.: March 2009

Friday, March 27, 2009

The New Era

President Garns took a nice photo of Wes and it is on the cover of the April 2009 New Era. He looks good in goggles!

WRTV crew members finished editing a video at 6am this morning after working all night. It turned out great. Wes was glad to be a victim but was sad to miss out on the making of the video. His classmates did a great job. We watched this video at the assembly as well as listened to a couple who lost 2 sons in a car accident because of reckless driving. It was very moving. We are glad to have Wes home with us now and to hear about his experience.
Click HERE to watch the video.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Every 15 Minutes

West Ranch High School participated in the Every 15 minutes program today. We were honored that Wes was asked to be a "victim." 26 students were chosen to either be in a mock drunk driver car accident or to be pulled from class by the grim reaper in representation of DUI deaths amongst teenagers. Two sheriffs knocked on our door around 9:45 this morning to present a death notification to us. I was fully prepared, knowing this would happen, but at the time my heart was still racing, my hands went ice cold and I was trembling. I listened to the words, "Your son was involved in a car accident this morning caused by a drunk driver and he did not survive, is there anything we can do?" All I could say was, just tell us again that this is not real, and all part of the program. And that's exactly what he told us, but it didn't stop tears welling up in my eyes, feeling the implication of such a loss. Today has been an odd experience, different than I had anticipated. The sheriffs then invited us to come view the "mock crash scene", which was very well done. Firemen used the jaws of life to rescue injured teens from the cars, ambulances sped away with them as soon as they were extricated, casualties were put in body bags and transported away by the coroner, a field sobriety test was administered, and the driver was handcuffed and taken away. The kids and public officers did a great reenactment of the scenario.

Wes and others had makeup applied to appear "dead" after being taken from class and were not allowed to speak the rest of the day.

We definitely left impacted...but when we came home and watched his mock obituary played on WRTV, it was heartwrenching to realize what other parents have suffered, when these accidents could have been easily prevented. You can watch it HERE.

Wes will spend the remainder of the day and evening being immersed in the consequences of driving while intoxicated. He will watch as a fellow student portraying the driver is sentenced in court and he will visit a memorial for teenagers that have lost their lives. He will hear stories from parents that have lost their sons and daughters this way. Tomorrow we will participate in a similar assembly. I imagine Wes will be forever changed. We hope those around him will be also.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

A stop at EA, then on to Florida

Monday night we drove Wes and Dylan to the airport for their redeye flight to Florida for the STN (student television network) convention. We stopped at EA so Dylan could have a look around and grab a bite to eat. It was fun, Wes had just job shadowed Scott on Friday, so several people remembered him. Here are the boys in the lobby.

40 kids and 5 chaperones spent a 5 days in Florida. Wes woke up at 5:30 Monday morning for seminary, flew all that night without sleeping, went to Epcot the next day and finally slept for about 5 hours on Tuesday night. At Epcot they enjoyed eating food at Taste of the World.

The next 3 days were filled with filming competitions. In their "Sweet 16" competition they are given partial script and have 16 hours to complete a short movie. Wes was an actor in this and was eaten by an alien.

As you can see from the pictures, they turned their room into an insane asylum with mattresses for walls. He was even surprised that the hotel invited them to return again! It was a long day! Next he helped with a promo which took 2nd place in that category. Finally he worked on a show opener that got a very good critique! Saturday, they participated in closing ceremonies then headed back home. He got home around 11pm, and we were all glad to see him, well Chelsie fell asleep around 10 so she will be ecstatic this morning! It was a good trip! We all missed him terribly but were excited for his adventure--a small taste of what it will be like when he leaves for college I suppose! We definitely felt incomplete without him around!

Where's Waldo???

We had a youth activity called Where's Waldo at the mall a couple of weeks ago. Several leaders "hid" somewhere in the mall, some disguised, some not, some actually working in stores. I still can't believe I dressed up like this, but it was so fun. I fooled a few, and even got offered an employee discount in the food court!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Roadshow Video--Thank you Samantha!

Monday, March 9, 2009

The Nightmare before Benediction

Whew! Our roadshow is over! And it was awesome, the kids did great! We appreciate all the hard work that everyone put into it! The theme given to us was, "To Learn, To Do, and To Be." Scott wrote the script about 2 families (the McYoungs and the Hatfields) at stake conference, one is paying attention and the other is not. Steve Young Hatfield falls asleep as the stake president is speaking about a scripture that tells us to wear a hat. His dream goes into a family feud game show where the top answer on the board is Wear a Hat. Throughout the dream, some characters follow the presidents advice, others do not and many question why. The dream concludes in the park with seagulls coming and those who did not wear hats get"droppings" on their heads. They all then help each other get cleaned up and don't judge each other. The show concludes back at stake conference with the president reading the scripture he was referring to about the helmet of salvation. We spoofed a ton of characters and the audience loved it. Hopefully we'll have a video of the performance up here soon. Check out the slideshow below.

Hillary Clinton Hatfield

Dwight and Jim

Michael Jackson

FHE in the park

Roadshow 2009

Quotable Quips and Laughable Life

I decided that I wanted to add a small section with little things that my kids have said or done over the years that I never want to forget and I think are worth sharing. Unfortunately I was much better at writing these things down a bit late in the game....Chelsie steals the show here a bit. If only I could remember all those things I thought I'd never forget. I hope you take my challenge to write down all those things you hope to pass on one day.

When Chelsie was about 2 she had been jumping on my brand new couch, so I promptly told her to stop jumping on the nice furniture. Her response was very logical. "Then where's the mean furniture?"

While camping in the Sequoias, the entrance sign read, "1 bear incident this week...." Kelly mispronounced it as 1 bear accident....later in the bathroom, Chelsie noticed wet spots on the floor, and announced, "This must be where the bear had the accident."

We had a family home evening on choosing the right, and we thought Chelsie understood but when we asked her she said, "Yes, don't choose the left!"

When Kelly was in the 5th grade, she needed to use the classroom phone to call me. She dialed 9 to get an outside line, then she had to dial 1 because I have a long distance cell phone number, but she accidently hit the 1 twice. When the 911 dispatcher answered she was scared and just hung up. 5 minutes later the front office called the classroom stating that 3 sheriffs had arrived ready to take action and were wanting to know who called and why. Now it was by sheer coincidence that this was a morning that there was a prison breakout, so officers were on high alert. Kelly was embarrassed then, but can laugh about it now!

When Wes was about 4, he used to tell everyone that he was going to marry his friend Elizabeth, and that they were going to have 16 kids, and maybe a car.

When Chelsie was 3 1/2 we told her she needed to learn to spell her name. She responded, "I already know....A L I Z A."
(That was her best friend who taught her)

I was talking with my girls about the weather, and Kelly said, that stupid beaver was wrong, spring is not around the corner. Chelsie then chimed in, it's not a beaver, it's a warthog. Clearly I have failed them.