BLOG UPDATE

Wow! Time sure flies fast...it's been over a month since we have updated this blog and it's about time we do. The past month has been busy so we have plenty to post! The next few posts will update everyone on what's been going on in our lives the past few weeks. We hope you enjoy and since New Years is right around the corner, we have decided that a good resolution for our family is to update this more often. :) Just for the sake of having a picture, this is a fun one of the last day of school before the break...

A few of the cheerleaders sportin' our Christmas cheer!

We would like to wish everyone the merriest Christmas! This is such a wonderful season and means so much more than just the gifts and materialization of it all. Here is a great quote from our dear prophet Thomas S. Monson:

"Giving, not getting, brings to full bloom the Christmas spirit. Enemies are forgiven, friends remembered, and God obeyed. The spirit of Christmas illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world's busy life and become more interested in people than things. To catch the real meaning of the "Spirit of Christmas", we need only drop the last syllable, and it becomes the "Spirit of Christ". When we have the spirit of Christmas, we remember Him whose birth we commemorate at this season of the year. My prayer is that at this Christmas season and all the Christmastimes to come, we may follow in His footsteps. Then each Christmas will be the best Christmas ever."
-Thomas S. Monson

We wish the same for everyone and will definitely be updating soon.
Happy Holidays!

December and Aaron's Birthday

The month of December has been a busy one. The three weeks before Christmas just can't stick around at all. Between basketball games, music lessons for all of the kids, homework, actual working (for Greg and Marja), shopping, and all of the Christmas festivities going on, Christmas creeps up on all of us. This year, the cheerleaders got to cheer at a basketball tournament in St. George. So all 16 of us piled up in vans and headed down. Our coach and a few of the cheer parents (my mom included) were gracious enough to drive us down so we didn't have to make the 6 hour drive in an uncomfortable school bus. We left on a Thursday afternoon and came home on Sunday. It was such a fun weekend! Here are just a few of the pictures because if I put them all on, the blog would never end :)

Friday night at the Sky View/Dixie game

My cousin Jessica and myself...our teams (Sky View and Dixie) finally got to play each other so we were able to cheer at the same game our senior year! It was so fun to be able to do that!

Eating suckers at the Pizza Factory. My mom just fit right in with all of us and the girls loved her! :)

Our gorilla tape experiment! Our family is known for being quite the "Clampets" and this is another perfect example :)

My mom and me on the long drive back to Logan

Next thing is a little update from Matt! This is his first Christmas away from home and we're sure that it will be one of his most memorable! We have had some trouble with the mail the past little while and his packages have been getting stolen. Both my mom and grandma sent him one at the beginning of the month and neither package was received. That has been very frustrating but not to worry, we figured out a way around that! For his Christmas package, my mom Fed-Exed it to a ward member's home (the family actually used to be in our ward but moved because the husband is in the army and are now stationed in El Paso). They are having Matt over for dinner tonight (Christmas Eve) and will deliver it to him then. He is doing very well though! He sent us a few pictures a couple weeks ago and we'll include those. We are so excited to get to talk to him tomorrow! I would dare say that my mom is probably the most excited but all of us are anticipating it :) Anyway, here are the pictures he sent us...

Sergio's baptism with the Valdez family

Elder Camp, Elder Hubbard, Elder Davis, and Elder Bagley with the Montez family. Matt has frequently expressed his love for this family!

And last but not least, Aaron's birthday was just last week! His birthday is exactly a week before Christmas, December 18th, so he is our Christmas baby. Actually, let me correct that, he is our Christmas almost teenager!! Aaron turned 11 this year...he is growing up so fast! I remember when he was born 11 years ago and we brought him home from the hospital just days before the wonderful holiday. He was so precious and still is. I don't think I know a sweeter kid than Aaron! School was still in session on his birthday and it was another busy day. He was so patient to wait until after school, after dinner, after a SV basketball game and wrestling match, and after ice cream to finally open his presents at about 9:30 that night. But once he finally got to, he was one excited kid! He had a nice birthday dinner the next night and all was well :) Here are a few photos of the night.

Aaron the birthday boy!

Aaron and Jared

Jared, Marja, Aaron and Greg

Aaron and Megan

Grandma and Grandpa came over for the festivities!

Thanksgiving and such...

Thanksgiving was fabulous for our family this year! But before we discuss those details there are a few things that happened before. First of all, my Sadie Hawkins (Girl's choice) dance was the weekend right before Thanksgiving and it was so much fun! It was definitely in my top 2 favorite dances I've ever been to. The cheerleaders were in charge of planning the whole dance...that means decorations, DJ, royalty..the whole enchilada! We all went as a big group of 16 girls plus our dates and boy was it crazy! Here are just a few pictures of the eventful day.

My date Zach and me waiting to get pictures at the school

A few of the couples at dinner at my friend's beautiful home

Zach and me at dinner

Most of the girls in the group

The next thing we want to talk about is our missionary! Matt has been doing wonderful and is still located in El Paso. We look forward to his letters and experience the same emotions of happiness, disappointment and excitement that he does. A few days after Jared's birthday, he sent some pictures with his email! So here they are...we love sharing these!

Matt sportin' a sick old suit that he and Elder Camp discovered in their closet. He claimed that he could barely squeeze into it!

Elder Bagley, Destiny, Elder Camp, and Ray at the kid's baptism. This was Matt's first baptism :)

Matt's birthday greeting for Jared (he always used to call Jared "Cadillac" because of Jared's obsession of cars when he was about 2. Jared was very passionate about cars and Cadillacs specifically. He would pronounce the car brand like "Ca-lack-a-lack" and ever since then, the name has stuck with him!)

Finally, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! We unfortunately couldn't go down to St. George with my dad's side of the family, so we stayed here in the valley and spent the day with the Mecham side. It was great though! We went out to Michelle and Chris Daines's house and stuffed ourselves full of the tastiest food :) It was delicious! The spirit of the season was definitely packed into their home that day. Also, Aaron and Jared got quite the holiday surprise! Dave Chambers arranged for the boys to meet Diondre Borel and Robert Turbin (quarterback and running back for the USU football team). Now, we understand that Utah State may not have the best football team but it was still so fun for the little boys to meet them! They got autographs and pictures and had a great time! Thanks again Dave! Thanksgiving is truly a time to realize our blessings. How blessed we are to live where we do and be so close to family. How blessed we are to have the gospel in our lives as well. Anyways, here are a couple pictures from Thanksgiving!

Diondre Borel, Aaron, Jared, and Robert Turbin

Borel (quarterback) passing the ball to Jared

Turbin (running back) hamming it up for the camera with Aaron

All of the girls out at the Daines

Thanksgiving wouldn't be itself without football! My dad, Aaron, Jared and little Braden

Grandma and Grandpa Mecham :)

Sisters--Michelle and Marja

And finally, for a last little side note, I have some exciting news. My high school is doing "Peter Pan" for our winter musical. Auditions were the 11th of November and I gave them a shot, hoping for the best. Here is a little background of the audition:
Murphey's Law is out to get me because the night before auditions, I started feeling a little sick...the whole sore throat/runny nose/yucky cold kind of sick. So the day of auditions I woke up and funny thing, my voice was gone! I sounded like a raspy teenage boy haha. Anyways, about 10 minutes before they started I called my mom and had decided that it would be ricidulous to audition considering my health and how my voice sounded so I wasn't going to do it! But she gave me confidence and after seriously thinking about how I would feel after not auditioning, I decided to just go for it...voiceless and all! Anyways, to make a long story short, I got called back for some of the lead parts and ended up getting the part of PETER PAN!

Luckily, the directors all knew my voice and capabilities because I have worked with all of them in previous shows. I am so excited to get to play this part. Now, it probably seems a little odd that a girl is playing the part of a young boy. The reason is...because Peter is a young boy, and young boy's voices haven't dropped yet, the songs are all written much higher than a teenage boy could ever sing. So in all of the productions (from Broadway to high school) Peter has been played by a girl. This part will definitely be a stretch for me but I am excited to fly! It will be such a fun experience. It will be showing the second week in February so if anyone will be around to come see it, just let us know and we can get you details! :)

Jared's Birthday

November 15th was a BIG day at our house this year. It was Jared's 9th Birthday and let me tell you, he was counting down the days at least a month or two before. The kid couldn't wait! It was quite a fun day considering he had planned the whole thing out as well. He woke up and had a delicious french toast breakfast then played with friends the rest of the day. That night he opened his presents and we went bowling as a family. It was really fun and i'm pretty sure that my dad ended up beating us all...who knew that he was a good bowler? :) Anyways, to Jared's happiness, his birthday ended up stretching into the next day because we had his favorite chicken dinner on Sunday and a little family party (including Grandma and Grandpa Mecham and the Daines family) for him that night. It was a fun birthday!

Aaron and Jared on Jared's Birthday. They are wearing MEXICO shirts which were a little gift from Matt :)

Jared bowling

Aaron bowling

My dad, me, and my mom at the bowling alley

I like to call this picture "Jared and the Giant Candle." This was on Sunday night for his family party.

Also, on November 15th, SV Cheer had our annual "Kid's Camp". It is a day where little girls ages 3 to about 12 get to come to the school and we teach them dances, cheers, kicks, jumps, etc. and they get to be little cheerleaders! Then a week later they get to perform at a halftime for a basketball game. This year was so much fun and I was in charge of the 9-10 year old girls. They were such dolls and so I thought I would include a picture with a few of them!

A bunch of the little 9-10 year olds

They thought this little trick was pretty cool looking! :)

Football and Halloween!

The past few weeks have been full of football and, of course, lots of Halloween spirit! Sky View finished up it's region games sitting in 3rd place. Our last home game was a cold one but it was a successful victory! Here are a few pictures from that night.

Our cheer squad and Paws the mascot!

The seniors last game cheering for football!

A Victory!

My 3 best friends on the cheer squad :)

But the main highlights of our past weeks were our lovely Halloween festivities! First off, my parents went to a ward Halloween party for the adults. My mom hates dressing up, mostly because she doesn't like coming up with a costume idea. But my dad was thrilled to be "creative". His two choices of costumes were either a) nerds or b) farmers. Well, his natural farmer/gardener instincts took over and that is what they ended up being! Here are some pictures...to my mom's excitement. ;)




Next, were some of my fun Halloween activities! I went to Frightmares on a date with some friends and had a blast! I also carved an "Incredibles" pumpkin with a bunch of friends from High School Musical. I hadn't carved a pumkpin for a long, long time so oddly enough, it was pretty fun to dip my hand into the pumpkin guts and feel the slimy seeds and insides slither through my fingers! Well, as fun as that can be! :) Finally, my cheer squad had a pep assembly against our rival team Mountain Crest and the theme was "Bury the 'Stangs". So we were able to base the whole pep rally on Halloween. I choreographed a dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and we had a blast performing it! Here are a few pictures of my Halloween excitement!

A Little Halloween Collage

Frightmares Fun!

Our Halloween pep rally

Thriller!

And last but not least, cute Aaron and Jared have been participating in all the Halloween excitement as well. They are loving all of the football games from high school level to NFL. Sweet Aaron's favorite college team is the Texas Longhorns, who as of Friday night were ranked #1. Unfortunately, last night they lost to rival Texas Tech in a heated battle. Aaron was so sad! He was literally moping around the house thinking that all was lost. Both boys get very involved! These two boys are football fanatics. Or maybe a better way to say that is sports fanatics in general. Anyways, this year they both dressed up for Halloween. Jared was a vampire (for the 3rd time in a row) but he chooses to be that so we figure, hey why not?! Aaron chose to be a nerd this year...much to my delight! I am always the one who has to play the part of a "nerd" in skits, pep rallys, etc. so I was thrilled to see Aaron choose this costume! He looks great :) Here are a few pictures...

Jared the vampire

Aaron the nerd

This Halloween season has come to an end and it is now time to look forward to Thanksgiving! This season is definitely my favorite season! Between all of the festivities, beautiful fall colors, yummy foods and much more, I feel so blessed to live where I do and with the family that I have. I'm sure most people would argue the same thing, but I have the best family ever! No question :) Oh, a little side note about our missionary Matt! He is doing wonderful and we look forward to his letters every week. He just got his first few baptisms this last week and we are so happy for these new members! He especially is excited because now they get to enjoy the wonderful blessings that we have enjoyed our whole lives. How lucky we are to have the gospel as a staple in life. Anyways, I will try to keep this blog updated and I'm still in the process of teaching my mom how to do a little blogging! :) Until next time, buenos dias!

Beginning our Blogging Adventure!

Hello everybody! This is Megan and I took the initiative to start our family's blog. My mom and I love looking at family and friend's blogs so we decided it was time to jump onto the blogging bandwagon. A lot has been going on in our lives lately so we will do a brief update on our adventures.

Matt has been out on his mission for about 5 months now! My mom thinks that it has been about the longest 5 months of her life! :) We all miss him a lot, but he is doing really well. He is currently serving in El Paso, Texas. He has mentioned a few times how grateful he is to be on this side of the border. There are a lot of scary things happening in Juarez, Mexico right now. Anyway, just the other day, a sweet lady from the ward he is attending emailed my dad some cute pictures of Matt and his companions! This family had the missionaries over to eat after a baptism earlier in the day. We were so excited to get these pictures...so here they are for everyone to see! He still looks like the same ol' Matt!


I am very busy with cheerleading. Football season is well underway and the games are beginning to get very intense! This last week, Sky View played rival high school Mountain Crest in a heated battle! The final score was MC 41 to SV 38...a sad loss in overtime! But despite the sad outcome, the games have been lots of fun to cheer at and my family is so supportive and comes to almost all of them! Here are a few pictures of my cheer experience so far this year. Also, I'm including a picture from the Homecoming Dance! :)


Also, I just finished performing in a community musical of "High School Musical On Stage". Now, this sounds a little lame, but it was honestly very fun! I had the role of Taylor McKessie so I got a chance to have speaking lines and singing solos! It was my first lead I have ever had in a musical so it was such a good experience. I made so many friends and the shows turned out wonderful! In fact, a man even asked us what city we were going to next, thinking that we were the touring company! :) That was quite the compliment. Here are a few photos of the musical...

A few of us during cast call
"Chad Danforth" and "Taylor McKessie"
"Taylor McKessie", "Kelsi Nielsen", "Gabriella Montez", "Sharpay Evans"
A bunch of the leads playing around after rehearsal
All of the leads and our director

Aaron and Jared are busy with sports, sports, and oh did I mention sports?! That is their life these days. Between football and basketball with all the practices and games, it sure keeps my mom on her toes. She is a good "sports" mom and faithfully goes to all of their games. They are doing very well on their teams. Jared played tackle football for the first time this year and loved it! He would always say "it's just so fun to hit people!" He played the position of center because he was THE only kid on the team who could hike the ball! Aaron also played football this year but he decided he just wanted to play flag. He has quite the arm on him and was always playing the position of quarterback! He is very accurate. He also played pitcher on his baseball team this summer. They both are involved in fall basketball too. So here are some pictures of the boys and their sports. But along with their constant sports diet, they are both doing excellent in school, attend scouts, and are learning to play the piano...I am very pleased about that! :)

Jared's football pictures
Aaron pitching this summer

So there is our little family update. Marja and Greg are doing very well and keep busy with the craziness of life! It never seems to slow down. We are grateful to have a missionary out right now because he gives us such inspiring letters and those really help us throughout the week. Halloween is just around the corner and so our creative juices are starting to brew...we have got to get some costume ideas! :) Anyway, my goal is to teach my parents, specifically my mom, how to handle the blog but until then, I will try keeping this updated!