Jared's Graduation

Pictures from Jared's Graduation. Thanks to all for you support!

Hello Family!

Hey everyone!  It has been great to see what you have been up to.  We sure miss everyone and look forward to the next time we can all be together.  Good news, the Dance home has officially been rented for two years!  We are grateful for all of your help getting the home ready to rent!  

Brent and I have recently started our own blog:  

http://bdancefamily.blogspot.com/

(I'm not sure how to add it to the blog.  If anyone knows how and could help us out with it that would be great :))

Love you all,

Andrea

  

Ragnar Relay - Northwest Passage

The team and support crew at the McDonald's before the drive up to Blaine.

Need I say more?

"El Jefe" showing an excellent baton pass to our captain "Jazzy John".  Why "Jazzy John"?  I don't know, it just came to me at the moment.  And besides... it sounds cool.  Eh, John?

Johnny hands off to Joshua.  I don't think Joshua stopped smiling the whole 24 hours.  And group consensus from runners we encountered vote Johnny the cutest runner at the 2008 Northwest Passage.

The victorious Dance4Ever team at the finish.

189 Miles...

12 Runners...

1 Family!

That about sums up the amazing experience we had at the Ragnar Relay - Northwest Passage.  We ran, sweat and bonded for 189 miles over a 24 hour 15 minute period.  Each runner ran 3 legs totaling 12 to 18 miles depending on the leg assigned.  We started at 12 PM Friday, July 25th at Blaine, WA (on the Canadian border) and finished at 12:15 PM Saturday, July 26th in Langley, WA (an island in the gorgeous Puget Sound).

I am extremely proud of our team who, while fighting injuries (Ryan, Brent and Rhandi) and lack of preparedness (everyone), ran faster than we estimated.  Our projected time was a team average of 8:17 minute miles we finished with a blazing average of 7:41 minute miles.  Out of 152 teams we finished 20th overall and 4th in our "Open Male" division.  Not bad for one family (and one friend) with 2 females (one being prego-Rhandi) and a 13 year old (Johnny was the youngest person to compete in the race).  A side note: we did not qualify for the "Mixed" division because we had more men than women and, AND ... the "Open Male" division champion finished 2nd overall.

Although entirely exhausting (we each averaged less than 2 hours of sleep during those 24 hours) and "ragnastally" difficult, the Ragnar Relay was one of the best experiences of our lives.  Being with close family and sharing the hardship together, rooting each other on and working hard for our team was truly remarkable.  Thank, Uncle John, for orchestrating the event and organizing a crew of 12 different schedules and availability into 1 lean, mean, efficient crew!  Thank you, Diane, Sharla, Jeanna, Kaeli and Kari for your support and time.  Without you it would not have been possible!  Thank you team Dance4Ever for the race of a lifetime!

Summer Fun on the Malibu

Richard tears it up-- as usual. Yep, that's my dad.

Momma Dance slalom skiing! Woohoo!

Johnny goin' for a 360... settling for a 180.

Jake clears the wake, again. Or is this Logan?

MTC

President and Sister Dance at the MTC, June 21, 2008

Lila Lawrence

The other day I got an email from Grandma Dance's cousin, (I think?). Her name is Lila Lawrence and she lives here in Idaho close to Rexburg. She says hello to Alan and Julie and is excited for them as they begin their mission in Alaska. Lila would like to keep in touch with Jared and I and hopefully get together for a visit sometime before we leave in December. I thought this was a wonderful idea!

It is amazing how close family can be when you think you're in the middle of nowhere (like Rexburg). Love you all!

-Hannah

Love to Be a Dance!

We recently took a road trip to Illinois for a niece's wedding. It was so much fun to see John's family. We also got to see many church sites along the way. It is truly testimony building to be in those places, hear the stories and feel the Spirit. I am so thankful for the faith of those early Saints. I am also so grateful to be a member of the Dance Family! We happened to run into several people who knew our relatives. The Dugals (spelling?) in Missouri ranted and raved about Dave and Chan and our talented Sharla. In Nauvoo we met a mom of someone that Uncle Matt used to "run around with" in his younger days! :) (Does he read this?) Again, she only had good things to say. Point is, I'm so glad to be able to ask, "Do you know so and so?" and then proudly say, "That's my relative!" Thank you all for being good, kind, fun, talented, wonderful people wherever you are. We are so blessed to have all of you. We love you!

Maria's Graduation

From Richard: It was sad yet joyful to see Maria's last concert last night at Rice University-- she was selected to play for college graduation! Just like she played for high school graduation, she played for college graduation. It was a modern duet for violin and double bass that sounded very good. Here are a few pictures from the event.

From Logan: It's hard to believe my sister is all grown up! For those of you that don't know, she has accepted the invitation to attend the University of Utah's School of Music, on scholarship, to get her Master's!

I'm so glad I'm a Dance!

Like I said, I'm so glad I'm a Dance! Not only did I marry a great guy, but a great family! I love you all! But most of all, I love Tom!Top 10 reasons why...
1. He's cute!
2. He's funny!
3. He's the BEST dad there ever was!
4. He's optimistic!
5. He's a hard worker!
6. He puts his family first!
7. He's our fearless leader!
8. He's handy...He can drill a tooth and drill into a wall!
9. He's our family's spiritual leader!
10. He's just the absolute coolest!

Happy 10 year anniversary babe!

Snowy Rexburg

Since the last time we updated many things have changed. Jared and I are now working at the library on campus. Jared has just started his last semester at BYU-Idaho and excited to finish school for now. He has been really busy with being in the bishopric and getting the ward organized. I'm loving working at the library and am looking forward to graduation in Decemeber.

Rexburg has got to be the strangest place on earth. That is weather wise. It snowed yesterday and covered everything in white. I've never heard of snow in April before. It still freezing cold with the winds howling all the time. Jared and I are hoping summer will come soon. We would even settle for a little spring. :-)
-H & J

Brotherhood of the Frogs Strikes Back!

On Tuesday the Dance Family intertube waterpolo team has its final game.  The championship was on the line and everyone came thru big.  The game ended with the good guys on top and we won the Championship!  Tom Dance was on hand to witness this historic moment.  Jenna Dallin, and Heather were solid up front scoring those big goals when we needed them, while Derek and Carson were huge on defense.

Thanks to all who supported and made this great year possible.

Check it out --> BLOG FEEDS

You can quickly scan through the feeds in the column on the left to update yourself on the latest family blogs. Each feed has the 5 newest posts and will self-update whenever a new post is added. Whenever someone decides to start their own blog, e-mail me and I'll add a feed for it.

Notice Chad and Melanie's blog is added. And, I highly recommend that you all check out the video on Tom and Kim's blog of their amazing basement finishing skills!!! I am so impressed.

Fridge Photo

Logan and I aren't in this photo, but here's our newest addition!

Singing and dancing!

He was a hit!

Jonny and Annie did a little solo dance in the city square after the townspeople went home.

Jonny was Tommy, the "troublemaker" who led the band at the end of the show.

 This is one of a few pictures I thought you might enjoy seeing of Jonny in the The Music Man.  He is our first actor, dancer, singer!  It was all pretty fun, wish you could have all been there!

The Hallbergs have posted

Hello all. Having unceremoniously bowed out of the Blogging World for the sake of blogging solely on Richard's work blog, I have posted on our (Chad and Mel's) blog for the first time since October. Nothing special; just thought I'd let everyone know that you can start going back to our cob-webbed blog and see what we're up to in Spokane, Much GenConf love to all!!!

Chad and Mel and the Boys

Megan and Amanda put on a wonderful folkdance performance at the "Spring of Nations" on Wednesday.