More on the music

I got a lot of advise but I am still undecided, so I am posting again. Please read the comments on the last post and see if your views have changed or are still the same. Here is a follow up from me ... The radio edits the swear words but that is about it. The school plays everything (radio edit) I know you can't protect the youth. That is really not my intent. We don't police them. I have had to tell my chaparones not tell me if they are smoking or drinking unless it comes in the building or they are being destructinve to the grounds. (Insidently, we have never had drinking. I did have a chaparone come and get me becasue she was sure some boys had been smoking. She was positive because they all came in chewing gum and you know what that means!.... I thought it meant they didn't want to have bad breath for the girls, but hey what do I know) I also tell them that it isn't church and we don't do the book of mormon apart thing. I don't care if they are close. Now vulgar dancing is another thing. (I also had to describe that to a chaperon....I think she was quite embarrassed) but we have never had a problem with that either. You would be totally surprised about how they dance. It is awesome to watch. But back to the subject. At this age they need to decide for themselves where they stand. They can have, hear, or do anything they want to. I just don't want to have problems with parents. That being said, who chooses what is right? Can one make the choice for all? For instance, at our last dance we used a strobe light. Everyone loved it. But one girl came up and said that her friend could have seizures so we had to turn it off. So does everyone miss out because she might have a seizure or should she have to leave? See the connection. That is why I am so undecided about this. More help please. By the way monica we have all the songs as well. Along with some others I would really be embarrassed to tell you. You know things weren't so different when we were that age. Remember Pour Some Sugar on Me, Big Love (we all know what the ooh ahh means), Excitable etc. etc. Help!

Music Approval ...... Some help please?

With the dances we do for MCYC comes the responsibility of approving the music. I am having a hard time deciding where to draw the line. For instance, who's values should have the last word. When we used the church it was cut and dry...church standards. Now we are in the new school. Should things change? We are not church sponsored. We are city sponsored. So should I force my values on the rest? If it is OK for radio should we play it? What if they play it at the school dances, is that OK then? What if it is regularly played in my own home? If we don't play new music will our dances be considered lame? Wouldn't it be better to have a safe place for kids to be, then to have them do something else, because our dances are lame? Is it "safe" if we play all the music we want? See my dilemma? Most all of the songs the kids hear now are about sex. Some are worse then others. And yet some of the really bad ones are cryptic and hard to know what they are really about. That is unless the urban dictionary is your best friend. Let me tell you, sometimes ignorance is much better! So what should I allow. Absolutely nothing? Just a little bit of garbage? A lot of garbage? Give me your opinion? Some of the songs in question are: "Shake it" by Metro Station, "Soulja Boy" by Soulja Boy (if you don't know what this is about, don't look it up, you don't want to know), Hot and Cold by Katie Perry (the only thing in here is the "B" word) and Low by Flo-rida. There are many others, these are just the ones I could think of at 10:30 at night. So if it was you, what would you do?

One more dance under our belts

Saturday we had another MCYC dance. It took us four hours to set up .... again. At one point I yelled at one of the kids and told him if he picked up that ball again I was going to stab it with a knife. Later I told another that if he made that noise with the megaphone again I would shove it down his throat! What a good role model for today's youth, right! Well we finally got set up right in time for dance instruction. We go through that just fine. We were having trouble with the volume on our amp but we thought maybe it was just the high ceilings in the gym. Well about 3 songs into the dance the music started sounding pretty bad. By 5 songs we had nothing but bass. We were losing kids at that point. We call for another amp and we got our dance going again. In the end we had about 130 kids. I don't know how many left. But all in all it was a fun dance. We had a cha cha and swing competition. Jessi and David won the cha cha contest. No I wasn't the judge! We also played a couple of hip hop songs on a trial basis. Apparently only about 8 kids knew how do dance to it because the rest did the boot scoot boogie! The Boot Scoot Boogie to "Church". Ok even I was disgusted! Even I am not that out of touch!

Rise Against Concert

Jessi went to the Rise Against Concert with Zach on tuesday night. Before they left I gave all my motherly advise. Why why why is it so hard to take? I told them not to get in the middle of the croud yada yada yada. Well they didn't listen. They got on the second row. Jessi said she had her face smashed in the back of the person in front of her all night! She kept getting hit and smashed. It brings back the memory of the Def Leppard concert of 1988 I went to. She is now sore and bruised all over! Tall people just don't understand!

Jumping to conclusions

As you know Todd and I were gone over the weekend. Thursday Mandy stayed with everybody and Friday Shonee, B, and Justin went to Robyn and Dave's. Jessi and Ty stayed home. Sunday we were told that there was a sleep over at our house on Friday night. I started to get mad. But then we were also told that one of Jessi's guy friends spent the night! I felt like a Tea pot building steam! We had Jessi and this friend come over to talk to them. At this point my tea pot was exploding. Talk isn't quite the right word. I was so mad I couldn't controll myself. I told him he had one chance and once chance only to tell me the truth. Come to find out our information was wrong. There was a sleep over but not with him! :) I feel bad for giving him a heart attack. But I guess a healthy amount of fear is good. Right?

80's .... Lets party!

Our friend Brett had an over the hill party yesterday. It was an 80's party! It is surprising how fast everything comes back! For some reason we didn't get a picture of the Birthday boy. We will try to get one and put it on the blog.

Beaver Creek Get Away!

We enjoyed a weekend get away to Beaver Creek Lodge. This is our annual trip with our long time friends. We talked and laughed and even cried. It was a great time. Thanks everyone!

Halloween!

The kids had a lot of fun this year for halloween. Shonee and Brecken went trick or treating with a friend Mckenna and Krystal, Koby, and Randall. Tyson put on a spook alley in our gulley with some friends. We dont have pictures of Justin and Jessi. Justin went to a party and they provided costumes there. Jessi was a Devil - Angel but left her costume at the school. She went party hoping then to the club with some friends. Zach won the costume contest at the club. He was a chippendale's dancer. Yikes!

Our new family members

I got some skeletons to put up outside for decorations this year. They never made it outside. Everytime we turned around they were doing something else. It was tons of fun. The best time was when we went in for family home evening and one was praying and the other was reading the scriptures. We missed getting a picture of that one.

Happy Birthday Todd

Lezlie and Robyn came over on tuesday to celebrate Todd's birthday. We had pumpkin pie and a lot of fun. Then Trenna, Susan, Mandy, Natalie and Randall, and Sherrie and Family came on thursday. Happy birthday Todd, Trenna, Tanner and Natalie!

Sadie Hawkins - Retro

Jessi took Colten Mortensen "Morty" to Sadie Hawkins. The theme was "Retro". They dressed 60's and really looked the part. The day date was a photo scavenger hunt at the mall. She said it was on of the funnest dates she has been on!

Las Vegas!

We just had a fun vacation. We left on wednesday and headed south. We stopped off and toured Zion National park. It was fun we even saw an old friend from Logan there on his honeymoon!

We just spent five days in Las Vegas with Todd's dad and his wife Laura. We had a great time! Their house is beautiful and the kids loved the pool.

We went sight seeing every day and then returned back to their house for awesome food every night! Thanks Laura

We had a great time on the strip! So many things to see and do. Here are just a few!

Of course there are the negatives too. I guess a few things rubbed off!

But we tried to find balance!

I got to see my two best friends from high school! Jon Downer and Jenni Labruzza! That was definately a hightlight of the week!

All in all I think we took to the "City that Never Sleeps" pretty good! ....... Well kind of!

What a View!

Jessi got to skip school today to go hang out with all the other earthies watching hawks with her Environmental Science Class. They hiked up to Mendon Peak and are being taught by the hawk watchers. This is totally up her alley. Did you know she was an environmentalist at heart? Yes she is. She loves nature, believes in global warming and wants to save the rain forest. Maybe someday she will!

Another Concert

Jessi and Tyson went to the Yellowcard concert last night. Jason Reeves and John Allred opened for them. They thought it was great, however, they are having a hard time hearing today. They saw a lot of people they knew there. They even saw a cousin, Hailey, from Star Valley.

I didn't think much of the concert at first. That was until I pictured my kids standing on the floor with numerous people pushing in all around them. The 1988 Def Leppard Hysteria concert came to mind. That was my first concert. I was excited and was there with a date. L.A. Guns opened for them. I don't remember much about L.A. Guns. Just that I was completely miserable. I was smashed on all sides by people I didn't know. I remember my nose being crushed into the back of the person in front of me. I have no idea how close we were to the stage because I never saw it. Let me tell you the floor is just not the right place for short people. The more L.A. Guns played the worse the crowd got. I remember the crowd swaying and my feet not touching the floor. My date was trying to hold me up the whole time. I have heard of people dieing in crouds like this when they fall down. Up to this point I never could quite see how that was possible. During that concert it was all to real a possibility. At one point I lost my shoe. (never to be found again) My date kicked the high heels off of many girls shoes that kept stepping on our feet. I had many round bruises on the top of my feet when it was over. When L.A. Guns quit, my date and I moved to the back. I sat on his shoulders for Def Leppard. It was much better then. Since then I am perfectly happy with reserved seating!

So my mind was on my kids all night. Luckily they came home happy with a great experience. Even if they can't hear.

The Homecoming Saga

As you might know Jessi loves to dance. She really looks forward to all dances especially the school dances. This year she was invited to Homecoming over a month before by Alex. Two weeks later they broke up. It was sad and hard but they decided they would still go to Homecoming together. Then she was asked by Chase (Homecoming King). She was flattered but didn't want to hurt Alex's feelings so she told Chase no. Then one week later things got ugly and Jessi and Alex decided not to go to the dance. So Jessi had no date. We hoped for a week that someone who had procrastinated and didn't have a date yet would ask her. On thursday she broke down and asked a friend if he would go with her. Zak couldn't go because he had to be in Preston that day. On friday, as Jessi and Tyson were going to the Homecoming Game, Todd told Jessi he would pay her $50 if she came home with a date for the dance. He told Tyson he would pay him a $5 finders fee if he found her a date. No luck for either of them. So on saturday Todd took Jessi out for dinner, bought a bunch of chocolate (as you know chocolate cures everything) and settled down for a movie marathon. Part way through the first movie at 7:45 Zak called and said he was home from Preston and asked her if she still wanted to go to the dance. So Jessi got ready and he picked her up 15 minutes later. She had a ball! Todd was a little disgruntled because not only did he loose his date for the night but he spent $50 on dinner and missed the USU vs BYU hockey game with Chris, Tyson, Justin and Tanner. Oh well thats what dads are for right? So does he still owe her $50? Give us your vote.

Crazy USU Fans

Tyson, Tanner, Justin and Chris and went to the USU vs. BYU Hockey Game tonight. USU won of course! It was a great game. (Sorry Todd!) These pictures were all taken after so a lot of their paint had worn off! But you get the idea.