The Neon Chicks

What is there to say about the Neon Chicks? They are a group of 12 year old girls on there way to girls camp at MIA Shalom. This was Amanda's first year attending. Shantell went a couple of years ago and stated that a lot of the girls had cots to sleep on. Earlier this year I bought 4 Coleman cots off of Craigslist.org so that Amanda would have a good nights sleep. I know, I was pretty naive in thinking that a bunch of teenage girls would get a good nights sleep at camp. They probably stayed up half the night reading scriptures instead of sleeping.

Dance Like Nobody's Watching

The Utah Academy Dance Studios had their yearly recital today. After I looked through the program to see what numbers T-y and Amanda were in, I sat there in awe of Amanda. She was in 12 of the 44 numbers. That is more than a 1/4 of them. That is a lot of choreography to remember. She performed flawlessly in them. It was fun to see her dance. Her countenance was beautiful and her smile melted my heart. You could tell she was having the time of her life. I don't think that I have ever seen her having so much fun performing. I then realized that it was probably because she had 4 of her friends show up to the performance. They are Mariana, Jordan, Garret "Larry", and Dylan. She has some of the neatest friends.

T-y decided at the last minute to be in the hip-hop dance. He does a pretty good job dancing, but tends to watch others dancing while he should be dancing. I think he had funner running around backstage with his friends then he did dancing. He did a good job.

PRESIDENT'S AWARD FOR EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE

Amanda's day started out by being awoke by some unknown sound coming from her room. She went in an woke up Shantell and asked her what that sound was. I was downstairs, so Amanda yelled "Dad, are you trying to find you cell phone?" "No", I replied. Why don't you look to see where the sound was coming from. She searched her room and finally found where the sound was originating from. We got Amanda a cell phone for her 6th grade commencement last night. I hid the phone in her room and started calling it around 6:50. Needless to say, she was super excited to finally get a cell phone. She needed one, especially since she has worn the numbers off of Shantell's phone from texting her friends 24/7.

Amanda was surprised to be one of the recipients of the "PRESIDENT'S AWARD FOR EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE". Amanda is an amazing student and is very popular amound her peers. It's no wonder that she won this award.

Here are some pictures of her and her friends at commencement. You can view the all of the photos here.

My room's so bright that I gotta wear shades.

Shantell was out of town this week, so Andrea helped get Amanda to dance class. Apparently Amanda forgot to bring along a costume used in one of her dances for the upcoming recital. (June 3rd @ UVU Reagan Theater) Andrea returned to our house to get the costume from Amanda's room and run it up to her at the studio. When I spoke with her later in the evening, she commented that she had to put on her sunglasses when she entered Amanda's room.

Shantell redid Amanada's bedroom while she was at Camp Big Springs last summer. Shantell redid her bedroom so it would represent a more "teenager" appropriate room. Shantell chose some really bright and spunky colors and added a Surfer Girl theme. It turned out really cute and totally caught Amanda by surprise. It brought tears of joy to Amanda. Amanda was super appreciative on Shantells hard work. Nice work Shantell.

Like, fer sure!

Amanda and her gnarly friends like totally thought it would be tubular to go to school today wearing fashions from the 80's. I was like barf me out, gag me with a spoon, but whatEVER! Amanda looked totally fresh, especially with her rad purple eye shadow. Amanda has some totally awesome friends. I took her to school and snapped a couple pics of her and her wicked friends.

Does Amanda look like a val or what?

La Familia tan Marvillosa
Amanda was asked to talk in sacrament meeting today. I was planning on inviting the Grandparents, but Amanda said that she would be to nervous. She created an outline with Shantell and helped Shantell to build the talk. Both of them did an excellent job.

Here is a copy of her talk.

This photo of her mysteriously appeared on my phone.

Here is an additional photo that I snapped of Amanda earlier in the month.

Very Beautiful Girl

Well, I called to check to see if Amanda made the cut and would up leaving a contact number. I got a call about an hour later. The scout informed me that Amanda was a very beautiful girl and had great camera presence. She went on to say that they would like to meet with Amanda and I at 3:30 to discuss, finalize, and pay for the tuition. Here are the tuition options:

Needless to say, I declined the meeting. If it was truly an audition, then why weren't they auditioning for something? I guess they were really auditioning for an invitation to enroll in their acting school.

Amanda called Dallas and Mariana later in the day and found out that Dallas didn't get an invitation. Amanda was really torn up about the whole thing.

$18,000.00 an hour

Dallas, a friend of Amanda, asked her to go to an audition for theiCarly TV show. Amanda, Dallas, and Mariana were going to the audition with Dallas's mom today. I got a call from Dallas yesterday stating that a parent had to go with Amanda to the audition. So guess where I went today?

The audition was at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake. The last time I was at that place was when the Jazz played there. Dad used to be able to get great seats to the Jazz game from Frank Layden. Dad coached one of Frank's sons at Churchill. Anyway, we got there are were herded into a room. Once the room was full, about 200 people, we were given a sales pitch from Academy of Cinema and Television for Kids & Teens.

During that presentation one of the "Talent Agents" informed the group that productions cost are roughly $18,000.00 an hour and that our kids needed to be educated so that they would be wasting production time. She later went on to say how important it is to get an acting education for our kids. This is how the agent worded the need to enroll in their acting school

"If you want to be a plumber, you go to mechanical school. If you want to be a secretary, then you go to secretarial school. If you want to be an actor, then you need to go to acting school."

Each participant would then have to meet with a scout and read a jingle in front of the camera. We met with the scout and here is how the conversation went:

Scout: What is your name?
Amanda: Amanda Marilyn Berrett
Scout: How old are you?
Amanda: 12
Scout: Dad, how willing are you to support your daughter if she gets a call back?
Me: 127%
Scout: Thats an interesting number.
Scout: Did you get a chance to look at the pamphlet?
Me: Some of it.
Scout: Would you be able to pay the tuition fees if your daughter received a call back?
Me: Yes.
Scout: Ok. Amanda, please read the top jingle in front of the camera.

The scout gave us a piece of paper with some times to call them. We need to call them tomorrow between the hours of 9:00 and 10:00am. Amanda read the following jingle:

Poptarts
Bite into Kellog's poptarts, and get ready for something wild. Now with more fruit filling and wild berry flavors, for a taste thathat's better then ever. It's new and wild.

My bet is that all three of them will receive a callback. Stay tuned to see what happens.

SPell Arachnaphobialicious

Amanda informed me this morning that she was in her school spelling bee. I aint know that she done had one. My plans are open for the day so I decided to go sit in the back of the schools smelly multipurpose room for two hours and listen to them kids spell words that they will probably never use again.

They just announced that you cannot yell or cheer for the spellers. I wonder how they knew that I was coming. The audience may only clap for the students after the round is over. I told Amanda to ask for the deffinition, the country of origin, and have it used in a sentence for ever single word that she was asked to spell, even the easy ones. She laughed and politely declined my suggestion. I also had a fantastic idea to do when she was eliminated. She didnt want me to embarrass her so I guess I she didnt like my idea.

She informed me that she already has a trick to spelling. She closes her eyes and imagens herself writing the word on the chalkboard. The Spelling Bee hasnt even started and I am already behind. They just annouced that there are homonyms in the spelling list. What is a homonym? Is that a bean you eat?

There are 36 spellers and Amanda is sitted second to the last person.

Practice Round
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Peter Young just correctly spelled what we had for breakfast, w-a-f-f-l-e.
Amanda your word is a homonym, principal. The judge gave the definition "a noun denoting chief importance." Amanda spelled it principle. "That is incorrect."
I can't believe that I am tearing up after I heard those words. Maybe I should take off my smelly shoe and chuck it at the judge. Good thing that was just a practice round. Now i will just sit back and wait another 10 minutes for Amanda's turn again. Maybe I should get up and walk around. My butt doesnt care to much for this hard folding chair.

First Round
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Amanda your word is punish. "That is correct." There go the water works again. I cant believe she didnt ask for the deffinition of that word. I sure know how to use that word in a sentance.
8 of the participants were eliminated in that round.

Secund Round
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Amanda your word is Slippery. "That is correct." No slippery substances escaped from my eyes this time. Sweet. Amanda is now the very last participant. Two more participants were eliminated.

Therd Round
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Amanda your word is janitor. "That is correct." Phew. Eight more participants were eliminated.

Fourf Round
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Check out the video to find out what word she CORRECTLY SPELLED!!!!! five more participants were eliminated.

Fifth Round
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The words in this round are from list 3. These are pretty tough. 4 of the first 5 participants spelled their words incorrectly.

Amanda your word is cinnamon. "That is correct". Wow. I need a tissue. Time now for a break in the Bee.

Amanda came over and gave me a big hug. Her friends came over and congratulated her and said that she had to beat Peter. The also told me not to cry. I said I was proud of Amanda for spelling cinnamon. I said that I didnt even know how to spell the word. Her friends didnt know how to spell it either. Amanda only remembered the word because she was eating cinnamon bears last night. Its a good thing thing that we were on break because Amanda decided to spell cinnamon again. She began spelling it S-I-N...... Her friends had a good laugh. She has such neat friends. They are

Sixth Round
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There are 8 participants left in the Bee.

Peter - allusion "That is correct"
Amanda your word is venomous. "That is correct" Holy smokes. She is in the top four.

Seventh Round
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Bring out list four

Peter - Stationery "That is correct"
Amanda your word is unique. "That is correct"
Amanda is a very unique young lady.

Eight Round
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Peter - allegiance "That is correct"
Paul - chimichanga "that is correct"
Daisy - prosaic "that is correct"
Amanda - pumpernicel "that is incorrect"

Shucks! Those darn carbs will get you every time. She took forth. The top three received a trophy. What a proud Dad I am.

I didnt think that she had even studied for this. I asked her if she had and she said that she had studied the first three lists. She was pretty proud of herself, as she should be. It seems that in previous years, she would correctly spell the word correctly in the practice round, and then misspell her first word.
Peter eventually won. Paul came in second and Daisy came in third. Peter won by correctly spelling these two words:
bouillon
chrysalis

Well, at least I was able to learn what a homonym is. It is a word that sounds the same as another word but might be spelled differently and have a different meaning.

Here are some sample hymonyms:

The prophet made a profit selling cars.
The colonel ate a kernal of corn.
I can write the rite of passage with my right hand.
Which witch wore the purple hat.
Be quiet or a bee might sting you.
The wind blew the the boat on the blue ocean.

I think that I am going to contest this contest.:)

Give Blood! Shave your legs

Well, today was a monumental day in the life of Amanda. She was able to braid the hair on her legs, so Shantell got her a razor, some shaving lotion, and a box of bandaids. I got her a blood transfusion.