Halliday Family Blog

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Cross Country and Curriculum Night!

Brittany-XCountry-0917Today Brittany had another Cross Country meet!  She was feeling much better than she did on Tuesday and performed much better as well.  She raced hard and passed 3 runners at the end.  She was very excited!  With hard work, she will continue to get better and better as the season progresses.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go see her run, but Angela was there routing her on.  They got a late start and didn’t start running until about 5:30.  At 5:45, Brittany had to go to her IMEA music practice with her violin, so she finished running and then booked on over to that.  They were late, but the directors understood why when they showed up in their cross country uniforms!  🙂

Tonight we also had Metea Valley High School’s first Curriculum Night.  Angela and I were able to go over there (Kirstyn babysat for the first hour until Brittany came home), and go through Sarah’s school day, meet the teachers, and hear about her classes she’s in.  Every time we do this, it makes us want to be back in school just to have fun and learn!  🙂Metea-Mural For the most part, we are very impressed with the faculty at the school.  They are very dedicated to making the school a success and they seem to genuinely love the kids.

As part of the Student Council at Metea, Sarah volunteered to help out at Curriculum Night.  Her responsibility at first was to help Freshman parents with student schedules, and then to help and show people where they needed to go.  It was great to see her doing this!  She’s going to have lots of opportunities like this.

By |2009-09-17T20:12:45-07:00September 17th, 2009|School|0 Comments

Sarah and Brittany Getting Ready for College???!!!

byu_logo_192Tonight was an eye-opener for me!  Sarah, Brittany and I attended a meeting at the Stake Center in Naperville where representatives from the 4 Church Schools (BYU, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii, and LDS Business College) gave a presentation about attending these (or any other) for that matter.  They also talked about the institute programs of the church in cases where a church school was not an option.  They discussed tuition, scholarships, what it takes to be accepted, acceptance rates, housing, activities, sports, service opportunities, and all kinds of other interesting things.  They also gave away t-shirts for correct answers to questions.  🙂

It hit me pretty hard that in just a couple of short years, I’ll have a daughter in college and one right behind!  😐  YIKES!  I’m not ready for that!  My wallet is screaming!  Can you hear it?  🙂

The girls really enjoyed the presentation (informative and also quite funny) and brought home a ton of information as well as a link http://www.besmart.com/ to Angela to look at as well.  We are feeling quite old!  🙂

By |2009-09-16T19:34:17-07:00September 16th, 2009|Church, School|0 Comments

Leadership Council and Cross Country

Today turned out very well!  At work, as part of the Grant Thornton Leadership Program that I am taking part in, one of the areas of the program is to take on a leadership role to give back to the firm.  I was asked to co-chair the IT Leadership Council, a group of my peers and the IT Senior Leadership Team.  It is the responsibility of the group to successfully execute the strategic initiatives that are part of the Fiscal Year 2010 Strategic Plan.  I was pretty stressed about the kick-off meeting that we had today becuase we didn’t have a lot of time to pull together the necessary information and I didn’t know how I was going to present it, but things came together in the end, and the meeting went very well.  WHEW!

Brittany-Still-XC-1On a funner note, today was Brittany’s first Cross Country meet of the season.  She was very excited but a little tentative becuase her knee was hurting her a little bit yesterday and she wasn’t sure how well she would do under these circumstances.  The 8th graders run 2 miles which is an adjustment for her 1.5 mile races she ran last year.  In the end, her knee was fine, but her foot started hurting and she didn’t have the kind of race she wanted, but did well for the first race of the year.  They ran against Fischer which is the middle school that many of her friends who went to Still last year are going now.   Great job, Brittany!  Keep up the GREAT work!

In other notes, Brittany had her first day of Honors Chorus today, and Kirstyn had her first day of chorus as well.  Both are very excited to be singing.  Angela actually walked over to the middle school today to see Brittany run!  It was slow and a little painful, but she is becoming more mobile and her back, although still in a lot of pain, is getting a little better.  We keep up our prayers for her!

By |2009-10-30T05:18:38-07:00September 15th, 2009|Home Life, Work-Related|0 Comments

Still A LOT of Pain…

Angela still is in a LOT of pain and couldn’t even get up to go to church today.  I took all the kids and she was able to get about 4 hours of undisturbed rest.  By the end of the day today, however, she was able to get up by herself (still very slowly) and was able sit for a little while without dying of pain.  Things may be looking up!  🙂

By |2009-09-14T05:58:49-07:00September 13th, 2009|Home Life|0 Comments

Northwestern Band Trip, BYU Wins, and More Pain!

Today was a great day for Sarah!  After getting home from the hospital and getting about 2 hours of sleep, we got up with Sarah and took her to the high school at 5am for a trip to participate with the Northwestern University Wildcat band for pre-game and halftime shows for the football game!

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She had a blast!  There were about 15 other bands from around the area that went to the game, and played with the university marching band.  She was exhausted when they got home!

BYU-TulaneBYU is now 2-0 as they totally walked over Tulane for a final score of 54-3!  This moved them up to #7 in the AP Poll and #9 in the Coaches Poll!  Max Hall looked GREAT and the team is very healthy!  This coming Saturday they play Florida State at home in Provo!  Go Cougars!

Unfortunately, the day wasn’t totally perfect as Angela is still in a LOT of pain.  Zachary and I picked up her prescriptions this morning for pain killers and muscle relaxants and she has been very faithful taking these.  She is still in tears every time her back cramps up.  We have been trying very hard to keep her down and do what we can to make her comfortable.  We continue to keep her in our prayers.

On a more positive note, Kirstyn and I went to PM Music Center and picked up her new Clarinet she will be playing in band!  She is SOOOO excited!  Our wallets are excited too!  She was deciding between the clarinet for band or the bass for orchestra.  It costs $17 a month to rent a clarinet and costs about $600 to buy new.  For a good bass, it costs $40 a month to rent and as much as a car ($20,000) to buy new!  Yikes!  We said she could play anything she wanted, but are kind-of glad she chose the clarinet!  Go Kirstyn!  🙂

By |2009-09-16T03:35:56-07:00September 12th, 2009|Home Life, School|0 Comments

AWESOME Day… Almost Perfect!

Today was a GREAT day!  I got out of work early for an Oakbrook IT picnic at a nearby park.  We had a great time and had lots of food to eat and games to play.  I was there for a couple of hours and then had to leave to see Sarah play in the marching band for the Metea Valley High School home opener football game.

I was going to go over straight from work to meet the family at the stadium, but Angela wasn’t feeling well (back pain – more on that later) and so I drove home, picked up Kirstyn, Zachary, and Ben (Brittany was still at Cross Country practice) and took them to the game with me while Angela stayed at home.  The game was GREAT and Sarah and the Marching Band looked very professional!

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TMetea-FootballOpener3he halftime show went very well!  They went out on the field and started it with the Metea Valley fight song (shown above) and then performed their halftime show, the “Magical Mystery Tour” featuring selections from the Beatles.  They looked very professional out there and very crisp.  Sarah really loves performing in the band this year.  The band director is absolutely wonderful.  She enjoyed the experience last year, but this year is a whole new thing.  The director is much more relaxed, LOVES to have fun, and is great to be around.  All the kids REALLY enjoy him.  She also loves being a marching leader which is giving her some leadership experience.  It’s great to see her out there leading the kids she is responsible for.  🙂

Metea-FootballOpener2

Metea-FootballOpener4The football game also went wonderfully well.  The Mustangs looked GREAT, especially for a team of just freshmen and sophomores!  The Mustangs beat the De La Salle Meteors by a score of 28-13!  Zachary was very excited at the end of the game.  The starting quarterback and team captain (Jarrett House) is a buddy of his from Seminary carpooling last year.  Every day when Angela would drive, Zach would come with and Jarrett would hop in the back and have great conversations with him.  At the end of the game, Zach ran over and waved to Jarrett as he was coming off the field.  Jarrett waved back and then ran out of his way to give Zach a high five and talk to him.  Zach was thinking he was pretty cool because the star football player paid him some attention!  🙂

Brittany also found out some GREAT news today as well!  Last week she tried out for 4 musical things:  1) Chamber Orchestra, 2) Honors Chorus, 3) IMEA (Illinois Music Education Association) participation, and 4) Solo and Ensemble participation.  She made ALL 4!  🙂  She was soooooo excited!  Last year she didn’t make Chamber or Honors Chorus and was very disappointed, but not this year!  She will be a very busy girl before school most days of the week, as these groups don’t practice during school hours.  She will participate in the Solo and Ensemble festival later this year.

When we got home from the game, Angela was in so much pain she couldn’t even stand.  She was in tears it was so bad. Every time she would move, her back would cramp up and the muscles in the lower right side of her back would spasm.  🙁  She said it was worse than labor pains, and she has a VERY high tolerance for pain.  After all, she has had 5 babies and has put up with me for almost 19 years!  🙂  We ended up going to the emergency room at the hospital at about 11pm and were there until around 2am.  They put her on and IV and gave her some pretty strong pain killers and muscle relaxants.  Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep tonight!  🙁  Hopefully with the prescriptions she was given, things will start looking up and she will feel better soon!  It’s very interesting (and frustrating) for her that up until last November, she had never been in the hospital herself for anything other than births, and now she has been there 3 times in less than a year!  😐

By |2009-09-14T05:39:54-07:00September 11th, 2009|Home Life|0 Comments

Sarah in the Naperville Labor Day Parade!

Today we had a great day going to the Naperville Labor Day Parade and watching Sarah march for the first time in full uniform with the Metea Marching Mustangs!  Angela went over early to the High School with Sarah to help everyone get their uniforms out and organized.  It couldn’t have been a more perfect day for a parade… not too hot and not cold like some others have been!

LaborDayParade-1

LaborDayParade-2The Marching Mustangs were near the front of the parade, and even though they only have freshmen and sophomores and 57 band members, they looked VERY sharp!  They even looked better than some of the other high schools in the parade that have all 4 years and much more practice!  🙂

Sarah looked very good as a marching leader and her line at the very front of the group was straight as an arrow and very professional!  As they were marching by, a couple of the moms that were helping grabbed Angela to join in and help with water, etc. so Angela walked with the band in the parade for a little while (mostly to watch their cool turn around the corners) and then came back to sit with us again.

After the parade, we picked up Sarah at the high school and then we went out to eat at CiCi’s Pizza and pigged out on all-you-can-eat pizza, pasta, salad and dessert.  Remember that, Carmen?  🙂  After that, we were so full, that we all came home and took a nap.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning house and doing yardwork.  The yard looks soooo much better now that I finally did some trimming and weed spraying!  🙂

By |2009-09-07T18:11:18-07:00September 7th, 2009|Home Life, School|0 Comments

Cougars Win! Cougars Win!

byu-logo-smWhat a GREAT night for football, as BYU beat #3 ranked Oklahoma to prove once again that the BCS is really a messed-up way to determine a national champion in college footaball!  The Cougars held their own as they looked up at the scoreboard at the end of the game showing a 14 to 13 victory!

Max Hall threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to wide-open McKay Jacobson in the back of the end zone with 3:03 left in the game, taking BYU up 14 to 13.  The Sooners’ last hope to recover and win ended when they came up short on a 54-yard field goal with 1:23 left.  This sent all BYU fans into a frenzy, including those at our house 🙂 and then even more cheering their upset was complete, a stunning end to the first college football game – and first regular-season game – ever played at the brand new, nearly $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium in Texas.

With Utah, TCU, and BYU all in the top 25, with Utah beating Alabama in their bowl game to end their season last year, and now this win over Oklahoma, maybe the BCS folks will start re-thinking about how the west was won!

Go Cougars!

By |2009-09-06T04:38:36-07:00September 5th, 2009|Home Life|0 Comments

September Already!

It’s hard to believe that it’s September already and that the kids have been in school for 2 weeks now.  Zach seems to be doing well and we have had no hint that he’s just got up and wandered out of his classroom during the day.  🙂  Sarah continues to enjoy Seminary and is loving the fact that the new high school is not over-crowded, having only Freshman and Sophomore classes.  Brittany is now running Cross Country.  They have a very small team this year due to the boundary changes in the high schools and middle schools.  She is one of only 3 8th grade girls on the team!  🙂  Kirstyn is doing well also, and just loves her teacher!  We still struggle with not enough time to get everything done and the kids struggle with coming home and getting right into their homework.  😐

YMYWMovieNight-1Tonight we had a young women and young men combined activity at the church and had a lot of fun.  It was originally a movie night, but a large inflatable screen was brought into the gym (probably 10×10 foot in size) and we played Disney Scene-It, boys against girls.  All of the kids were encouraged to dress up as their favorite Disney character, and we had a great showing!  I was one of the judges and it was difficult to pick the top 5 and then to pick the best-dressed character!  As you can see, we had some really wacky costumes, and had some very brave young men show up in full “High School Musical” attire.  🙂  In the end, the winner was Minnie Mouse, just because the cheer from the younger girls was so high-pitched and loud.  The boys couldn’t scream any better!

After the activity, I took Sarah, Brittany, and  Taylor (Sarah’s friend) out for frosties at Wendy’s.  Sorry you missed out on this, Carmen!  They were really good!  🙂

YMYWMovieNight-2

By |2009-09-05T04:50:24-07:00September 3rd, 2009|Church, Home Life|0 Comments

Nauvoo Temple with the Jordan Family

Angela-NauvooTempleToday was a wonderful day!  We left at around 6:30am this morning and drove down to Nauvoo.  Today was a big day for some friends, the Jordan Family.  Carla went through the temple for the first time and then the entire family (Sydney, Carla, and their 3 kids) were sealed together.  It was a very emotional time for everyone there.  Many people from our ward were there to support them.  We all love the Jordan family and to see them all in white in the temple was wonderful!

While we were in the temple, Sarah and Brittany did a great job watching the rest of our kids as well as the kids from 2 other families.  We were kind of nervous about letting them walk around Nauvoo by themselves for a few hours, but they did great!  They walked around to many of the sites, hung out in the visitor’s center, and enjoyed the perfect, cloudless day!  It was kind of stressful for them having all the other kids, but they made it through and had a great time!

It was a quick turnaround for all of us and turned out to be a very long day, but a very enjoyable one.  4 hours drive down, 6 hours in Nauvoo, and 4 hours drive back home.  We are all very tired but it was great to support such wonderful friends.

By |2009-08-30T04:34:41-07:00August 29th, 2009|Church|0 Comments

School Curriculum Nights

Today we had curriculum night for both the elementary and the middle school.  They goofed on the timing, so Angela and I had to split up.  I went to the elementary and she went to the middle school.  Both principals were very apologetic about the mix-up on timing.  Anyway, it was fun to go to both Zachary’s and Kirstyn’s classrooms to see their teachers and learn about the changes this year.  We are excited for this year.  Both Zachary’s and Kirstyn’s teachers are repeat teachers for us.  Kirstyn had Zachary’s teacher, Miss Kalvaitis, and both Sarah and Brittany both had Kirstyn’s teacher, Mrs. Gudgeon.  Mrs. Gudgeon told us to apologize profusely to Kirstyn because she keeps calling her Brittany!  🙂

It was fun for Angela to meet Brittany’s teachers as well.  Mr. DeFarno she had  before, and Ms. Yu and Mrs.  Scott are new to the school.  They all seem very good.  I ran over and joined Angela for the very last presentation at the middle school after I finished up at the elementary.  Crazy night!  With all the changes (new high school and new middle school opening), the population at Brittany’s school is now down from 1150 to 780 or something like that!  It is so much of a more relaxing feel at the school than last year.  They have a new principal who we also met and were very impressed by both her and the two assistant principals.

It looks like our tax dollars are a little harder at work than they were last year.  We are very thankful for that!

By |2009-08-28T04:05:58-07:00August 27th, 2009|Home Life|0 Comments

Another One Down!

Late tonight, I finished the 2009 Hobbs Family Reunion DVD.  Fortunately it fits on 1 DVD and has not only the DVD movie content, but the full-sized photos of all the pictures in the show, a .WMV (Windows Streaming Media) movie file of the slide show, and 2 web albums (1 flash and 1 standard)!  It’s become a family tradition to make  DVDs of all the significant events in our lives (as well as a DVD set for every year).  I’m almost done with the DVD from Carmen’s visit with us this summer.  It will be pretty cool as well!

Speaking of Carmen, it’s hard to believe that it’s almost been a month since she went back home!!!  🙁  We were sitting at the table tonight at dinner and suddenly Zach said…  “I wish Carmen didn’t have to go back home.  I miss her!”  It was very sweet.  We all miss her but have been keeping in contact via e-mail, and Tuenti (Spanish version of Facebook).

Sarah had a great first day of seminary today!  It was quite the drive to get her there (we have to leave between 5:35 and 5:40 to get there on time), but that’s OK.  I think the more we do this, the more we will want to get her a car in October when she gets her license!  🙂

By |2009-08-25T05:54:40-07:00August 24th, 2009|Church, Home Life|0 Comments
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