The First Married Grandchild!

A collection of photos from Meagan and Stephen's big day.

Hi Family - I obviously need help on figuring out how to use this crazy family blog. Blogs are a mystery - my generation was all about privacy and identity protection. This new tech is all about baring your soul to the entire world (including future friends, spouses, employers, etc). I really don't get it. After my lame attempt to post to the blog, I will use old email tech to send around a similar message.

My thought tonight: mom and dad just had their 49th anniversary, and mom has thrown down the gauntlet, basically telling us kids it is our responsiblity to come up with and idea for their 50th anniversary. So here is my brainstorm - braindump as I sit in my boring hotel in Norwalk CT. Note: I have given no thought to finances yet which is obviously a concern for all of us, so this is just a brainstorm.

-Charter a motor home and go on a 2 week cross country tour (adults only) with video cams and tape recorders to make a documentary on all key places in their lives (high schools, old houses, job locations, ward houses, hotel brigham, slc temple, etc)

-Charter a bus and go from temple to temple on the east coast, doing sessions from Orlando to Boston

-Charter a sailboat and cruise the carribean

-Surprise party at some place cool, like a resort or something on MD eastern shore

-No charter no travel, but we all work to make a video presentation like "This is your life" - include multi media photos from their wedding, young married life, etc

-Week at the beach with adults only

-Give them a free night at a bed and breakfast in hunt country va then show up with all of us and our kids for a surprise dinner party

-Send a letter to Sarah Palin and ask her to have dinner with mom and dad (ok it's late)

-invite them to a temple session with just the adults and their spouses, and then they show up and they see 80 closest friends and relatives ready to go through the session

-family trip to grand canyon, glacier national park, or yellowstone

-sell their house for them and buy them a condo (ok, now it's really late)

-I'm done.

Please let me know your thoughts. 8/11/2010 will be here WAY TO SOON

Lizzy!

Happy Belated 9th Birthday to Elizabeth Terry!!!!! It's late because I'm a horrible sister and since yesterday was Saturday I was completely consumed by work and didn't look/think about the date once. :( Sorry, Bibby! I hope you had a good day!!

Listen to Meagan's Christmas Concert!!!!!!!!!

So, I don't know if anyone who doesn't already know this will read it on time, but tonight the BYU Choir's Celebration of Christmas will be broadcast live on KBYU, which means you can listen to it online at kbyu.com! It starts at 7:30 mst, which makes it 8:30 for the Aase fam, and 9:30 for everyone else. The concert last night was excellent. I promise you'll love it. Also, it will be rebroadcast on kbyu on Sunday December 21 at 5pm MST. They are also taping it for byutv, but it won't be on until next Christmas since they have to edit it to make it look perfect. I hope you all are having a fabulous December! I'll be home in 12 days and counting!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It sounded like you did a lot of fun stuff this year. Don't forget to write all about it and put up some pictures!! Meagan and I are in Henderson, NV staying with Mom's family and it's been a lot of fun. Yesterday we met Sarah at a mall in Las Vegas and had lunch. (I brought my camera, but I don't think it was used at all.)

Have a wonderful weekend! Meagan and I will be home in 20 days and counting! I love you!

If You're Reading...

Greetings from Provo, Knudson Family!

I don't know if anyone ever reads this blog besides Meagan and Kristi and me, but I decided to let the family know what is going on in my life right now anyway.

I don't have a whole lot going on, just school. Homecoming is this week and it's neat to see the Y all lit up. I'm not going to any of the dances, and I wish I were going to the Spectacular, but I'll settle for the football game. GO COUGARS! Like Sister Samuelson says, this is a great season to be a fan of BYU Football.

In school, I just finished my 4th midterm of the past 2 weeks marking the end of the first period of extended stress. I do have another midterm next week...and one in volleyball as well...so maybe I should be a little more worried than I am. I like my classes and I'm learning a lot this semester. One thing that helps is that my geology and geography of landforms classes cover a lot of the same material, so I kind of learn it twice and that helps my grade in both classes. Volleyball is fun, and we might actually start playing in teams soon instead of doing drills to practice specific drills. Yesterday was the worst! The skill was blocking--probably the thing I'm worst at, and the drills are horrible. In the gym, there are three full volleyball courts side by side. For the drill, we learned the two-step block and had to do it all the way down the line of all three nets. Step, step, jump, step, step, jump...all the way down 3 nets. Then we learned a three-step block. We did that all the way down the nets: step, stepstep, jump, step, stepstep, jump. Then, we learned another three-step block. Same thing, all the way down: step, step, turn, step, jump. Finally, we had to go all the way down the net in combination! step, step, jump, step, stepstep, jump, step, step, turn, step, jump! I seriously wanted to run out of the gym screaming. Blocking is my worst skill because jumping is my worst ability. My teacher did say that if any girl gets a block, she gets an A. For me, it's out of the question as the nets we use are even higher than MEN's standard height. So, that was my 15 minutes of torture yesterday. I came out smiling though. Something I've been working on in volleyball is not getting embarrassed when I can't do something. I'm getting better, too.

My one activity outside of school is tutoring at a local elementary school. This semester, I'm working with an after school program to put on their school musical: ALADDIN! 2 weeks ago I helped some 6-year-old untie his shoes after he tied them together. This week, I learned a Halloween dance. It was a lot of fun, and I really like the group I'm working with. Some of the kids are a little crazy, but those are the ones who need someone to work with them the most.

That's pretty much all that's going on in my life. I have 2 new roommates and one that's the same from last year. All are sophomores and for the first time in my life, I'm the oldest! It's a weird feeling, but we get along great! In weather news: The snow has arrived, in the mountains anyway. All that rain that came just for Conference weekend translated to snow in the highest places.

Goodbye for now, family. I hope that you all enjoyed Conference. I know I did! Have a wonderful day, and KEEP BLOGGING!

RISE AND SHOUT!!!!!!!!!

GOooooo Cougars!!!!!!!!!!! We're on a role this year with and undefeated record, recently concreted by TWO shutouts in a row! And I get great seats at every home game to boot! I'm in the North nzone, row 9 with my friend Sadie, who is in the picture with me below.


I tried hard to get you a video of the fight song in the sold out stadium, but I sadly found out that the video on my camera has no sound. The fight song is no fun without sound, so we'll just have to be happy with pictures. Next home game: October 11!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Sarah! Teenager no more! That was a long 10 years. ;)

The word is no

So, I didn't make it. See my blog for details

Callbacks for singers

So, about halfway through Nebraska I got this call from my friend Camille, telling me I am on the callback list for BYU Singers!!!!! Even though she told me, I still had to look at the list about 10 times before I believed it. I went to see Dr. Staheli on Thursday, and sang for him again. I think that went pretty well, as did my audition for Concert Choir the next day (just in case). The list that's going up today includes all those who were on the first list (we tried out during the spring and summer) as well as those who are returning to singers and those Dr. Staheli wants to hear again after this past weekend of auditions. I may go look at that list just to see how many are on it, but most likely I'll just wait until 12:30 when we are all together for the beginning of callbacks. It's really hard on my nerves to walk down that hallway, so I might save myself at least one trip. Oh, nevermind. I have to look at the list today to see if Dr. Staheli changed his mind about my singing soprano or alto. Today I'll have callbacks with the other girls in my section, and tomorrow morning I'll have to walk down that dreaded hallway again to see the final list. My friend Becca Whale and I practiced together yesterday, and we're hoping to walk down the hallway together for moral support. Going by yourself is the worst. Pray for me today! I'll let you know tomorrow how it all turns out.

First Day of School!

Well there's no avoiding it now. Classes start tomorrow. On the bright side, I only have one class on Tuesday and Thursday, and it's at 8 am. So tomorrow should be too bad.

In other news: Meagan and I made it safely to Provo once again. It was a long trip and we started crying when we passed the sign for Minneapolis (just kidding), but we made it. Also, Meagan found out that she made call backs for the Singers. She'll have to explain that though because we weren't sure exactly what happened next. All I know is that she'll be stalking the HFAC tomorrow waiting for the list to go up...I'm just not sure what the list is for. Needless to say, she's really excited. Especially since the Singers are going to Ireland this summer.

More news: BYU won their football game on Saturday against Northern Iowa. GO COUGARS! And there is another game this Saturday. We're definitely looking forward to that out here.

That's it for now. KEEP BLOGGING!!!!

my trip to the caribbean

i just got back from this awesome trip to the Caribbean and i learned how  to Sail and everything. there iare some amazing stories to tell that i cant do it right now. call me facebook me or talk to me in some other form or shape to sak but right now i will put up some tight photos of me !

Blogged with the Flock Browser

No More Pre-K!!

Alright, I have successfully completed 2 weeks of camp with Pre-K and Kindergarten kids. It was a lot of fun, and the kids were so cute, but I'm ready to move on. I'll miss those kids, but I'll see them around. I love those kids, but teaching them was a big challenge. I definitely work better in a teaching capacity with the older kids...or at least I think I do. Actually, I haven't worked with any older kids. It might turn out that I'm better with the little ones. My teacher filled out an evaluation for me, and it was all good. I doubt people ever give poor evaluations...unless someone is really bad. Well, it's all over now. I get to move up one grade level at a time. My schedule has changed a little since I posted it last month:

Week 3 (June 20- July 4): Wild at Heart with 1st-2nd grade
Week 4: Sleuths with 3rd-4th
Week 5: Aquatic Odyssey with 3rd-4th
Week 6: Advanced Bay Quest with 8th-10th
Week 7: Nature and the Arts with 1st and 2nd
Week 8: Water Works with 1st and 2nd
Week 9: Storm Chasers 5th-7th

Yup, I get the full range and get to work my way up. It will be interesting to see how each group changes. Only a few things have changed and the camps that I really wanted to do, I still get to do. So, all is well.

I'm pretty much exhausted after two weeks of Pre-K. Everyone is congratulating me on surviving, so I guess this is normal. The most important lesson from the past two weeks is probably flexibility in lesson plans. The dynamic of our AM and PM classes were completely different from each other and Ali and I really had to figure out what to change to make it a good experience for the PM campers, and for us too. We decided on more unstructured time, and working in groups. For me it meant doing a lot of stuff without Ali. I lead my group of 8 on hikes, crafts, games, etc. It seemed like a lot to me, but it worked, so I stuck with it and really enjoyed it.

So, goodbye Pre-K! You taught me a lot and looking back, I promise not to remember all the bad times and just remember the cute ones...there were plenty of both.

There! Aren't they cute?? They were convinced that I couldn't see them when they hid there.

I'm home!

Well, I'm back from the Holy Land and wishing it wasn't quite over yet. My new adventure is finding someone to hire me for 60 days until I go back to school for my very last year. Hopefully I'll be able to see most of you while I'm here! I'm working on putting the best of my pictures into a working slide show so that I can give a presentation on my trip that should be worth seeing.

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was Dad's birthday!

Mom and I took him to lunch. Zac's present was his music. Last night was the night of his band concert so he decided that his present to Dad would be his concert. We all went with Sister Pelech from our ward. Afterwards we came home for some good old Oatmeal cake and ice cream. It was really good.

Mom told me to put up the pictures and a video from last night, but her pictures aren't cooperating with the computer. Probably because there are so many of them. I know that you're all disappointed, but I'll see what I can do.

Happy birthday, Dad! We love you!!!!

The Final Final!

Just one more final left. Then I get to spend a day packing and cleaning and hanging out with various people. I'm not too worried about this final, but maybe I should be. The class is fairly easy, but somehow Dr. James manages to put hard questions on the test. It's all about the weather and climate types, soil types, and what kinds of things can grow in each one. I have to know names of different winds and ocean currents including where they are. Completely comprehensive, but also completely multiple choice. I think I'll do alright since I don't have to be pulling names out of my head. I just have to recognize the names. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to handle that.

After finals I get to make the trek across the country...again. This will be my fourth time driving the distance from Utah to Maryland in two years. It's fun, for sure, but it's also very tiring. I'll be getting home about the same time as my friend Jessi and she won't be finished with school for another week. I guess it's a small sacrifice to pay for going to BYU instead of some Maryland school. Definitely worth it.

How To Add Your Name to the List of Contributors:

Alright. Here we go:

Step 1. Take a DEEP breath.

Step 2. SIGN ON under the Knudsonfam name

Step 3. Go to the DASHBOARD

Step 4. Next to the name of our blog on Dashboard, you can manage posts, settings, etc. Click on SETTINGS.

Step 5. Under Settings there is a link called PERMISSIONS. Click on it. I think it's all the way on the right.

Step 6. There is a list of Blog Authors and under it a button that says: ADD AUTHORS. Click on that.

Step 7. You type the e-mail you use to sign on to blogger (not Knudsonfam, but your own) where it tells you to.

Step 8. Then you can sign on as yourself and it should include our blog on your dashboard along with any other blogs you are running. I can't remember. Maybe the e-mail it will send you will tell you to do something else too.

Good Luck! I hope this helps you guys. If you're still having trouble, just tell me what e-mail you use to sign onto Blogger and I'll get your name on the list.

quick question from dain

how do i get my own name down where it says who contributes and what not. u all have names and i want one. it isnt fair!!!!!!

Scotia's Skydiving Adventure!

Hey all!! i miss all you guys so much!!
ok so for my 16 bday i took 3 of my friends indoor skydiving in North Caroloina. (Marin, my bff Jacky and another bff Emilee) Basically it was so much fun!!!! the road trip up there was awesome. oh we made signs (on the back of the directions), that said like: hello there, you're a cute couple, your son is cute, ROAD TRIP:48 days in the car, we love you, we love treucks, dont be a meaine: WAVE, your car is groovy and your handsome, ect... it was so funny, g2g (riding) i'll post more when i come back

Talent Show Results

soo tonight was the talent show. as you all may know, i was singing i will survive. well great news. i placed second!!!!! out of 30 acts. i got a standing ovation and they started to call for an encore. but they woldnt let me. darn!!!! first palce was this guy who totally played the guilt card.(Matt Dicken sarah should no him) but anyway he sang a song about always geting picked last. SAPPY. so they gave him first so he wouldnt feel bad. i will try to get a video of it!!!!! wow i am still really excited. yay.