Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Grandpa!!!! We hope you have a happy birthday. Sorry I have no way to call you, unless I call your cell phone, which I'm not sure if that charges you a lot of money being in Canada. We love you lots and hope to see you soon. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Love

Jeff, Jamie,Matthew,Ashlie, Brandon, and Baby ????

Homecoming/And what else is up with me...

Last weekend was Homecoming at Southridge. (My high school.. for those of you who are surprised-yes, I'm in high school-9th grade) The week was filled with spirit, from Techno Day, Rock Day, and Sun Day, when we dress up in school colors - blue and gold. (our mascot is a Sun - actually gorilla but...I don't even know) On Friday was the homecoming game, which was intense. By half time we were winning 3-0. I played with the marching band at half time after the Homecoming proceedings where they said one girl's parents' names wrong. They were announced as Juano and Margarita, yet their names are Juana and Margarito. We performed all of our drill during halftime and Mr. Simpson, our director, said it was very good for the first time doing the whole show. After that I got out of my uniform and spent my freetime during 3rd Quarter with John and his friend Austin.
Saturday was the dance. I'd been looking forward to it, and I actually got a new dress : ) It reminds me of Cinderella so I got a tira to wear with it. What luck that the theme of the dance was "Once upon a time". John did ask me to Homecoming, although we went in a group. One day when I got home from Marching Band practice, I found a note on my desk that sent me all around my house finding other little cards with clues to wear an envelope was, where he had writen the question, "Will you go to Homecoming with me?"
Before we went to the school, we went to our friend Tyler's house for Breakfast for Dinner and ate french toast and scrambled eggs (and bacon, and sausage etc.) Then we played apples to apples. Which was fun, with the crazy things we came up with to fit the words.
We played the murder game in the car, it was finally 9 and we could go into the school. We being, Tyler, Briana, Julia, John and I - our group. At first we found all the people we knew, excited to see them dressed up. The rest of the night was filled with loud music and some dancing. Once it was over, we all went to my house for ice cream and played some card games. Julia kept us entertained by talking a lot, which she does when she's tired.
It was very fun, and I'm sad that I had to wash out my curls. I had a really good time.


This upcoming weekend the Marching Band has a competition in Spokane. Fun... We had our first one on Saturday. It was fun to see all the other bands and their ideas for their shows. We didn't come home with any recognition of it, but we were told we did really well. While we're in Spokane, the marching band and all the other music students who wanted to go, get to go see Phantom of the Opera!! Woo!!! I'm pumped! haha.. I'm really excited, those who have already seen it like it so much they're eager to go again. It's supposed to have Amazing On-Stage effects, I'm looking forward to those. I wonder how they do some of them.

Tomorrow, I have an orthodontist appointment that I'm not looking forward to. As many of you have seen already have A Lot of metal in my mouth... Tomorrow they're just going to add more! Bottom Braces!! :( They're not even taking out my herpts... (the device that you can see poking out near my incisors when I open my mouth fully, it moves my jaw forward to fix my overbite) I've had the Herpts Appliance for 10 months now. I got it in January. I'm still keeping my hopes up that it comes out soon... Maybe before my birthday!

Speaking of Birthdays... A couple weeks ago my friend John turned 15. It was a pretty exciting day. (thanks to my wonderful mother) We made a cake shaped like a computer, since he is on the computer all the time, and used that edible paper and had a picture of his actual desktop screen on it. I got our friends to come and make a poster which they then put on his garage saying, "Happy Birthday John!" On the day, My mom saw to it that the cake was delivered to John's house and then went back to pick up our friends from the school. I rode the bus home with John and when we got to his house we surprised him. (they hid and everything) He said it was a great birthday, I was glad to see him so happy.

Since he's 15 now, John can get his driver's permit, if he's in a driver's ed. class. I can admit, I'm jealous. My birthday's not for another 3 months though. *sigh* oh well, I'll have to wait. Truthfully, it Is a little startling that I'm already That Old!!!

That's what's up with me... I'm sure you all found it very interesting (maybe)

Salutations from the 14 year old Cottle here in Kennewick!!

Elder Miller

I am so mad that I forgot my camera but I just wanted to update for all of those of you who are interested. We took Jeff, and companion, out to lunch on Saturday for his Birthday! (Better late than never) He looks great and is doing very well. He says its bitter sweet that he only has two months left, but feels blessed to serve in the Salt Lake Mission. Hopefully we will be able to see him once more before he heads home.

Caption Contest: Take Two

The Second Poll is up. Your Options are:

1. I think she stashed the car keys in her right shoe
2. Man, these little ants have a powerful bite!
3. Did you get the license number on that truck?
4. Amy, I'm sure there's a bed for you back at the condo.
5. I can't take it anymore. Just go on without me.

And I forgot to congratulate Holly for winning the last contest

Music the way it use to be

Hi all. I thought since Randy is always talking about the concerts he goes to, I thought I would fill you in on two concerts I attended last week. If you're under 30, these concerts may not be that exicting to you, but I had a good time.

First off, on Saturday Sept 13, Holly and I went to an Elton John concert. Anyone who knew me before 1980 knows I LOVE Elton John. This is the fourth concert of his I've been to, and were by far the best seat. Holly is master at scoring good concert seats (despite a staggering price tag!) We were on the floor about 20 rows back. Any of you who think the over 40 crowd can't rock needs to go to an EJ concert. It was so fun to be screaming and dancing and waving my cell phone (!) around. It made me feel 16 again. Holly was just and animated and seemed to enjoy the concert just as much as I did. Of course, she has been fed a steady diet of EJ music from the time she was born.

Second concert--on tuesday Sept 16 Craig was offered luxercy box tickets to a Neil Diamond concert. Now I am not (nor have I ever been) a great Neil Diamond fan, but I am a fan of luxery boxes and live music, so I convinced Craig to go. Again, it was a sold out crowd who really appreiciated their Neil Diamond. That crowd was just as loud and rockin' as the EJ crowd and it was fun to watch from the safety of the boxes. I even reconized most of the songs. Neil Diamond said he and his band had been touring together for 30 years!! Do you think they need to practice much?

It was amazing to watch two OLD guys put on very energtic shows. Both of them talked about the privledge of playing music for a living. I guess when you've been doing it for 4 decades you must love it.

Sports Fan Dream Month

In a space of just over 21 days, thanks to family and friends, I lived a true sports fan dream. 1. August 20-22 five sessions of U.S. Open tennis at the National tennis Center in NYC (with Grandma, Craig, Kathy and Holly) including a late night Arthur Ashe Stadium match involving Andy Rodick that went so late (match ended at 2:45 A.M.!) that fans from the loges (that's us) were allowed to move down to court side. 2. August 23, afternoon, watched (with above mentioned family) the New York Yankees play the Blue Jays in fabled Yankee Stadium (one of the last games played there). We sat in the highest section right behind the visitors dugout. Toronto won when A-rod hit into a double play with the go ahead runs on base in the 8th inning (The headline in the paper the next morning "A-Rotten does it again"). How high up were we. We had a little trouble finding our seats so I saw a policeman and ask him where I might find an usher. His reply, "Do you know what part of Yankee Stadium you are in? There haven't been ushers up here since the 70's". I loved the atmosphere and am fortunate to be able to attend a game there in its final season . 3. September 6th watched the BYU/Washington football game with Roger and his friend, the most rabid Husky fan in the world (He showed me a phone picture of his truck and house - both painted in Husky Gold and Purple). We were about 8 rows up on the goal line where the (in)famous "celebration" penalty was called on the U of W Quarterback as he scored to make it a 28-27 ball game with 2 seconds left in the game. BYU blocked the long (after the penalty) extra point kick and escaped with the win. I will say no more. 4. September 11th. Now in Boise with our friends Glen and Mary Potter we spent the day at a PGA Nationwide Tour Golf event that just happened to be going on in Boise that week. Only one comment for you would be golfers -On a 399 Yard par four all the pros were hitting fairway woods off the tee - And hitting them right down the middle 300-310 yards! In addition to the above, and during that same period of time I played golf in Alberta, Washington and Idaho, swapped sports stories with family and friends in person and by e-mail and celebrated my 53rd wedding anniversary by driving 800 miles from Boise to Cardston with my very favorite traveling companion - Jean! Thanks to everyone for helping in such a great adventure!

Eight at last

Congratulations to Sophie on her recent baptism. What a cutie!

Caption Contest: Take Two

Here's our second picture from the Cottle Reunion. Put your caption in the comments and when there is enough, we'll start a new poll. Kris has also sent some great pics from Cottle family history, so the next round will branch out from just the reunion.

Photo Caption Contest

Here are the entries for the first Photo:

1. Aha! I discovered how to defy gravity!
2. I cannn flyyyyy......
3.Eeuuee... what's that?; Yike's, that's the scariest photographer I've ever seen!
4. Bailey "What's happening to me Sophie?"; Sophie "Hey Bailey... I'm a witch."

Vote for your favorite at the right.

Send me any more funny pictures that you think would make a good caption contestant. If you want to upload other reunion pictures, you could do that as well.

Back to work is BORING

Hi all
It was great to see those of you I saw in the summer. That was a great get-together; from the murder mystery to the amazing race to the fantastic food to just laying around the pool. For those of you who couldn't make it--you were sorely missed!

Craig and I (and Holly, mom and dad) just got back from New York last week and we had a fantastic time. What an amazing city. Somehow it makes the rest of the world seem small and insignificant--especially Edmonton! We had great fun doing all the typical toursit things such as statue of Liberty, Times Square, Empire State Bldg., Yankess game etc. We also saw the Broadway musical 'Wicked' which was, as the name suggests, pretty darn wicked. And of course, watching lots and lots of tennis. It was so much fun to sit through a rain delay (!?) and be at a night match that was still going strong at 2:00 a.m. and sit so close to the sidelines I could smell the player's sweat. It was great. I'm all ready planning a return trip as soon as my bank account recovers.

Which brings me back to reality. Returning to work--even starting the job I was so excited about in the spring--is BORING. I am currently wishing for never-ending funding to support that lazy player lifestyle. It was so much fun to just play for a whole month (and thank you to those of you who either hosted my playing or tended my offspring so I could play). It was so hard to get up early to go sit at a desk all day. It is so hard to really care about those students entrusted to me. I would love to play forever. There, I've said it--I don't want to work anymore; I just want to play.

Take care, all of you, and may your playdays be many.

ps. I would love to see some photos posted. I would post some, but I haven't got any!

Caption Contest: Take Two

Based on the completely underwhelming response to the original caption contest (big thanks to Heather and Grandpa for being the only ones to actually submit pictures), I have decided to modify it. This is how it will work now.

I will post a single picture on the blog.
You will come up with a humorous caption for the picture and post it in the comments
When 5 such captions have been posted, I will create a poll, wherein everyone will vote for thier favorite.
Repeat each week.

I have a few funny pictures from Grandpa and Heather, but I again ask you all to submit any picture you have to randaltheresa@gmail.com.

Here is this week's picture: