Melissa takes home TWO first place medals at State Speech

 Since Alan and I have never been to one of Melissa's state speech tournaments we thought that we should make the effort her last two years of high school. It was held way up in Coeur d' alene, ID this year. We made the trek with our next door neighbor and bishop Brett and Vibecke Thompson. We decided to take the scenic route on the way up and the freeway route home. On the way up there I got extememly car sick and after a few hours of fighting off the rumbling in my head and stomach I had to ask Brett to pull over as I elimated the contents of my stomach (yeh - yuck). It never got better for the remaining four hours and I was so happy to finally reach our hotel where I quickly crashed. I hate it when that happens.

Brett and Vibecke were the perfect traveling companions. We talked the whole way up and the whole way back. You would think after 20 hours in a van we would run out of things to talk about but we never did. We went on a two mile hike the first day we were there as the speech competition didn't start until 3:00 p.m. that day. I feel like such a giant next to Viebecke here. I am literally a full head taller than she is.

 It was raining off and on the whole time that we were there but we had fun. Here are some more pictures of our hike.

We looked forward to trying out new restaurants every day. Vibecke talked and dreamed about how wonderful some oatmeal was that we had for breakfast Friday morning the whole trip. We enjoyed exploring the area for places to see and eat.

Of course the highlight of the trip was watching Melissa give her O.O. speech and watching her perform her Duo Interp. with her partner Hanna Hiller many times. The first afternoon of state was preliminaries and she gave her speech and did her duo twice. Both were very well done. The next morning was the last round of preliminaries and during Melissa's O.O. speech she had a tickle in her throat and as she coughed she had a brain lapse and forgot her next line. As she stumbled to recover she managed to finish it out. That happened twice. She thought that she had sealed her fate and would not make it into the semi's. Much to her surprise the lady gave her a 1-10 with a note at the bottom that said that she knew that she had a tickle in her throat and was not going to penalize her for it. Wow - thank goodness for tender mercies. She made it into the semi's and then the finals.We knew during the final round that she was going to medal.

Her duo speech was hilarious and Melissa was supberb! She had to try out for duo interp. at the being of the year because her speech coach didn't think people would get her sense of humor. I guess she proved him wrong! Melissa was AMAZING! She totally rocked the house and made everyone laugh. During the final round she really poured it on and due to all the pauses they had to take for laughter, their time was a good 3 minutes longer than it was supposed to be. (Good thing time didn't matter at that point.) Melissa was so funny! She did things during that round that she hadn't done before. She made her cheek quiver for a good 5 seconds. She said that it was due to nerves and when it started to quiver she decided to roll with it and did if for as long as she could. I wish I would have recorded the final round because I don't thing that they will ever perform that speech to that level again. (I would have recorded it but Melissa instructed me not to but after wards she said that maybe I could have for the final round - that would be good to know ahead of time!) They had to move the final duo round to the choir room due to the crowd size.

At the awards assembly they announced the duo first and it was fun to watch as they started at 6th place and moved up from there. I saw them hold their breath the whole time and collaspe into each other when 2nd place was announced knowing that they secured 1st place. She was equally thrilled when they awarded her 1st for O.O. Those that she had competed against in duo couldn't believe that she was in O.O. because O.O. is so serious. Melissa had a loyal boy fan club up there.

Her coach was pleased and commented to several people that it is very rare for someone to place first in both catagories at state. He said that he could count on one hand how many times that has been done. Good job Melissa we can't wait to see what you come up with next year.

Melissa and her duo partner Hanna Hiller

 

 

Melissa and Hanna with their coach Scott Burton

Melissa and her good senior friend Michael

Melissa and her good senior friend Tom

They have their weird hand sign that they always do. It reminds me of that show Mork and Mindy

Idaho's state speech champions

Sisterly Love

I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of Abigail trying to teach Allison how to tie her shoes. Abigail was being so patient as she explained to Allison about the loops and tucking under the laces. I wish they could stay little like this forever.

Prom

Saturday was prom here in Jerome. Melissa went with her "good friend" Terran Tolman. She borrowed a dress this year from the Meservy's. It was beautiful on her and fit her perfectly. Melissa asked me Friday morning if I wouldn't mind feeding her group of 11 the next night. (Yeh - one guy was solo - his date ditched him.) Of course more advanced notice would have been nice but I didn't mind spending ALL DAY Saturday getting dinner ready. I had so much fun decorating the table and preparing the food. It was great to have the kids in our home. I am sure that the boys didn't mind too much saving a bunch of $$$.

I had fun setting up the table

Terran's mom made the corsage.

Melissa and her good friend Mikesell Clegg in the same color of dress. Modest is hottest!

Melissa's group of 11

Blue was the color this year!

Melissa places first at the district tournament

Melissa took 1st with her Original Oratory speech at district this year. It is about the "Um-m-m's of Life". She was super excited but was disappointed that her hilarious duo with Hannah Hiller didn't place. They are still going to state but they didn't receive a trophy. In three out of four rounds they received 1's and for some odd reason they got a 4 in another. The judge commented that they had great acting skills but that they were too loud for him. Melissa now knows his name and how many children he has. Melissa competes at State in Coeur d' Alene this weekend. We are driving up there with our next door neighbors the Thompson's.

Melissa and her duo partner Hanna

Melissa icing her ankle during a break. She sprained it pretty bad at a volleyball practice last week.

The O.O. group that all made it to state

Melissa and her friends

A happy Melissa holding her first place trophy

Spring Break in Spokane

Since Rachel and Hannah couldn't go to Japan as planned, we loaded them in the Lott's suburban and took them to Spokane, WA with us. It is a very LONG drive and wasn't too bad going (we went 1/2 way the first day) but was miserable coming home. It was snowing, and blowing most the way home. It took us about 12 hours to get home because of the weather.
The first day in Spokane we visited a park. Which was pretty in March but is probably beautiful in the later part of  spring and summer. One thing that I love about most parts in OR and WA is there amazing parks.

Our girls are growing up and long trips don't seem to be as draining as they were when they were little.

There were a lot of very noisy birds at the park. I would be completely bugged by them if I lived across from the park and was awoken by their squawking every morning. It is bad enough at home with our pup who likes to bark about 6:00 a.m. every morning.

Allison found the only real flower in the whole park.

After the park we went through our very first cathedral. It was amazing and kind of spooky. The stained glass windows were beautiful. Allie wanted to go to this church. It would be amazing to listen to a group preform in there.

 The cathedral was a landmark location for us. It kind of stood out in Spokane like a temple might in other areas. The next day we drove to Kellogg, ID where we went swimming in a indoor water park. It was expensive and kind of a let down but we had fun.The girls went swimming every day at the various hotels that we stayed in except for on Sunday. They were like fish in a pond! They didn't care where we were going just as long as we had a swimming pool at the hotel!
We were all crammed into a hotel room that we had reserved a few months ahead of time and after two nights of listening to every little movement and coughing girls we switched to where Melissa's team was staying and the only thing that it had going for it was that we were now in two separate rooms.

We watched A LOT of volleyball for 3 days.

Melissa did amazing and hardly missed a serve.

Melissa is pretty excited to be a flag girl here.

Look at that form!

Melissa blocking a ball

Melissa hitting a ball with her face! Ouch!

Melissa can jump!

We had fun in Spokane but it was probably a day too long for us. We were excited to get home. We needed a vacation from the vacation. Really there is no place like home....