Science Olympiad---Gold Winner!

Elizabeth attended Science Olympiad last weekend....and look what she came back with! Gold medal for Math. Bronze Medal for Astronomy. 6th place in Remote Sensing (the study of satellites orbiting earth.) 6th place in Experimental Design (Basically doing a science fair in an hour.) She can now officially be called a "Clinker" (Someone who clinks when they walk because of multiple medals. She is the first ever at Empire High School.) We are sooooo proud of her.
Okay....So this needs some explanation. This is a picture of Dr. Frank, Empire's Biology teacher. He heads up the Science Club. He couldn't go to the Olympiad because of Vail Pride Day. So the kids made this t-shirt to honor him at the competition. He loved it.

Vail Pride Day

Yesterday was Vail Pride Day. This is a festival that our school district puts on at the County Fairgrounds. It is so fun. There are art shows, writing displays, science projects, Academic Jeopardy, Math Bowls, and lots of performances. This picture above is Charlie with his art project. (It is the vase on the top right.)

Izzie with her Giraffe writing and picture!

Charlie's Academic Jeopardy team.

Janet's Math Bowl team. Janet had quite a reputation to live up to. Elizabeth competed in this competition every year for Old Vail Middle School. Brent Edwards introduced this event. He is also one of the coaches at another middle school. He went through each team and had them test their buzzers to make sure they were working. When he got to Janet's team and the buzzer worked he said, "I wish YOUR'S didn't work, Toller!"

Charlie sang with his choir.

Janet plays her trumpet.

As you can see, it was a busy day. But so much fun. Anne was also there but mainly participated by turning Mom's pages in the music performances, and cheering everyone else on. Elizabeth spent the day in Phoenix at the State Science Olympiad. (I will blog about that later this week.)

Dead Lizards Don't Blink

For Family Home Evening tonight we decided to prepare the garden for planting. We had a lot of fun weeding, shoveling, and raking. While Anne was raking she found a lizard that she thought was dead. But as we picked it up and looked at it, he blinked. We realized he was just hibernating. We all debated what to do with him. But after a little "googling" we decided it was best to put him back in the dirt and bury all but his head. We hope he has a good nap by our strawberry plants! Anne named him "Rooty", because he came from the roots. She seems to think that they are now best friends.

There weren't enough rakes to go around. Elizabeth and Anne argued over this one.

They learn sharing is much better than fighting!

Janet wasn't sure she wanted her picture taken.

No Toller family activity would be complete without Morgan (Isabelle's friend) helping out.

Charlie digs up weeds.

Here is Anne explaining how they found the lizard "Rooty". She is a little crazy tonight. But we still love her...

Ready, Aim, Fire....Explode

Scott and Charlie have an annual tradition of burning all the dead plants from the previous years garden each Spring. Today was the day. Last year we had a jungle of tomato plants, so there was a lot to burn. They have looked forward to burning stuff and acting like "real men." (See the picture.) Upon clearing the garden, they found a lone yellow squash hiding under all the tomato plants. Scott told Charlie to throw it in the fire and we would have cooked squash for dinner. Well.....it didn't quite happen like that. Two hours later, there was quite an explosion. We literally have squash seeds stuck all over our back yard. They also covered Scott. Hmm...very manly. :)

Janet Turns Twelve!

Janet had a great birthday party on Saturday. Just imagine a bunch of twelve year olds watching and singing Enchanted. (Very loudly!) Can you say Advil? Actually, we had a lot of fun. Janet is excited to be a Beehive and go to Young Women's. She is a great kid! Love you Janet!

Christmas Traditions

Painting Christmas cookies is one of our family's favorite Christmas traditions.


Anne made a Buddy the Elf and Christmas Ninja

This year we had our fourth annual Neighborhood Nativity. It was a huge success! We had more people then ever show and up. We all had a great time!