Flag Football

Tanner and Max wanted to play flag football this year. It's only four weeks long with two games a week, so it's short and intense. This is Max's first year and he really loved it. His coach says things like, "God gave you two hands to pull flags!" And he thinks that's great. He learned a lot this season and can't wait until next year.Tanner's team never had practice because his coach was pretty busy and two games a week plus practice is hard. His team did pretty well but other teams he played you could tell had practice. It is a sport that's pretty laid back but not as fun when you're losing. For some reason Tanner always wore this shirt under his t-shirt so the other team would call him "red sleeves." So as a family we would cheer for him, "Go, Red sleeves!" He made a couple of touch downs and interceptions, it helps to be tall.

Yellowstone

For Fall Break, Jon's mom rented a cabin right outside of West Yellowstone. It was a lot of fun and relaxing, I think our family slept in until 8:00 every morning. The first day we went to Old Faithful which was amazing. Then the second day we went to the Paint Pots which had so many different colors, it was beautiful.
All of us, Wow, that's a lot of people!
Max and Seth bought little pocket knives which they are showing, they did a lot of "whittling."

We went on a short, beautiful hike above Old Faithful and almost ran into this Bison. It was pretty scary but it didn't charge and we were all safe, shew!
Family picture in front of Old Faithful
Tanner in front of Firehose Falls

Farewell to soccer

So, Maddie's team this year is called the Treehuggers. They are a great group of girls that are really fun to watch. Go girls!!

Tanner had one soccer injury but recovered pretty well. He had a lot of strong kicks and headers this last game. I don't think their team had a name. Go yellow!! If you look closely you can see the ball on Tanner's head as he's heading it.

Seth's team is the Blue Dragons. He played teams that were the green dragons and the red dragons, I think this age of boys like dragons! This is the pizza party after the last game, sorry no action shots but at this age there's not a lot of action shots!

Girls night out/Boys night out

Maddie asked if she could go with her friend Clara to Garder's Village in Salt Lake. It's such a cute place that's built like a village and each house is a store. When I dropped Maddie off, Clara's mom asked if I'd like to go with them. So, I did. There are tons of big witches everywhere doing funny stuff that the girls had to pose by. We ate dinner and bought a few trinkets and ate treats. It was a fun night.

In the meantime...Jon decided to do something fun with the boys. He took them to Teppanyaki. The boys ate and ate and loved watching them cook the food on the table right in front of them. Jon said they all came home with leftovers except Tanner, he ate everything.

Ahh, the cabin

Most of my family was heading up to the cabin to watch conference. Maddie had her last soccer game at 5:00pm on Saturday (she hasn't had an evening game the whole year!) and she really didn't want to miss it. We decided to go up to the cabin after her game even though it would be for less than 24 hours. I'm so glad we did. It's so beautiful in the mountains and nice to be with the family!

Donovan's trying to put on Seth's coat and got a little stuck.

Grandma Dewey

Last weekend we all went to St. George for my Grandma Dewey's funeral. It was sad because we will miss her, but happy because she was 93 and wondering why she was still around. She was ready to be with her husband again. I'm glad she came up for Christmas to be with all of us this year. My kids are very fortunate to have had 5 grandmas still alive and to be close enough to see most of them often. We love you, Grandma Dewey!

Dream vs. Reality

Dream: Seth (the youngest in the family) goes off to first grade leaving me with ample time on my hands that I won't know what to do with. I'll probably clean out a closet and then scrapbook (something productive and then something fun.)

Reality: Seth was home one day with a fever, Max was home one day with pink eye, Seth was home another day with an ear infection, Maddie is home one day with a stomach ache, Seth calls to come get him after lunch from school because he is "sick" which he is not I realize after watching him, Seth is home another day with another ear infection/fever, Tanner goes to school in crutches because of a soccer injury which means I take and pick him up and haul his drum kit for him. As I was bringing in groceries in a rush today so I could put them away before going to get Tanner I thought, "Hey, what happened to my dream?!"

I'm not giving up, I still have hope that I'm going to have time to scrapbook and de-clutter...sometime very soon.

Labor Day in Idaho Falls

We decided to take a trip to ID since we got Monday off. We got up Saturday and all put on our BYU shirts. Jon brought up his school's projector and Marilyn made lots of "game food." We watched the game that evening which happened to be a great one!On Sunday we went and visited Grandpa's grave. It was very peaceful and beautiful at the cemetary. The kids found a praying mantis praying over grandpa's grave and played with it for a long time.
On Monday the kids were begging to go back to the sand dunes. It was actually kind of cold and windy but they were determined. We adults stayed in the car and talked while all the kids played away. It was fun to all be together.

Storytelling Festival

Every year there's a big storytelling festival in Orem. Jon had taken the older two kids a couple of years ago to "Bedtime Stories" and some of our kids have gone for school, but we've never gone as a family. I'm so glad we did, it made us laugh so hard. There were 5 talented storytellers and it lasted until about 10:30 pm. Here's a picture of the stage and audience. It's just nice to be outside in the evening air, especially since the weather was nice. You can just bring blankets or camping chairs.

We got there an hour early, which was fine because they had entertainment while we waited. They had a juggler that went around the crowd that Tanner really liked watching and they had a band on stage performing. We also brought our books to read, since storytelling was the theme of the night.

A Bee's Death

Our stingerless little bee lived a whole week. I felt kind of sad when I dumped him in the trash this morning. I thought, "I shouldn't have an emotional attachment to an insect!" But I did.

A Bee's Life

We went to pack meeting tonight for cub scouts. It was at our neighbors the Westwoods who have bees. I learned so much about bees and honey tonight, it was quite interesting. For instance, honey has its own natural antibiotic properties so it will never mold. And male bees which are the drones have no stingers. They get kicked out of the hive when it starts getting cold because they are no longer needed. Seth actually found one and brought it home. They only live 30-40 days total and I'm not sure how old he is but it's fun to hold a bee. I actually couldn't do it, it just doesn't seem natural. The female bees (workers) only live 21 days. Pretty amazing.

School is back on!

Seth was always disappointed last year because he had 1/2 day kindergarten and couldn't ride the bus to school with the kids. This year he has 6 long hours of school which he was happy about for the first day. Yesterday he came home and said school was so long he almost started crying. It'll be an adjustment.
Max is in 4th grade and this is his first year to have a male teacher. He is very excited about it and really likes him.
Maddie is the Queen of the school this year being in 6th grade. She had no anxieties. She said her teacher has a lot of enthusiasm, maybe even too much enthusiasm.
I couldn't get Tanner to go to back to school night because he "pretty much knows everything." I asked if he just wanted to go see where his locker was and he said the #'s on the paper he knows right where it is. He's in 8th grade this year and says it's going pretty well.

15th anniversary

Jon and I planned a trip to San Francisco for our 15th wedding anniversary. We went through San Francisco on our way to Hawaii for our Honeymoon so we got to relive half of our honeymoon. We got there about 2:00 so we decided to ride a cable car first thing and have lunch/dinner down at the wharf. It took about a half an hour of standing in line to get on, then it went up the block and picked up a lot more people. It kept stopping and cramming, I was pretty amazed at how many people can fit in a cable car.We thought we should take advantage of the great seafood so we ate here and it was great! After that we went to Ghirardelli to have hot fudge sundaes. I had the "gold rush" which was peanut butter and hot fudge. It was so good, I knew we had to go back another day to have another one...and we did.
Jon's making fun of me taking a picture of our sundaes. I have to e-mail a pic. to Linc, I thought of him the whole time I was eating it. I forgot my camera so I bought a disposable one. The pictures turned out okay, Jon's i-phone did better.

There was a huge barking seal sound so we followed it and found lots of seals sunning themselves. They were a lot of fun to watch battling and swimming after each other.

The next day we went to "Aquarium of the Bay" It was great. There were two glass tunnels to walk through surrounded be sharks, fish, and rays.

Here's a picture of Jon meeting President Obama. We took this in the wax museum mainly for my mom's sake. The wax museum was not that great, but we had lots of time on our hands. We also toured a Liberty ship and a submarine. I had to get out of the sub after about 5 minutes because it was tight quarters and I felt so claustrophobic.

The last full day we were there we went to Alcatraz. It was very interesting. The ferry ride out was a lot of fun too. We also went to Wicked on our actual anniversary (12th) and loved it. It was a really fun trip with a lot of walking. I'm happy I had my friend Kara and my parents watch the kids. They were quite happy too. It's always hard to leave them that first day then I start to relax. Getting away is hard but so important and fun. I'm thankful for what a great husband Jon is and that we can enjoy each others company one on one for four days.

Purple belt and Parade

Last night Maddie advanced to Purple Belt. I love purple, yay! She did a great job.Maddie, Max, and Seth were in the Alpine parade this morning. The weather was actually a little on the cold side which is nice for those in the parade. They were first so they could sit with us and watch when they were done. Good thing, they wouldn't want to miss out on all of that candy!

Family fun

Last week my sister Lyssa and her family came to Utah for a visit, YAY! We have so much fun when she comes and the kids are in heaven playing with their cousins.

We spent LOTS of time swimming. It was fun because the kids would even swim at 9 at night with the pool light changing colors from green to red to blue. Lincoln probably loves swimming more than anyone I know.

Ryan and Melanie had their fourth baby while we were all together which was great timing! We went to visit him in the hospital the next day...so tiny!!
We also got to got to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house which was beautiful! The kids are so lucky to say they got to go inside a temple.