Spring they were doing “The King and I”.  They needed sewing done for costumes and I knew how to sew, so I volunteered, so I made eleven princess costumes for the kids that were in the play. It was a huge production, this was back when Mountain View had 750 students and these big, big productions which actually I thought were a little over the top for an elementary school, but the kids enjoyed them and they had fun.  

     "They did “The Wizard of Oz”, and they did “Peter Pan”, and both Amy and Kristy participated and they had an enjoyable time they really enjoyed that. In fourth grade, Amy started playing the baritone. She did fine with it, she played it in fourth and fifth grade, when she got to middle school she was playing baritone for the first year and then the next year the teacher also switched her on to the trombone so she could play in the Jazz band.

      "Unfortunately when Amy was in the middle school, she had three different teachers, in three different years – a lot, lot of carry-over from one year to the next. It wasn’t always great. Her second year teacher Miss Moon, I thought was really good, she was fresh out of college and she had some good goals and the kids liked her and it was fine."  

     "Lisa, I and some other parents were asked to go on the bus with the kids to their competition because Miss Moon was too young to take them. 

      But "then she was a little low on the totem pole and she got bumped and they brought in another teacher who I did not care for and Amy did not either and so when it came time sign up for High School Amy chose not to do that. Which made me kind of sad, I think she would have enjoyed it, and would have enjoyed the friendship with those kids, but she had other direction she wanted to go. 

     "Kristy when she was in the fourth grade started playing the flute, so she played in fourth and fifth grade and then she had one year at the middle school, the same year that Amy was in the eighth grade and there was not a great band teacher and so she quit. 

     "Not sad to see that go because she just did not care for it. She liked the music, but when Kristy was in High School she got involved with Auxiliaries, which was the flag unit for the band. That was a very happy place for her to be and she enjoyed that immensely. She was good at it, in fact her senior year she was the small flags captain, she was the student leader for the group. 

     "I was very thankful that she had that opportunity to work with Andrea who was beyond amazing, phenomenal. And also to have the opportunity to do some leadership things and find out that it is not always easy when you are the person in charge and you are the leader and you have to step it up in training and encouraging incoming freshmen who are silly and don’t want to work hard and they need to be practicing and training – trying to encourage that.  

     "Another activity that Kristy did in High School was Show Choir.  She got into her junior year, she hadn’t really known about it before and one of her friends, I think it was Daniel Baldwin that said, “Hey Kristy, come try out for Show Choir.”  

     "She did and she got in and that was so fun! Oh she enjoyed that immensely. Very, very fun, about a third of the kids in the choir that year were LDS.  Mr. Emigh does an amazing job with the kids.  She enjoyed it. They got to go to Seattle that year, so that was very fun for her; she earned all her money to go to Seattle. 

     "The next year she was in Show Choir and she had encouraged Eric to try out for Show Choir (but I’ll get to Eric in a minute). So they were both in Show Choir that year, and that was great. That year they went to New Orleans on tour. In order to raise money for that she had been doing some tutoring, she had been working with some kids. She was able to earn money for both the Band tour and the Choir tour.  

     "One of her friends Ashley Bittle would bake cookies and bring them to school to sell them and so I thought let’s try that too. So I started baking cookies so that Kristy and Eric had opportunities to raise money for their tours that year because the Band was going someplace and the Choir was going someplace and they were both in Band and Choir. 

     "We had lots of tours to pay for if they were going to Disneyland that year with the Band. They needed to earn money and so I started baking cookies, I baked thousands of cookies that year. We did snicker doodles, we did little brownie cupcakes, we also did chocolate chip cookies. 2 cupcakes for a dollar or three cookies for a dollar. Even now Eric walks into a classroom and the teacher asks where’s the cookies? In fact his email address is [onemancookieman]. 

     "So that was some of the activities Kristy did when she was in High School. 

     "Eric started out playing in the trombone in fourth grade and fifth grade. In sixth grade he was playing trombone in the band over at the middle school. In the seventh grade he was also in the Jazz Band, and he was also a - in the Eighth grade he was also one of the student helpers who would go early in the morning before school to help out with the beginning band, with the kids who were just coming in. 

     "He enjoyed band, so when he got to High School it was time for him to decide what he wanted to do and Kristy was quite adamant, “You have to come be in Show Choir.” I remember Mr. Emigh bringing Eric into the room and he’d sung a few notes on the piano having try-outs, “Your voice is fine, you’re a bass, you’ve got a low voice but why should I let you in Show Choir? Do you understand that people up on the stage have to show emotion and every time I look at you, you’re like stoic – no emotion.”  

     "He said, “Yeah, I know, but I have to try”. Mr Emigh said, “I need to think about it a little bit.” A little later he says, “You know I think I’m going to give him a chance.” Well it wasn’t long – in fact it was at open house –no -  Back to school night at the beginning of the school year – that  I went over for that, Mr. Emigh came to me and said, “Oh my word that is the best decision I have ever made to let Eric in the choir, he is an amazing bass. In fact I put him.... (Because he had been doing music all this time, he knew how to read music and he’d been reading music for five years and he knew how to do that) and so Mr. Emigh…..”I’ll put him right at the back in the center and he is my bass that everybody builds off, and all the tuning is built on Eric.” 

     "For the next four years Eric was in Show Choir, and come to find out Eric loves Show Choir, he is an amazing dancer, he’s a good singer and he shows emotion on stage. And it has been delightful to watch the evolution of Eric during the years of High School as he has grown and matured and become a very delightful young man and it is so fun to watch him on stage because he just lights up. 

     "He’s also been in Band all four years. He was in the Marching Band/Symphonic Band two years. When they were going on tour he would also help out with Wind Ensemble, when he would go on tours with the Choir he was also help out with the Concert Choir and sing with them. His junior year he auditioned and made it into Jazz Band. It’s been a great experience to see Eric grow and become an outstanding young man in relation to the Choir and Band. 

     "At the end of the school year this year he received the John Phillips Sousa Band Award, which is for the most outstanding band member. (Which I also received when I was in High school). At the end of the year for Show Choir, he also received the Most Valuable Member of Show Choir Award. I know this is my life story but so much of what I do is tied up with my kids, so when I see the successes of my children I know that is in part because of the fact I have volunteered, I have helped, I’ve got my kids ready and where they need to go.  

     "Because of the fact that Eric is in band there is a lot of people that I interact with. I’ve helped with gettting kids back and forth from Concord High over to Mountain View Elementary School where the Show Choir practices.  It used to be the Show Choir would practice down at a church on Ygnacio Valley Road and then the relationship turned south so they weren’t able to practice there anymore. 

     "Mr. Emigh had talked to me about you know different places they could rehearse, they were going to a church on West Street but it wasn’t working out very well. He said maybe the LDS church and I said, “Let me see if I can get you in there.” So they’ve done a lot of rehearsing there.  But then I suggested, “What about rehearsing over at Mountain View Elementary School? They’ve got a nice big flat floor -which is what you need. I think it would be a nice symbiotic relationship to have you perform over there for the kids that will help build Show Choir in the future and also help build the Choir program over at the middle school. So all of these kids are able to see this.” 

     "So I was the one that got them in over there and its turned out to be a great relationship, its worked really, really, well. 

     "Back to Amy and her High School activities – With Amy she decided she wanted to do sports, and so her very first year in High School she did soccer. She played soccer that year.  They had a varsity team, a junior varsity team, and a freshman/sophomore team.  One of the things that was fun about that was we had Coach Alfonso and then Pam Hosking whose daughter Hannah was on that team was also an assistant coach that year and so Amy was playing that year and it was very fun to see Amy playing. 

     "She was a defender and she had big kick, they called it a big boot, she enjoyed that.  That was the only year she did it. The next year she decided to try Water Polo – its like every year she tried a different sport. Then she did Water Polo that year, she enjoyed it, it’s a bit of a brutal sport, in fact its really brutal. But it was something she enjoyed and she did a good job. The next year…I’m drawing a blank….I can’t remember what sport she did that year…swimming? It might have been swimming that year – no – she didn’t do any more swimming. I can’t remember what she did. Her senior year she decided to go out for Track and Field. 

     "She was a hard worker she was willing to work, and at the end of the season, she got the coach’s award for – one of the coach’s awards for being on the Track and Field Team.  She did shot putt and discus and she was good at it.  

     "She’s a strong girl and she enjoyed working at that.  Actually, I know what it was. The year that I got sick, 2005 – 2006, that would have been her Sophomore year, she did not play a sport that year, she did not want to her junior year. So 2005 was the year I got sick and one of her sacrifices to help me was to not do a sport that year because she was needed at home to help with the kids. That’s what she did, she did not do a sport that year so that’s what that was. But every other year she played a different sport. 

     "Another activity that Amy is very interested in is Law Enforcement.  Her goal is to help people and to make the world a better place. She’s always had that burning desire to help other people and to serve the community take care and everybody to be safe. So she joined the Explore Post down at the Concord Police Department. She did that for two years. 

     "She would go down to the meetings they would have down there. Go to various activities that she would get to do. Then she would go on ride-alongs with the police department. She enjoyed that a lot, we would drop her off at the police station and she would ride along with the police officer all night long and she enjoyed that a lot. She would get home at 6 o’clock in the morning and go to bed for several hours. So that was good for her. 

      "Next activities in school…… Eric did Cross Country – his first year we encouraged him – he wanted to do Cross Country, but we encouraged him to do Marching Band just starting into High School, you probably ought to not do Cross Country quite yet until he figured out how to balance his schedule and do well in school. 

     "I’ve often wondered if he would have done better in school that fall if he would actually had the Cross Country to do because – it was good for him to have that physical activity that was good, but a little bit of a conflict with band but not too much. That Spring he did swimming all four years at Concord High and then he did three years of Cross Country, he really enjoyed that a lot. And there were some really nice people.  We would have the pasta feeds a lot on the second two years that he was in - his junior and senior years on the Cross Country team we would invite them over to our house for pasta feeds the night before they had their races and that was great.  It was a small team of maybe 12 – 15 kids that junior year and then the senior year they had more but the mom’s would just come hang out and bring these really good food. The kids would come just talked and talked and talked and visited and eat and eat and eat – it was great! It worked out really well and after one, I said, “Let’s just have them all here” “The space works really well, the kids know where its at.” It was a good experience; we really enjoyed being able to host that for those kids. 

     "Activities for Kylie – by the time she got into middle school – elementary school – they did not have band anymore, they did have vocal music and she enjoyed doing that and was successful in that and she has also very much enjoyed being in the choir at El Dorado Middle School with Mr. Emigh.  She has goals of being in Show Choir when she gets to High School. She hoping to do that some year – right now she is enjoying that. 

    "The other activity that she has enjoyed immensely is “Odyssey of the Mind” and another great opportunity for me to witness some really great parents – Teresa Dought has become a really great friend, she’s the coach. I’m an assistant coach and if she’s not able to be there, I would lead the kids is some of the activities.  

     "The first year when Kylie was in sixth grade we were having most of our meetings over at El Dorado but then we just moved them over to my house and we were building things.  So the second year, last year we had all our meeting at our house and we would build things and keep them here in our house.  It worked out really well.  A lot of time and energy on my part and it was a bit challenging this last year because it I was going through cancer treatments again and sometimes I was just laying flat out on the couch, and I’d just say, “OK, Kids do your stuff!” Fortunately it’s all kids based so they had to do it. It was a bit of a challenge, but we got through it. 

     "Kylie has also been doing Ballet and this last year she has been doing piano lessons.  It’s a bit of a challenge to get her to do it.  She is very smart and very bright but she doesn’t always like to practice – but what’s new? - Nobody likes to practice.  I’ve found that over the years I have enjoyed very much being involved with my children’s activities and the things that they have done. That’s what I do – I’m a mom – that’s always been my first priority to make sure my kids are involved with good activities with good people and to try and help support them in developing their talents and becoming who they are. 

     "I want to talk to about the work experiences my kids have had. A lot of that has been things we have done here at home to help earn money for different things. Amy was a lifeguard at Forest Park for two years. She was an instructor, she tried very hard to be helpful to John Sherapata when he was setting up his store ‘Seasonal Reflections’ and she eventually got a job done there. So she was working part of her senior year to help raise money for college by working down there at ‘Seasonal Reflections’. That was challenging – she learned a lot. She learned how hard retail is and how its that bosses are lots of different people and there’s lots of different kinds of bosses; some that are great to work for and some that are more challenging and it’s difficult. 

     "Amy also worked 2 summers after she graduated from High School. She worked several summers at the State Water Quality Control Board (which is where Ralph works now) as a student intern, she has learned the definition of extremely boring work but it’s a summer job and that’s what you do to earn money. She’s worked really hard. 

     "This summer she’s got a job working at the Day Care for Todd Porter down at Bancroft and she’s enjoying that it’s a good situation for her. Amy also did a lot of babysitting. Kristy did lots of babysitting. One year she set up a little tutoring business. She advertized it with third graders over at Mountain View, she would bring them over for group lessons or for individual lessons on Math and English and things she could help them with – to kind of help them with their reading – she done that.

     "Eric actually worked a little bit as a tutor – he’s not great at it but he was doing a little bit of Math tutoring to help earn some money.  Kristy’s done Math tutoring to earn money. Kristy has also worked at a lot of babysitting and a lot of different things. And she also worked at the State Water Quality Control Board for a couple of summers - beyond boring but its also what you do. And she’s also done Nanning.  Kylie, it’s interesting- is not too interested in doing babysitting. She’s done it a few times – I think because she is my youngest child and she hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to do that – she’s not very confident at it. Hopefully she’ll get better. 

      "I wanted to talk about Church activities that my kids have been involved in, because that meant I was involved in them. I know this is my life story, but I want to paint a picture of what our whole life is like. Because I think that paints a picture of me. I know my children aren’t a reflection of me, but they are a reflection of me.  I know that I don’t get credit for all their successes, and I also don’t get credit for all of their failures. I also don’t get blamed for their failures or for their successes. It kind of goes both ways, a symbiotic relationship where we try to help them learn and to grow. 

     "When the girls were in Primary they would go to Activity Days, Eric would go to Scouts (cub scouts), when Amy became a Young Woman she started working on her Personal Progress and earned her Personal Progress medallion , her Young Woman’s medallion right before she turned 15, so she was 14 when she earned that.  She worked really, really hard to pass things off, to do projects that she needed to do. She’s always been a person who sets goals for herself and meets them and she just does the right thing – that’s what you need to do and that’s what you do.  She really likes playing sports with the Young Woman. She was good at Volleyball, she was good at basketball, she loved, loved, loved Girls Camp. 

     "Girls Camp was her happy place to be.  Amy has always been an outdoorsy type of person and loves being in nature and so she would just thrive at Girls Camp.  She was just a good, good person to have at Girls Camp. I enjoyed it immensely all the years that she went. Kristy the same way she loved Girls Camp, I think it was a little bit more of a challenge for her to do some of the big hikes because she was a little bit smaller – but Kristy is a very determined person and she is going to be successful.  She worked extremely, extremely hard. 

     "Amy and Kristy are both bright girls but they are not super smart genius type, but they are bright girls and they are smart girls but they are extremely hard working. They figure out what they are going to do, how they need to do it, and that’s what they do. I’ve been so proud of them over the years, I’ve seen that continue into college where they have challenges, it’s not easy to do and they know they have to do it, so they just dig in and get the job done. 

      "Eric was involved in Scouts – he went to cub scout day camp – that’s another thing I was involved in – lets talk about that for a minute – is Cub Scout Day Camp. I was the Stake Primary – actually I’m not going to talk about that right now.

     "Eric did Cub Scouts and he did Cub Scout Day Camp and I would go volunteer two or three days with that I’d farm Kylie out to go play at a friends house and I’d go volunteer at cub scout day camp for several days. He went to Scout camp – when he went to the 11 year old scout camp, he went to scout camp for two years. I worked with him a lot when he first became a scout, a boy scout. I started working with him on his merit badges. 

     "My family has a history of Eagle Scouts. All four of my brothers have been Eagle Scouts and a lot of their boys have been Eagle Scouts and a lot of my kid’s cousins are Eagle Scouts. That is just something that has been important to my parents to work on that with their kids, so that’s what they did. That was important for me to help Eric and so by the time he was fourteen he had all 21 merit badges, he had done everything he needed to do except for the Eagle Scout project. 

     "I could not get him to do anything on that and it got to the point where I just had to back off because you have to sometimes loose the battles to win the war.  It was becoming a real matter of contention where he felt like I was just hounding him. “Don’t talk about it mom, I’m going to do it, I’m just going to do it later on.” So I backed off.  I probably should have got in there digging a little harder but like I said there were other battles I had to fight and it was something that I had to give in on so that he would do it. 

     "Just recently a couple of months ago he decided [that you know if somebody that] - the choir director mentioned to him that it would be a great thing to have a place to put all the trophies like the band room does to have a shelf around the back of the room. So Eric decided that’s what he wanted to do for his Eagle Scout project. I was like Woooohooo!” “I might actually get an Eagle Scout out of here!” I had just given up, I decided you know I can not push him on this, he is as or more stubborn than I am and I could not keep hounding him on it. I kind of felt like, if he wants this bad enough he will do it. It has to be from him, it’s his Eagle Scout project not mine, so I had to let go on that. 

     "He started working on it, and then he decide that it was just too busy, too crazy with the end of the year and all the performances, and that he was just kind of burnt out and that he just wasn’t going to do it and that didn’t get done then. I talked to him about it for a couple of days, “You know I will tell you right now, you will regret this for the rest of your life.” “No, I don’t think so mom.”  “Yea, I know you will.”     

         "But I had to let go on that one and he turned 18 yesterday and he is not an Eagle Scout and you know something, I’m at peace with it, I felt like I did everything I could to try and move that forward with it. He waited too late he was too busy with other things, too busy reading a book or whatever to do that. So I kind of figured, Oh Well, It has to be from him not from me. 

     "Kristy earned her - similar to Amy – in that she was willing to work on her Personal Progress. I kept hearing from Young Women leaders that it is important they work on that before they get in to High School because once they get into High School it is even harder to get the stuff done.  

     "Kristy worked on it and she earned hers right after she turned 15. She did a lovely job with her projects and worked very hard and that was a great thing for her. Kristy enjoyed the Young Women activities. She loved, loved, loved Girls Camp it was great!  She liked playing Basketball and Volleyball, she wasn’t super good at Basketball but she was decent in Volleyball, she did what she could to always participate and do that.  

I want to talk for a minute about Seminary. My kids have done amazingly well with Seminary. They’ve had amazing attendance even though it has been difficult to get up at that morning hour. Eric’s a natural early riser like I am so it wasn’t as hard for him to get up and get going as it was for the girls, but the girls would – Amy would get up 5:30 or 5:40 she would throw on her clothes, brush her hair, brush her teeth and head out the door to Seminary.  I found out with her, even though we live just a block from the church, just get her right there and that way she’d get there. 

     "I had a carpool set up for awhile but it just worked out better to take them when they were ready instead of waiting for a carpool, cause my kids all hate to be late. It just worked better to just take her over. Then she would get a ride back or I would get her back here and then she’d have breakfast and then it would be time for school and she’d head off to High School. For the first several years, actually I think all the years that Amy was in High School we were part of this elaborate carpool where we would get all the moms together in the ward that had kids that were attending High School and Middle School, going to Concord High and going to El Dorado and we’d say, “Okay, who needs to be where - what time and - who wants to drive what?” It actually worked pretty well. 

     "The only thing that was hard - is that my children didn’t like being late to Seminary and if the carpool was late or someone else had to be picked up was late it didn’t work.  I did that for several years and then I finally got to the point where I was tired of doing that, so I didn’t organized it anymore and I don’t know if anyone else did it. 

     "Trying to get kids to where they needed to go – a great year for Seminary was when Kristy was a senior and Eric was a freshman because we had the white van that they could drive. Kristy was able to drive the kids to Seminary then both to the High School because they both had zero period and so that worked out really well. But Seminary has been a great blessing, they’ve worked very hard and I’ve tried to be supportive of getting up, getting them breakfast, and getting them out the door.  

     "Eric would get up at 5 every morning take his 20 to 25 minute shower, then go read for awhile and then come on out and I’d have breakfast ready and this last year when I’ve been going for cancer treatment again, I wasn’t able to do that, but he has been very independent about getting up and getting himself some breakfast and heading on over to the church – he was able to drive himself his senior year – to get himself to Seminary and so that worked out really, really well. 

     "I’m trying to think if there are any other activities that I’ve been involved in….  I sew costumes for Kylie for the Ballet the Nutcracker Ballet , I sewed some major costumes, the adult costumes for the party scene. I designed those, sewed those.  I’ve done soccer banners, I’ve done the concert dresses for Concord High, I’ve set up carpools for this and that and everything else, arranged rehearsal spaces – anything I could do to support my kids scholastically or activity-wise that’s what I would do. 

     "When I got sick with cancer I was teaching piano students all that time and my kids really enjoyed the piano students because of the fact that I teach lots of sets of siblings and whomever was on the bench – their siblings would be in the backyard playing with my kids, then they would trade off and the next kid would go in the backyard. They were very sad when I got sick, I decided that the one thing that had to go is piano teaching, I couldn’t teach anymore because I needed to put whatever energy I had into my children and not into someone else’s kids. I didn’t know how it was going to play out, I didn’t know how I was going to feel or how well I was going to be able to tolerate this medicine, so I stopped teaching at that point. 

     "Eric told me he was very sad that happened because he really enjoyed having kids over to play with.  That’s when Eric was in 5^thgrade and so I spent more time sitting down with him and that was actually a huge blessing, because he was very unorganized and did not like to do homework. I would sit down with him and encourage him with his homework and the same with the other kids, I spent a lot of time – lot of time! I mean it felt like years sitting at the table helping kids with homework. Sometimes I found I wouldn’t necessarily have to help- to do anything to help them – but they needed to stay there and stay on task better if I was sitting at the table. I would plan my day so that I would do the sitting down stuff I needed to do – whether it was folding laundry, or if I was doing a cross-stitch for somebody’s Christmas stocking, or if I were sewing, I would save that for that time of day when we were at the table doing homework. 

     "I swear I’ve spent years doing that. The end result was is my kids have done okay scholastically, they’ve realized the importance of education and they’ve realized the fact that mom is willing to help them with homework and provide the support. I’ve had some kids that are better at getting it done quickly, and others who take f o r e v e r. Kylie is my one who takes the longest time, Kristy would take a long time but Kylie takes even a longer time to get things done. It is very interesting because Kristy and Kylie are very similar in a lot of ways. During the past several years as Kristy would come home from college before the end of the school year here – Kylie would be working on homework and taking forever, and Kristy would just look at me and say, “Mom, I am so sorry. I used to do that same exact thing.” And I’d say, “I know.” We all have to move at our own pace and we all have to figure out what our priorities are. 

     You know you can get to reading that book a whole lot faster if you just get your homework done first. I’ve certainly been like the homework Nazi and the piano practicing Nazi and whatever has to happen to try and encourage to get stuff done. It has been rather humorous – I’ve said before having my children read was a huge, huge priority for me and so I would – it started with they were just little – Amy and Kristy, we would have reading time and it was a wonderful thing when we got to the point when I could start reading chapter books to the kids.