Confluence Park Grand Opening

In La Verkin we have an area that has been cleaned up.  Trails have been made and interesting sites can be seen a long the way.  This area is known as Confluence Park.  When I heard the city would be having its grand opening and planting trees, I asked if the Royalty could be involved.  The city was happy to have us be a part of this event.

We began by helping Farmer's Market provide hamburgers and hot dogs to the visiting guests.  There were about 200 people who came out for this event.

The Royalty then took a horse-drawn wagon ride around the area.

Afterwards, many people gathered to plant trees.  The girls named their tree "Twiggy." 

We stayed for the ribbon cutting and were on our way.  It was so nice to join with the community in celebrating the opening of Confluence Park.

Brooklyn loves animals and I think her favorite part was hanging out with the horses!

Adria

I serve in the nursery at church.  This is a calling I "lobbied" for in the past, but never received.  I was so excited when they called me to serve in the nursery.  The children have their favorite leaders to whom they gravitate.  I have two little girls who love me...and I love them.  They look for me when they come in and I look for them.  These two little ones are Alaina and Adria.  There are sixteen kids in our nursery and five leaders, so it is easy to spread the love around.

Adria's mom Heather was nice enough to be Brooklyn's backstage mom for the Miss La Verkin Pageant...so when she asked me to watch her two children because she had a special assignment at mutual, I was happy to say yes.

Adria and her brother Tyson came over for a couple of hours and we had fun playing, reading stories and decorating cookies.  I love how they took a bite out of each cookie!

When Adria turned two, her mother invited me to her birthday party.  She was a little shy that night but I was happy to be included in their family party.

Adria got a new bed for her birthday.  Since she was two, it was time for her to move out of her crib into a toddler bed.  I really have enjoyed being a part of the Layton's life.  Their kids are adorable!

Homecoming

While we were at Peach Days, Brooklyn's BFFE asked me if he could get into my house sometime that day.  I knew right away what those words meant.  He wanted to ask her to Homecoming.  He made a cake and in the cake put the paper asking her to go with him. 

And this was how she answered:

After that we went on the hunt for her Homecoming dress, shoes, jewelry, etc.  There are only two places to find dresses in St. George...not counting the expensive Bridal and  Prom shops.  One is Debs in the mall, and the other is a consignment shop called Closet Revival.  We went to Debs first and the dressing rooms were full of girls from Brooklyn's school all coming out in the same dresses.  Closet Revival didn't have anything she liked.  So we decided we would need to take a dress from Debs and make it her own.  She has always loved black and red so we bought a black dress.  We bought a red rose from Walmart and glittered it up so we could put it on the dress.

We couldn't find any red shoes.  Brooklyn suggested we make them.  So we were off to the thrift store to see what we could find. We found a strappy pair of black heels for $4.00.  We bought some red paint and red glitter, and wah-lah...she had beautiful red glitter shoes.  We also put red glitter on some diamond rhinestone hair ornaments she liked.

She loved the combination and decided she also wanted to try something new with her make-up.  She wanted to do a cat eye with red lips.  She had fun learning and practicing this technique.  She then asked her friend Kenadie to help her with her hair. 

For the day date, they went cliff jumping at Sand Hollow.  This little mama was mildly, put that majorly, worried.  I trust her date to take care of her, but jumping off cliffs into lakes isn't always the safest activity.  There were three couples that went, and word was Brooklyn was the only girl to jump off the 30 foot cliff.  Great so I have the stupid, I mean brave, daughter!  She had so much fun and I am actually glad she had the opportunity to do that.  She has always been a little daredevil.

I wanted to take a few pictures of Brooklyn alone.  She looked so beautiful and I couldn't believe this was the same little tomboy of only a couple of years ago.

Christian came that evening to pick Brooklyn up.  They made a stunning couple.

Special Needs Mutual

I have been privileged to serve in the Special Needs Mutual program for the last couple of years. I am the secretary for both the Young Women and the Young men.   Each Thursday night we meet together.  We are a tri-stake program covering the La Verkin, Hurricane, and Hurricane West stakes.  There are over a hundred of us now.  There are about 53 special needs participants ranging from 12-67 years old.  They come with a variety of needs from Down Syndrome, to brain injuries, to autism, and so forth.  But there is one thing we all have in common...we love to have fun. 

A couple of times a month the boys work on scouting and the young women work on personal progress.  One Thursday a ward comes and provides our activity.  We show our gratitude by doing their sacrament meeting program the following week.  We always sing/sign our theme song:  In This Very Room.  Then the other week we have a combined activity.  The "kids" love to dance. 

I have been so blessed to rub shoulders with these great people. 

Powder Puff Football Game

She is rough!  She is tough!  She is so unlike me when it comes to sports!

Brooklyn was so excited to play in the Senior vs. Junior Powder Puff Football game.  She borrowed a jersey from Patrick Sanders, a boy she had just met in her English class.  She started out looking cute, but then all the girls decided to paint their faces so they would look scarier...and she did look pretty scary!

They took to the field.  It was fun(ny) watching the girls play.  They are very competitive.

It is always nice when your team wins!  Go Seniors!

Afterwards they had the "Burning of the H" behind the football bleachers. 

Brooklyn and Christian then compared their shorts.  Whatev!

Lacey Got Married !

One important event I missed because Brooklyn was required by the city to be here for Peach Days was my niece Lacey's wedding/reception.  I had even  mistook the date for Peach Days and had bought Brooklyn and I  airline tickets to go :(  I was so sad when I found out both events were the same weekend. 

My brother Jon was able to fly in from Tennessee to be at the sealing which was in Portland, Oregon.  My sister Ginger and her family picked Justin up on the way and they went to the reception in Montana. I sure missed being with all of them celebrating Lacey and Matthew's marriage.

 I love this picture of the family with my mom...she is the Diva Grandma!

Peach Days Performance

Part of the Royalty responsibilities is to help emcee the talent that will be performing on the stages.  The girls were assigned to introduce the acts for four hours.  It seems like a long time, but they divided up the time slots and when it wasn't there turn, they went and enjoyed Peach Days.  I, on the other hand, stayed the whole time because I am the Princess' mother, ie: chaperone.

The girls were able to perform themselves before they began their emceeing.

Of course, as usual, they started off with the La Verkin City jingle.  It is a fun song and even has some rap in it.  It also introduces each of the girls.  It goes like this:

La Verkin, is my city, and I love it, yes I love it.
From every corner, to every block, yea...whether its rainy or stormy or downright stinkin hot, hot, hot.
Hello, I'm Brooklyn Moore and I'm the princess of the city, I'm Katie Hardy, first attendant
I'm Mandie Leavitt, second attendant, and I'm McKayla Thiriot, Miss Congeniality. 
Cuz La Verkin is my city, and I love it, yes I love it.
Now what if I told you that, La Verkin is the best, my city is cooler than the rest
My city is definitely the best...Royalty!

Then after that, a Katie performed on her fiddle and McKayla sang:

 Brooklyn performed to Katy Perry's "Firework", her signature song, but she also decided to try out a new song.  It was called "Put Your Hearts Up."  The idea was she would sing (sign) the first verse, her royalty would come onstage and sign the second verse with her, then on the third verse the royalty would go out into the audience and encourage everyone to stand and sign too.  The wonderful thing was, people were standing and signing before they even got to the third verse.  It was a lot of fun and very exciting!

After the performance the girl's settled in for their long afternoon of emceeing.  They were hungry so they each ran and got some yummy "fair" food.  Peach Cobbler is a favorite at Peach Days, but of course Brooklyn had to pick spaghetti and meatballs to eat with her white shrug.  She managed to keep it clean, she is a princess afterall ;)

 

The last act was emceed by Brooklyn.  It was this cute boy who sang amazingly well.  Someday I expect to see him on Broadway!

After our responsibilities were done, we wandered the fair booths.  We enjoyed spending time with Heather Layton, Brooklyn's Laurel advisor.  Heather was also Brooklyn's backstage mom at the pageant.  Brooklyn helped her decide on a crocheted teddy bear for her baby due in February.

Later that evening, Brooklyn was asked to come back and draw the winning ticket for a raffle being held.  When the time came for the drawing, people gathered around.  It was a fun thing for her to do.

We finished the evening with Brooklyn buying her first ever brick oven pizza and watching fireworks on the lawn.  The life of a princess is a busy life...and so is the life of the princess' mother!

Peach Days Parade

Once again we were able to use our float.  The float was the exact same as we used for the
Washington County Fair.  The city was kind enough to let us store it under some of  their equipment ports in a locked area.  Unfortunately it had rained and we did need to do a little maintenance on the float.  The hot sun had also faded some of the red roses we had made, but for the most part it survived.

We had to line up at 8:00 am for the parade.  This was really fun because we knew so many of the parade goers as well as those in the parade.  I definitely think the local events are more exciting. 

The girls really were relaxed and enjoying the waiting time.

 It is always fun to see the other Royalties in the parades:

Virgin,  Toquerville, and Apple Valley

This is my friend Lynette and her brother Corey who is in Special Needs Mutual.  Lynette owns the quilt shop in Hurricane.  I loved her car.  I didn't get a picture of my friend Michelle, who owns Phazes Fitness...but I love how when everyone else is throwing candy, she is throwing broccoli.

But with all the fun groups and beautiful people I saw...this one is always my favorite...