The Sports Page

Here's a wrap up of some of the kids' various sporting endeavors since last summer.

Bingham Football - Tillman is the biggest sports fan of all time. That's settled fact. And football is his favorite. His first day of tryouts he made a point of showing up in an Alabama t-shirt (because he likes to represent) which got him noticed right away by one of the coaches (who is from Alabama and was also wearing an Alabama t-shirt). That was a good thing since right after that Tillman was diagnosed with a hernia and was unable to hit for the rest of try-out week - and had to sit out a lot. Fortunately, that first impression stuck and Tillman was drafted onto a pretty good team. He had a dream season, eventually settling in as starting free-safety (defense), and was outstanding. They won their division championship. It was super fun.






Untitled from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Following the championship game

With Grandma and Grandpa after the championship

Here's his coach talking about him at the team banquet. Tillman had the time of his life!

Untitled from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Grace decided to try Cross Country this year at her school. She had a great year! She solidly the number 2 girl on the Providence Hall girl's varsity squad. She was super tough! And somehow, while gutting it out, always managed to look sweet and cute. :)








Noble's knee injury turned out to be a torn meniscus. So he was was unable to train or race for two months.

He worked with a physical therapist every week. We connected with her over cross country since her boys also run, so we got to meet up at all the big races for the rest of the season where she would check up on Noble.

When he finally returned to racing he was advised to take it easy and keep it to a 6 min mile pace, which he disregarded. His knee held up but the triple digit temperature almost did him in. Mike had to help him walk to find shade.

 He had another set back soon after returning, twisting his other knee at a large invitational race. Luckily, that was not serious and the physical therapist cleared him to run again.

Bingham CC had a good year with several sophomore boys taking the lead on the team.

The future of Bingham Cross Country - sophomore speed-machines

Region Champs

Getting his post-race hugs...


We had the entire Cross Country team over for dinner and Mike roped in our neighbor, Andrew Brewer, a Bingham mile record-holder and BYU runner, as the evening's inspirational speaker.


It was way fun to watch him race at state.

(You should have seen 91 year old Grandma Tiede jogging all over Sugarhouse Park chasing the pack!)

And then there's Noble's other sport, long boarding...


He and his bff put together some pretty great videos. Here's one from their day at the Daybreak Downhill competition.


Jessie played a little football herself this fall...at the Bingham powderpuff game. It was Juniors vs. Seniors and unfortunately the Juniors dominated. (I'm pretty sure that one Junior girl that scored all the points was actually an NFL plant.) It was fun to hang out as a family at Ron Thorne field and cheer her on. I think Jess probably could have won it though, if there was a prize for trash-talking.  ha ha.


Jess wasn't able to ride very much this past summer because her horse was lame. When Grandpa got home from his mission she was so happy to take a trail ride with him again.


And that's the sports news.

Summertime at Lightspeed

Literally, if you blink around here you might miss an entire season. So, for the record:

* This year the little boys and I decided that we would make Fourth of July shirts. Sully created this design (which of course Abner wanted to duplicate once he saw Sully doing it). I thought they turned out nicely.

* Stay-cationing ... Seven Peaks, long-boarding Provo Canyon, Mountain West Burrito

Noble snuggling up to his giant burrito.

 * Jess had an impromptu photo-shoot with Dolli.  Here's one of the pics. Pretty girls.

* Girls camp 2016 - JR Property. 

The A-Team. Backpacking with the 4th years. 

The Bishop captured this sweet moment with Grace and her posse on their sunrise hike.

*While the girls were away at girls camp Sully was introduced to the dusty world of Cub Scout Camp. In the days leading up to it he could hardly contain his excitement. He was in heaven with all the Cub Scout pomp and circumstance, the silly skits, the adventure...This picture says it all.

* Mike and I celebrated 19 years of marriage. Dinner at Log Haven and a quiet walk in the woods...

*Jess and her homie, Cassie took their first solo-road trip (also Cassie's Senior trip) to St. George last week. They weren't entirely on their own since they stayed with Mike's parents. They had a packed itinerary: swimming, a show at Tuacahn, shopping, hiking in Zion and a visit to the temple. 

* Meanwhile... Noble spent an eventful week in Lake Powell with the varsity scouts. Lots of sun, water, food, fishing, a trip to the emergency room in Price (not Noble), tire damage, and food poisoning (also not Noble, thankfully). Noble came home with a torqued left knee (excusing him from two weeks of XC workouts - in lieu of real running, he was prescribed "aqua-jogging" at the rec center pool) but with plenty of great memories. He'd go back in a heart beat.

* Reno-with-Roy has picked back up again after a brief hiatus (i.e., all our camps and Roy's camps).

They poured the concrete foundation for the spiral staircase which was installed earlier this week...without a handrail on the top landing - (what the??!). Apparently they have to do it that way so they can measure after the staircase is installed. Then they manufacture the railing. In the meantime I have to keep an army of neighborhood children off this shiny new death trap. It should be completed Monday. Wish us luck for a safe weekend. 

* We finally made it official -  Noble's Eagle Scout Court of Honor was held this past Sunday.

I wish I had taken the time to get some better pictures of Noble with family members and his leaders. Thanks to Mike's dad for getting some and sharing them with us.

Grandma came sporting her own boys' Eagle Scout pins.

One of the best parts of the Court of Honor was the color guard - all brothers of the Eagle candidates. There were two older, already Eagle Scout brothers who directed, two scout age brothers (including Tillman), and two Cub Scout age brothers, which including a very earnest and excited Sully, who prayed the night before that he would do well helping with the color guard especially because he was just 8 years old. He took his duty seriously. I wish that we had taken a good picture of the group of brothers together. By the way, Sully only bumped into the wall and ceiling a few times, and nearly missed dragging the flag of Utah through the food on the table on his way out. But as people moved to help him,  he refused, determined to do it on his own. It was awesome!

* For a few years I have felt drawn to do something to help with refugees, but I didn't know what to do. When I watched the Women's Session of LDS General Conference this past April, I felt that my prompting was validated and now I had a direction in which to go. We signed up a few months ago through Catholic Community Services to volunteer with newly arrived refugee families. We attended the meetings, went through the background checks and recently we were assigned, with other members of our group. to an Afghani family with a mom, grandma and 5 kids. They arrived last week. Already this has been an awesome experience, especially for the kids. When it was time to meet them at the airport I wasn't sure if I should bring all of our kids, but decided to bring them (all but Abner). I was so glad that I did. When the family, speaking no English, stood there shaking our hands a little nervously, it was the sight of our children that put them at ease. They smiled, walked up to each of them and kissed their cheeks. Grace said it was the coolest experience ever. We are assigned to help out for up to two years with this family. I'll keep you updated on the process.

Life is good.

Progress

First: Renovation News.

We gotta lotta dust.

(De)Construction continues at the Melton house.

If I had known how much DUST grinding and buffing concrete floors was going to create I might have thought twice about a finished concrete floor. I remind myself that it will be cool.

We are starting to see some of the fruits of our labors.

Our friend, Frank Catmull and his son put up the batten board in the living room and built a cabinet for the water shut off valve in the basement (yay!!!).

Here's the (sort of) finished product (before the final coat of paint). I think it's a definite improvement and breaks up the monochromatic brown of our house a little bit. I still need to get some things up on the wall to finish it off, but you get the idea.

The electrician came and brightened up the basement even more...

...we also had them install lighting under the deck on the upper patio. This picture is from Grace's 14th birthday party where we tried it out it for the first time. The spiral stairs off the deck are being manufactured and should be installed before the end of July.

For now, Roy is chipping away at the framing and sheet rock patching. Next steps will include staining and sealing the floor and then painting the basement and getting the kitchen cabinets delivered.

Other forward strides: 

We finally got the horse runs cleaned out at the barn, and new sand laid down.

Mom and Dad - Thank you for having a place where my kids have learned to do the "dirty jobs". Work is so important. Look at these confident, capable kids.

While Holly and Bruce were out of town for two weeks we added feeding the horses twice a day to our routine. Tillman was eager to do it (because I told him I would pay him a little something - and he is earning money towards his football registration) even though he is VERY allergic to horses. Every day he insisted on going. He would take a deep breath, dash into the barn, shoveling and feeding as fast as he could to avoid breathing in the dust for as long as possible. After the horses were fed he would come running out of the barn again as fast as he could straight into the house where he would wash his face and hands in an attempt to minimize the impact. Then he would sneeze, rub his eyes, and blow his nose and cough for the next hour until the reaction passed. One day I suggested that he use one of the construction masks we have kicking around the basement to see if it would help. He was skeptical but what do you know, it worked! He was able to feed the horses the last few days in relative comfort. We joked with him that now that we have discovered a solution to his disability, he should do 4H with the girls. He didn't think that was a great idea.

Our determined Tillman.

 Grace ran her first 5k - a very difficult trail run course above their school in the hills of Herriman. She not only beat me handily with a respectable sub-30 time, but was the third overall female finisher, earning herself a medal. I was proud of her. She plans to run on the Providence Hall Cross Country team this fall.

Don't tell anyone, but we've been sleeping on the same mattress for nearly 19 years. In our defense, it was a pretty high quality mattress gifted to us by Mike's parents as a wedding present - and I figured two small-ish people can't wear out a mattress that quickly, right? I had a hard time justifying the expense of a new mattress while our old one seemed perfectly good. Mike had been complaining of morning stiffness and finally insisted that he would NOT let our mattress hit 20 years. And just like that - we have a new space age mattress - and I LOVE IT. The first few nights I don't think I moved at all in my sleep and I had a hard time waking up in the morning. It was like my body was saying, "Why have you been holding out on me?! I'm not moving from this spot!"

It arrived in this bundle - and once cut from the wrapping grew into a full-depth mattress. Our buff UPS man RAN up to our porch with this over his shoulder, and as he laid it down, pointed at the weight on the shipping label as a warning not to try to move it myself, "110 lbs.." 

Abner graduated from the lofty academic heights of the Big Kids on the Block Preschool with high honors (i.e., the alphabet necklace awarded to those who had attained mastery of the English alphabet). Watch out Kindergarten!

Abner and Finn - natural smiles.

Abner with our neighborhood buddies.

I could watch this video again and again. Sweet Abner.

Untitled from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Sully took swimming lessons. Here's a video of relay day. It took Sully a minute to get in his back kicking groove.

Untitled from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Sully has been hard at work making plans for his up-coming 8th birthday party. Last week he handed me this schematic with this explanation: "First, someone teaches us to mow the lawn. Then we have lawn mower races, then we go to the Dollar Store, then we open presents, eat cake and then play until everyone's moms pick them up." A perfect plan.

Noble went to EFY in Provo with his BFF, Noah.

Settling in. They were SO excited.

They had a WONDERFUL time. In the past we've been on the fence about EFY; Mike used to jokingly refer to it as "Especially For Rich Kids." We made the plans with this friend earlier in the year - and I have to say it couldn't have come at a better time. It was life changing for Noble. Literally. So we're all in now. 

Anything that helps one of my children in a time of need has my support.

Summer wear.

The girls had their first horse show of the year. Considering that we've barely been to practice this year, the girls (and their horses) did exceptionally well. Grace and Pecos got a blue ribbon in one of their show events and Jessie and Dolli cleaned up in speed events. It rekindled the flame in both of them - they are excited for the next show.

Blues make Grace smile.

Pecos got spooked by a downed pole and Grace went for a little bronc ride. 

She stayed on. No big deal. ;)

Youth Conference 2016

When I was released from the Young Women's organization at church a few months ago I was bummed that I was going to miss youth conference this year in Zion and Bryce Canyons. So when the Bishop called me in about a month ago and asked me to be on the planning committee I was excited. 

We stayed at a little formerly-KOA camp ground between the parks on highway 89. The first day a bunch of kids played a version of pool volleyball with a piece of twine strung across the pool and broken tether ball. They played this for HOURS. (Noble and a few other kids decided instead to explore the near-by hoodoo cliffs...without telling anyone where they were going, by the way. Ughh.)

My assignment was to plan the camp activities. The result was an "Iron Rod Challenge" - where the kids participated in team-building challenges that we related to gospel principles and "holding to the Iron Rod." 

The first was - "Experiment upon the Word". The kids split into teams, and each team tried the Diet Coke / Mentos experiment - related to Alma 32 - planting the seed, and the good seed swelling and growing. They had a good time.

We also did "The River of Filthy Water" where the kids had to cross a span using just enough "stepping stones" (paper plates) for each of them, they had to get their team across without falling off.

There was "The Human Knot" - an object lesson for repentance.

Lastly, they had to "Press Forward" - (keep an inflated balloon wedged between themselves and the person in front of them without hands and press forward toward a Tree of Life).

In the end we made a Tree of Life (no picture - sorry) for them by inflating white balloons with a glow stick inside, and hanging them from a tree with ribbon. Attached was a "Hold to the Rod" key chain / pendant. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite dark enough by the time we reached the tree for the glow sticks to have their effect - but the Bishop fixed that by working it into his message. He told them to take their "fruit" with them back to their tents where the light would remind them tonight of the love of God. I think it worked out nicely. 

Day 2 - Zion. 

We began the day with a hike on the Zion Canyon overlook trail - one I have never done. 

After lunch we headed for the Narrows. 

WOW. So, so beautiful.

 Noble lead the cliff jumping at a deep spot. (I was super nervous watching.)

This little buck had nowhere to hide up the Narrows.

That night we had testimony meeting - such a sweet experience for me with 3 of my kids. The next day we went to Bryce and did the Queen's Garden hike and had a message before eating lunch and heading home. 

On the shuttle in Bryce.

Meanwhile, Mike had the taken the youngest 3 kids to St. George to visit Mike's parents (and Mike snuck up to be with us on our Zion day).

Hiking in Kolob.

They had their own adventures, especially on their way home on Wednesday, The truck lost power on a hill about 25 miles south of Fillmore. Mike had to call a tow truck that took them into their shop in Holden. Things worked out: the tow truck driver ended up being the brother of a lady in our ward, the boys happened to have their bikes - so they spent the afternoon riding around Holden visiting Mike's ancestral home, the cemetery where Mike's grandparents are buried, and the vending machines on Main Street. Mike's dad went above and beyond the call of duty, driving all the way up from St. George to pick up the stranded boys and bring them into South Jordan so that I didn't have to turn around and go back. (Dad of the year! Thank you!) The repair turned out to be fairly minor, and Mike, through a series of (un)fortunate events got a free shuttle ride to Fillmore to pick it up today. Tender mercies.

So that's our news.

Onward!