Volleyball update...

This is the last week of volleyball season. It's been a great year for the Bengals! I am so sad it's almost over.

Our JV team ended the season undefeated in league play. (14-0) We never lost a match or a game with in a match! The boys had a great season! The last match of the season Mitchell got to start varsity. We were pretty excited. It was a fun surprise. He played great. He and Ben (the other jv/varsity player) played the whole first game and half of the 3rd game. We won all 3 easy.

great set!

Check out how high Parker got on this hit!

This is our front row for next year... the juniors.

May 7th was the JV tournament at the end of the season. We played great on Friday night. Won all 3 matches, 2 of them were close! We made it to the gold bracket for Saturday.

Saturday didn't go as well. We lost the 1st match, it was close. Then we won the second and lost the 3rd to Centennial. It was so close! I think it was a disadvantage to our boys that our league was not very challenging this year. We had never lost a game or been behind by more than one or two points, so when we played the tough teams in the other leagues, we didn't know how to fight back. They boys got frustrated with each other and the coach when we got behind. It was a bummer. They had the talent, they just didn't know how to work together under pressure. The last ref was terrible and that made the loss even harder. It was sad. But they had a great season and should be very proud of themselves!

Varsity is in the state finals this week! We had some close matches last week! The match against Palo Verde to determine who would play in the regional championship match was way too close. We won the first game and then lost the next 2 and then came back to win the last 2. I think I almost had a heart attack. Then we played the regional championship game against Shadow Ridge on Friday night and we won the first 2, lost 2 and won the 5th. So, crazy! But we won and we are the Sunset Regional champs. The State semi final match is tomorrow night against Silverado. Wish us luck!

Deception Pass

I was able to spend Sunday (May 1st) with my sister Julie and my brother David. I grew up in a family that loves to spend a beautiful day, out in nature. And as you know, it rains a lot in Seattle, so when we happened to have a beautiful day, especially after a lot of rainy days, we would drop everything and head out to see the sun. That's how my parents raised us. I remember my dad coming in and waking us up early in the morning on a Saturday morning telling us that we were headed to the mountains or the beach because it was going to be a sunny day. I know this is hard for my Vegas friends to understand... but it is true. You take advantage of blue sky days in the Pacific Northwest. And if that sunny day happens to land on a Sunday, you just might have to spend the car ride listening to church history tapes and enjoy Gods creation in a reverent manner. That is what we did last week. I was in town, it was sunny and nature was calling us!

We went to one of our favorite places, Deception Pass. It's about 2 hours north of Seattle.

My sister Julie and hubby Gary and their 2 boys, Vincent and Andrew came and my brother Dave and Natalie came. (Rebecca and Tiffany were in Utah for the weekend, bummer) And then my cousin Craig decided to join us. He brought his 3 boys. It was great to see everyone!

Dave and Vincent hitting rocks into the water...

I think this stick is a little big Dave...

Vincent gathering more sticks... (the rocks would break them)

It's so pretty there!!!! This is our secret beach. The other parks around the bridge are really crowded.

Julie making lunch...

Yummy lunch!

Julie is the official photographer. Most of these pictures are hers.

We went on a little hike up to this beautiful view point...

Natalie taking it all in..

Craig and Dave catching up...

Relaxing and enjoying the view...

check out the moss growing on the tree!

Dave and Natalie watching the fisherman below...

We have a game where we sit on the beach and try to throw rocks into a bucket... the bucket kept getting closer and closer to the water and eventually rolled in... Julie went to get it and the boys kept tossing rocks at her... little buggers!

We drove over to the bridge and walked across it. It's so cool. The currents below are what they named the pass after. The currents go every direction and cause little whirlpools and it's almost impossible to swim across. Small boats have a hard time crossing because the currents are so strong and deceiving... hence the name "Deception Pass".

Julie's good looking family...

walking under the bridge...

The three middle Westra's. (I am the actual middle child of 9 kids, Julie is the one older than me and Dave is right below me.)

My cousin Craig and 3 of his 4 kids. Kyle, Christopher and Connor.

Dave, Andrew and Julie

See all the currents? You can see the cascade mountains in the background if you look close... to pretty!!!!! It's days like this that I wonder why I am living in the desert??? Actually, I'm not sure I could live there after living here this long. I have learned to love the sun and I think the clouds everyday would make me crazy. But, I do want to visit this beautiful place more often!

I can't wait to take my family back to Seattle. It's been a really long time since we have all been there.

I loved spending the day with family!

BYU-H Reunion

In the fall of 1985 I went to BYU-Hawaii with my good friend Suzanne. Suzanne and I grew up together, our families went camping together, we were in the same ward until we were 12, we went to high school together and eventually became roommates at college. We had a blast at BYU-Hawaii. I still remember the night we decided to go there. We were both accepted to BYU Provo and it didn't feel right. Suzanne came over late one night, I snuck out my window (sorry mom and dad... It didn't happen very often) and we went to Denny's and talked. We felt like we wanted more of an adventure and decided on Hawaii. I remember going to school the next day and no one believed us that we were really going to go to Hawaii. But we did! We made some great friends there. One of them was a girl named Alison who was from Vancouver BC. We hit it off immediately. We called her Allie and me Allison. We stayed close friends for years and roommates in Provo. And sadly after we all got married we didn't keep in touch as much.

Suzanne and I hadn't heard from Allie in a few years so we found her a few months ago and found out that life had thrown her some hard curve balls and she needed some cheering up. We planned a girls weekend to go see her in Vancouver and then Suzanne found out that "Time out for Women" was going to be in Seattle last weekend, so we met there instead. We had a great weekend together and reminisced about old times in Hawaii and Provo.

The day we got there we did some shopping. We went to this really cute set of shops up in Everett.

When we got back to Suzanne's we found this...

Our good friend Mimi was going to join us and at the last minute she couldn't come, so she sent us this... it was delicious!

The three of us took this picture at Pike Place Market in Seattle in 1987 (i think)
We thought it would be fun to take another one.

The new one...

Lunch at a little greek restaurant...

Walking around Pike Place Market... so fun!

We spent Friday evening and all day Saturday downtown Seattle at the Benaroya Hall for "Time Out for Women." There were some great speakers this year. John Bytheway, Miriama Kallon, Michael McLean spoke Friday night. I loved them all.

This is all the Speakers on Saturday. They were good too. I can't remember all their names...


I saw this teriyaki place on Friday night and knew that was what I wanted for lunch on Saturday... I thought about it all morning. Not sure I got much out of the morning speakers because I was so excited for good Seattle teriyaki. It wasn't as good as Teriyaki Madness in Kirkland... but it was definitely better than what we have here in Vegas.

We sat at this park looking over the waterfront and ate our lunch. It was a beautiful day! It was hard to go back into the conference. I wanted to go wander the streets of Seattle and walk down to the water... Oh well, next trip!

People laugh when I tell them that my high school mascot was a totem pole (the Sammamish Totems.) But they are part of the history in Seattle. So cool.

After the conference we went over to Bellevue (my actual home town) and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with our good friend and my cousin in law Mauri. (she married my first cousin and she was a good friend through high school and college... I love that we stay in touch so good because we are related now!)

We ordered all appetizers and shared them... yum!

(It looks like the people outside are sitting with us)

There were 6 of us that roomed together in Provo and they called us "The Brunettes."

We obviously liked the cheesecake!

I am so glad I was able to go up there and visit my old friends! Hopefully it won't be another 20 years to get together again.