Growing Boys!

Well, I've been cleaning up and organizing my garage during Spring Break and today one thing I did was put up our well-worn and traveled height-measuring chart. It has been hung in our last three houses and documents how our kids have grown over the years with lots of marks and then the name, date, and age at the time. It's kind of fun to compare how tall our kids are in comparison to each other when they are the same age.

So, after carefully measuring and taping it up in our garage, I measured our three boys (Hannah is still in Mexico and Lani declined to be measured!). Levi is now 4' 8", Caleb is 5' 4", and Micah is up to 6' 2.5"! All have grown quite a bit since their last measurement! Lani and I were laughing as she imagined eventually having to look WAY UP at all her guys!
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We all watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" tonight. That's a good movie! A touching story of character and persistance. It makes me wonder if I could make it through such dire times. It also reminded me how blessed I am.

Spring Break!

Spring Break began for me and all my family yesterday (Friday, Mar. 23)!!! It was so nice this morning to not set an alarm and not have anything we HAD to do today. This is the first Saturday in a looooooong time that there wasn't even one scheduled thing we had to do (no basketball games, no meetings to attend, no rehearsals, nothing!).

So, I enjoyed a lazy morning and read most of the paper and then worked most of the rest of the day on painting and putting up shelving and peg board in my garage. The garage is still needing lots of work, but I reduced a lot of the piles of stuff today, so that it's only about half full of stuff on the floor (now. . . what to do with the remaining stuff. . . hmm. . .).

Hannah left yesterday with about 120 or so teens and chaperones from Abundant Life Church to do a Mission Trip in Mexico, near Ensenado. They all rode the train from here to L.A. -- about a 30-hour ride -- and now should be off the train (they rented about a dozen or so vans) and ready to enter Mexico tomorrow morning. They are supposed to post updates at www.coolchurchyouth.com

Lani's mom is in town, so we're enjoying hanging out in the evenings, and the cousins playing together during the daytime. We played "farkle" tonight and Lani was the winner.

Go Ducks! Beat Florida tomorrow. Quack, quack!! It was fun to see UCLA beat Kansas in a good game. Go Pac-10. USC sure looked good yesterday until they just ran out of steam against N. Carolina. March Madness rolls on.

What a beautiful Spring day!

Today was warm, sunny, a Friday -- just a gorgeous day! We went over 70 (I think for the second time this Spring) and trees and flowers are "bustin' out all over". Only stressful thing was that grades were due for me today at school, so there was extra work last night and during breaks and lunch today and after school until they were all done.

I didn't get to watch it, due to work and the aforementioned grades to finish after school, but I saw that Oregon eeked out a first-round win in the Big Dance today. Glancing at the box score, I see that they were way off on their 3's; they can be the hottest team around when those long shots are falling, but when they go cold then there's not much else to do. Hopefully the hot Oregon team will show back up in their next game against Winthrop.

God bless you wherever you are!

1 week's worth or so of thoughts. . .

Once upon a time I was a fresh new blogger and enjoyed posting every day. These days a week or two can slide by and I may have hardly visited my site (or my friends' pages either). Life just keeps moving.

Last night we hosted a bunch of Hannah's friends here at our home for a surprise 17th birthday party (for Hannah, whose actual birthday is this Sunday). One of her friends had talked to Lani about doing something either at our house or somewhere else -- and we'd been thinking about doing something like this on Saturday night -- so we thought it would be fun. I'm thankful for Hannah's life, for her gifts and talents, and for the quality friends she has made here. We had a house-full and they were all really nice kids!

How about Oregon's men's basketball team? So far they've won two games in the Pac-10 tourney and they sure look strong in doing it. I hope this is a sign that they've got in going for the "big dance". I love college basketball and am eager to watch and follow the NCAA tournament coming up! (One recent year I gave up watching TV for Lent, but stated one exception to my TV fast: I could still watch the March Madness games. Ha!)

We had a couple of days this week that slipped up into the 60's, though it was cooler today. All my 300 or so bulbs I planted are sprouting up and should burst out in beautiful, brilliant colors soon!

I noticed that the berries and bushes and trees along my favorite running trail -- the Springwater Corridor -- are all budding or just starting to leaf out. There's such a joy in the renewal of Spring after the cold, dull months of Winter.

Our Spring Break here is still two weeks away (I saw on a couple of other blogs that I follow where they were starting their break now). We'll have our week off during the final week of March. Seems like a good time for working on projects, sprucing up the yard, and watching good college basketball games!

A few updates

Haven't stopped to blog for a bit. . .

Last weekend when my folks were here, Dad and I put down the laminate floor in our kitchen. I've just about finished doing all the final cabinet trim boards and baseboards/quarter-round now. It's really nice to have it done and it matches the existing dining & living room flooring to a "T"!

Hannah sang at her District Solo Contest yesterday. I thought she sounded pretty good, but her judge gave her a "2" (personally, I thought it sounded like a "1-" or perhaps "2+". Hannah was down about it and Lani and I too. It's hard to know what to say. She really is making improvements in her sound and did a nice job. The girl after her was cracking all the time, couldn't produce a nice, legato tone, and scowled the whole time, yet she got a "2" also. Doesn't seem right to me!

We watched the Academy Awards show tonight. I hadn't really seen many of the nominated movies, but it was a fun broadcast. We kept a pad and pencil handy to write down movies we should rent and ended up with about ten on our list. A lot of the commercials were fun too. Seems like it's almost like you're getting the Superbowl-level commercials for this event.

Valentine's Week

Well, I realized a few days ago that I didn't really have a single free evening this week due to choir rehearsals, kids' basketball practices, games, and pictures, and such, so Lani and I went out to dinner last night.

We went to Red Robin, one of our long-standing favorite places (we actually went there for dinner on our wedding night, instead of the nicer place we had originally planned on!). It had been awhile since just Lani and I went out by ourselves for dinner, so that was nice.

Lani subbed in an elementary music position today for our friend, Phill. Turns out she'll be back there again tomorrow. Interesting that we're both teaching elementary music for these days!

My folks come to visit for this weekend. They'll get to see and hear Hannah sing in the All-N.W. Choir as they perform this weekend! Dad and I may also get a chance to put in our new kitchen floor.

Happy Valentine's Day to you and your special someone!

Sick day

I took a "sick day" today to try to get over a nagging cold. I've had a mild cold for just over a week, but yesterday my throat started to feel more sore and I was sounding stuffed up (people asking all day, "do you have a cold?"). So. . . I figured a day of rest was called for. It was nice to have almost a solid day of vocal rest (except for a phone call or two; my buddy, Willie, called from Tomball).

This is about the least excited I've been about watching the Superbowl since I don't know when. No one has invited us over for any parties or anything and I don't care much about which team wins. I'll probably watch the game; if for no other reason than getting to see how good the commercials are.

Hannah does well at the One-Acts!

Tonight we went to watch "One Act Plays" at Gresham H.S. There were five of them and they were all pretty good (but we, in our unbiased way, thought the one she was in was maybe the best). We were impressed with the acting all around and the student directors.

At the end of the night, they gave out awards (they had six judges). The gave out about 8 or so awards for honorable mention actors and then five or six "Superior Actor" awards for the night and Hannah got one of these! We were so proud! There were lots of talented kids -- probably about 70 or so total actors -- and this was kind of a first real acting role for Hannah. They gave one overall top actor and one top actress award (which one of her friends got). Anyway, it was a fun night of performances and a special honor for Hannah!

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In other news, Lani and I were finally able to go to the "Membership Class" at Abundant Life Church and so now I guess we are real, full-fledged members. There were about 75 people at this class -- lots of new folks coming all the time.

Also, I coached Caleb's YMCA team in their first game today. Caleb had fun and got several rebounds and shots (but no points). We lost the game 10 to 12, but it wasn't too bad for our first outing. I got to see who the "gamers" are and what we need to work on in practice this week.

What a week!

We had a holiday Monday for Martin Luther King Day, then out of school on Tuesday and Wednesday for snow days, then a 2-hour late start on Thursday. . . finally yesterday we had to get up and go to work & school on time!

Today the cold weather has left and we're in the upper 40's. More snow would be nice, but they're forecasting highs in the mid and upper 40's for the next 10 days.

I'm coaching both Levi and Caleb's YMCA basketball teams and this morning had my first practices with both of them. Seemed like a lot of nice kids. I have no idea how skilled we are compared to other teams, but it should be fun for my kids and everyone. We get one more practice and then have our first game! I'll let you know how things go.

Snow play!

Here are some pictures of all our boys and Molly playing in the snow this morning at Hollydale Elementary School. There were 25-30 people there all the time we were playing, with some leaving and more coming all the time. Fun, fun, fun!






There are more pictures downloaded to my Flickr Photo page too!

Snow day!

Hey! It snowed this morning -- and is still snowing pretty hard as I type this! There wasn't a single flake at 6:00 when I first looked out and so most schools were going ahead with plans to open. Then within a half-hour it started snowing and has just kept going. My district finally called at about 7:40 to say that we were going to open 2 hours late (and many teachers and some students were already at school); then, within 15-20 minutes they decided to just close for the day (along with almost every district in the Portland metro area).

Here are a few pictures looking out our windows a few minutes ago:



Maybe I can post some more pics later after we go play outside!

Snow!

So, my phone rang at 6:10 this morning and it was part of our school "phone tree" calling to tell me that my district was on a 2-hour late start. Yea! I reset my alarm and went back to bed (after looking out the window and not seeing any snow, however). Then when I got up around 8:00, it was really snowing hard. Within a half-hour my district decided to just stay closed for the day! Woo-hoo!!! So I had a nice day, getting to read the whole paper, do the crossword, clean up some of my garage, do a couple of little home projects, and go for a nice run in the afternoon.

Levi is feeling better, but still on meds. We'll see if he goes back to school or not in the morning. Caleb, on the other hand, is still not well at all and was still throwing up and feverish tonight. I guess we'll take him to the doctor tomorrow.

Lani's mom, Gladys, got here tonight -- coming over from Montana. She said there were a few slick patches, but no major problems.

Hannah goes to All-State Choir tomorrow. We had eight of the girls at our home tonight and I rehearsed their music with them (they get tested in quartets when they arrive there tomorrow).

Well, I guess I'll probably have to go to work tomorrow, so I'd better head off to bed! :~)

Ups & Downs today

Up: It was supposed to snow today, so everyone was kind of excited!
Down: Mostly, it never happened.

Up: While eating dinner tonight, we looked out the back patio door to see HUGE white flakes coming down! It looked cool!
Down: It only lasted about 10 minutes, leaving just a trace amount on everything.

Up: I stayed home from work today.
Down: It was because Caleb & Levi are both sick. Both are running some fever (101-102). Levi has conjunctivitus (pink eye) and impatigo (like staph in his nose) and is on antibiotics and eye drops; Caleb threw up in our room last night, necessitating a 4-something a.m. cleaning of a dresser, carpets, and most of the bathroom floor and fixtures.

Up: Lani gets to stay home tomorrow.
Down: It's because the guys are still sick.

Up: It's finally getting a little wintery!
Down: It doesn't appear that there's enough snow or ice to close schools! (although maybe something could happen overnight)

Up: Lani's mom is coming tomorrow from Missoula.
Down: The roads may be bad, so pray for her safe trip.

Up: I'm going to sign off and hop in bed by 11:00 (a rare occurence indeed!)
Down: I'm exhausted and have an official "observation" tomorrow.

First Week of January thoughts

Lots of interesting things this week. . .

Sunday at Abundant Life Church we must have had about 50 baptisms! The first Sunday of every month is always a "Baptism Sunday" and there were probably a dozen or so of these planned ones, but then after both the 2nd & 3rd services there was just a spontaneous response to the lesson and invitation and people just kept coming and coming! It was exciting (and also threw the schedule way off!)!

I signed Caleb & Levi up for YMCA basketball and indicated that I'd be willing to be a head coach. So, last Friday in the mail I got a letter saying I needed to show up Saturday for a mandatory coaches meeting. Turns out that I'm head coach for both of their teams. Should be a busy and fun season coming up!

Tonight it was back to regular rehearsals for Portland Symphonic Choir. I've been carpooling with my friend Phill Hurley and tonight we added another former college friend to our carpool as Lois Maxwell auditioned and made the choir. Hey, I know some more of you singers out there that might enjoy doing this too! A select group of us (32 of the 120) are singing this Monday for a special MLK community event. This should be a good experience.

The hopefull buzz in the area among kids (& teachers!) is that we might get some snow here this week! Who knows, really, but we'll all be watching the weather and the skies starting tomorrow night and all day Wednesday!

OK, sports fans. Anyone see this coming? In football, Florida totally spanks Ohio State! Sorry to my Texas friends, Rick & Dawn, who are huge Buckeye fans and were at the game. Hmm. . . that means that Boise St. is the only undefeated Div. I team! And way to go Oregon Ducks in knocking off #1 UCLA on Saturday in college basketball; if they only hadn't lost to USC two days earlier. Then there were the Cowboys blowing the game against the Seahawks; those are my two favorite NFL teams, so I guess I'm happy with either one winning, but Tony Romo will probably have a long off-season thinking about what could have been.

Well, that's enough for now. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

2007 Resolutions

Here are things I'd like to do this year:

Read the Word daily.
Invest time with my kids -- daily, if possible.
Sleep when I should! At least seven hours nightly on weekdays.
Exercise at least three times each week.
Be a servant and encourager to those I work with and live by.
Manage my finances better.

I could list more, but some of these are biggies for me.

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And now for a sports note: How about those NW college football teams?!!!
It was thrilling the other day to see Oregon St. win their game with the gutsy 2-pt. conversion, but then tonight's Boise St. win over Oklahoma was just incredible!

Happy New Year!

Just thought I'd make my first post of 2007 and wish you all a Happy New Year!

I'm thinking some of my goals/resolutions for 2007, but don't think I'll take time to list them right now -- except that one goal for certain is to get back into regular Bible reading. More later. . .

We enjoyed a nice evening out with friends and family members - eating, playing games (I even played Pinochle for the first time in a long time), visiting, and toasting the new year!

2006 Christmas Letter

Greetings to friends & family near and far!

I had good intentions of writing a “Christmas letter” earlier than this, but here I am late on Christmas Day finally getting it done. We’ve enjoyed a nice family time today in our own home and then shared Christmas dinner with Lani’s sister’s family, Troy & Shauna Wagner and their kids. Last week we drove over to Idaho and spent a few days with my folks in Meridian (near Boise). We got a nice snowfall there the last day of our visit, so that will have to count as our “white Christmas”! Tomorrow our Montana relatives arrive.

As most of you know, this was a year of change for us in lots of ways. We’ve had job changes, moved back to Oregon after nearly six years in Texas, and of course had new schools for our kids. Looking back, we are incredibly grateful for all the prayers and support that carried us through these times of upheaval and change. Change is always hard, but I think we’re all doing pretty well in our new circumstances.

I won’t write a long letter full of the details of each of our lives, but I should mention a few things. Hannah has gotten quite involved with music & drama at Gresham H.S. and recently was selected for both All-State and All-Northwest Choirs. Micah is playing in band and also singing in choir in his freshman year. Caleb and Levi attend school at Hollydale Elementary where I teach music (we live less than two blocks away and walk together each morning!). Lani is teaching TAG half-time and subbing on her open days. I am enjoying singing as a staff singer with the Portland Symphonic Choir.

We have a new church home – after much visiting around the area – at the Abundant Life Church (you can check out their website at www.coolchurch.com). Our kids really enjoy the programs there!

We’ve spent a lot of time and effort these last few months working on remodeling and updating our home. Most of the major things are finished now and we look forward to having friends and family visit! Here’s all our new contact information:
(Information edited from this blog post, but included in actual letter)

May God bless each of you in this new year!



The Dalzells – Dan, Lani, Hannah, Micah, Caleb, & Levi

Mid-December update

Life is busy and it seems I hardly ever have time to blog (that is, check in on friends' sites or write anything on mine).
Tonight I'll just throw down a quick update:

I switched over to the new Blogger beta just a few minutes ago. I'll see if it works any smoother in my Safari browser; the old one didn't allow me to use most of the editing features (as I'm glancing up in the window here, I'm not seeing the buttons there for bold, italic, etc., just one for spell check and one for pictures. Hmm. . . So, looks like I'll have to remember to use IE or Firefox on my Macs.

My program last week went pretty well. Our school gym was standing-room only as the 2nd & 3rd graders did there musical and the 4th & 5th grade choir sang. It was a successful first program there, I believe.

We went last Saturday morning to cut a Christmas tree -- and ended up cutting two! Our new house actually has a large window upstairs in the living room and a matching one below in the family room, so we have two trees. I put up a few lights outside, but nothing like usual and I don't think I'll have time to worry about putting up any more. It was nearly nice to return to our old tradition of going to a Christmas tree farm and choosing our own tree; and we went with the McDonald family, just like old times!

I've got three rehearsals this week with Portland Symphonic Choir before we do our double-concert day on Sunday. Anyone in the area that might enjoy hearing us, let me know and I'll pick up some tickets for you. Lani and several friends are coming to the 7:30 p.m. program, but we also do it at 2:00 p.m. -- that's on Sunday, Dec. 17 at St. Mary's Cathedral (between NW 17th & 18th just a block N. of Burnside). Should be a lovely program (and I'm doing a solo!).

Lani has either the flu or food poisoning -- yuck! She was up in the night last night throwing up, etc. and stayed home today. We went to my staff Christmas party last Saturday night and apparently a whole lot of people from there have come down ill (we had 13 staff out yesterday and 10 out today at work -- all with the same stomach ailment).

Brian & Eryann Maki (Lani's brother & wife) have been staying with us since last Friday and leave in the morning. They came over from Missoula to help Troy & Shauna with moving and construction in their new home's basement. We all helped over there on Saturday & Sunday this last weekend, with much more work still to go.

Three more school days until we're on Christmas vacation! My choir has a field trip in the morning and I'm also supposed to play the piano and sing in the school lobby before school. Should be a fun day!

Post-Thanksgiving Thanks Giving

OK, I really wanted to post something on Thanksgiving Day, but then I just got so busy with working on the kitchen and then hosting family & others for the big meal and then we played games and such and soon the day was done. However, we did give special thanks around our table. I asked each person (at least those around the adult table -- kids had their own table downstairs) to share something they were thankful for as they looked back over this last year, and then the whole table would respond after each one with "Thank-you, God" (or some other similar sentiment). It was pretty cool to hear everyone's thanksgivings and then to give praise to God for these things He had done!

So. . . here are some things I'm thankful for:
My family -- we're all doing well and have been cared for and blessed throughout a year of big change.
My wife! We're still good friends and in love!
My job -- I am enjoying teaching and have been blessed with a wonderful principal and staff and parents and kids.
Our home -- it's consumed a LOT of my time and energy these last few months, but we're blessed to have a nice place to live.
Singing -- I'm enjoying singing with Portland Symphonic Choir and we've been singing a lot this Fall!
Living in Portland/Gresham -- it's been good to be near family and friends again.

I guess I could go on and get more specific, but really I just feel very blessed by God as I look back over this past year. I'm thankful for friends in Texas who supported us and helped carry us through a time of uncertainty and upheaval and for friends here who have welcomed us back to Oregon. I searched out many possible paths for where to work and live, but this is the way that seemed blessed by God. It's not all that I dreamed of, but it is good.

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And a closing note: if you live in the area, you should come hear the Portland Symphonic Choir's "WinterSong" concert on Sunday, Dec. 17. There is a 2:00 and a 7:00 performance and these are in the gorgeous & acoustically wonderful St. Mary's Cathedral in downtown Portland. We will be doing some familiar carols, some other beautiful music of the season, and a special set of Spanish carols. I learned earlier today that I got a solo that I had tried out for too! Let me know if you need tickets. This program will be fun and is probably our most popular of the season.
http://www.pschoir.org/Season2005/Programs.shtml

Nov. 8 Entry

November is rolling right along! We've had huge amounts of rain the last few days in Oregon, but it has lightened up now to just the normal kind of drizzle. I hear the mountains will be getting a bunch of snow the next few days as the freezing level has finally dropped.

My mom and dad got into town tonight and will be around until Monday. Dad is here to help with my kitchen cabinet installation, plus my folks will get to see Hannah in her musical (which opens tomorrow), and then hear me sing with the Portland Symphonic Choir this weekend. Hopefully, we'll get all the upper and lower cabinets installed over the next few days!

My 2nd & 3rd graders are preparing a musical called "The Littlest Christmas Tree" and it's been pretty fun working on the songs and choosing the leads. The performance is on Dec. 5 (wish I had another week or so with them) and I've really got to work to get the staging blocked, costumes & sets ready, and songs choreographed. Still, this is nothing like the busyness of when I taught H.S. choir!

I guess this is enough of an update for now. . . bedtime now.