September

Bryce and Erin had taken their family to Dinosaur National Park for Labor Day and they were driving home on Sunday.  Since they literally drive by our house, I invited them to come for dinner.  They came early enough to go to church with us and then stayed for dinner and to play and visit.  It was a lot of fun to have them-we always love visitors!

Ben was so patient and just sat there and let Ivy comb his hair.

We didn't have anything fun planned for Labor Day-just work on the house-but I told the kids that I would take them to the skate park in the morning.  We stopped and got doughnuts, bananas, and chocolate milk on our way.  Ivy liked the park.  Molly stayed home.

When we got home, I had Justin help me blow up the pool.  I never do this because it's a pain but he used his air compressor and it went super fast!

Brett came up with Gene to help on the house and brought his air soft gun for the kids to try out in the pasture.

Snuggles with Snow White.  She left to a new home a few days later.  Our realtor was surprising his girls with a kitten.  We got news that about a month later, Snow White was hit by a car.  So sad.

Ivy thought that she could do her own hair one day and she was so proud of herself.

For Molly's date with me, I took her to a BYU Women's soccer game.  We left early so we could do a little bit of shopping.  She had found some camel-colored overalls (so cute) at Swiss Days that she wanted for her birthday and we needed a shirt to go with it.  There was a little drama involved but she ended up finding something she liked and all was well.  We had to grab some really quick dinner at Wendy's.  I would have liked to take her someplace nicer but shopping took too long.  The game was awesome.  We had to stand behind one of the goals since all the bleachers were full by the time we got there but that was okay.  We had a really great time and plan on attending more of those games.

Right behind the goal as BYU scored!  Also, the view of the mountains was incredible!

Some tricks in the greenhouse.  Molly started it and the rest had to join in.

I guess Snow White was still around a couple of days later.  This was maybe the girls saying goodbye.  Coconut and Snow White (we kept Coconut, the kitten on the left).

Justin got his trumpet out one night at dinner and brushed up on some of his old songs.  The kids thought it was great and they all got a chance to try it out.  They laughed so hard when he would blow as loud as he could.

I have several photos of the kids with the kittens.  I honestly can't remember the timeline for when we gave them away anymore so I'm just posting them because memories.

 

I've tried really hard to have the kids take a dish night once a week.  It hasn't been super successful, mainly because of our hectic schedule during the week.  I'm going to keep trying!

It's a little trickier to get together with Heidi and Eli this year since Ivy and I have preschool Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Eli has preschool Tuesday and Thursday.  We decided to meet in the middle one morning and met at Vivian Park in Provo Canyon for a picnic.  It was a beautiful day-it was still green but the leaves were just starting to change.

Our ward did a day-long Youth Conference at Temple Square in September.  It was the day before Molly's birthday.  She missed two soccer games for it but it was worth it.  She was able to be there with Justin too!  She gave a great sacrament meeting talk about it the following week.  The youth in our ward are awesome!

Sloane Ellingford, Samantha Steiner, Molly, Angel Phelps, Sage Baugh

While they were there, I had the other kids with me at Stockton's double-header baseball game in Salt Lake.  Luckily it was a nice day and there was a fun park for the girls to play at while the games were going.  When the games were over, we headed over to Lagoon to meet some cousins.  It was Grant's birthday weekend and he wanted to ride Cannibal for his birthday.  It worked out perfectly since we were already so close.  It was the opening weekend of Frightmares so it was packed.  We went over to Cannibal and got in line once and then the ride shut down but luckily we were able to jump on it right before we left.  I say "we" loosely since I was with the younger kids.  We had so much fun with our Lagoon passes but my biggest regret was that I never rode Cannibal once the entire summer/fall.  It's one of my favorites but I was always with the younger kids and it just never happened.  But Stockton conquered it...the next ride for him to conquer (next year) is the Rocket.

Brynn collected some odds and ends at the baseball game and made a bouquet.

Abby, Grant, Stockton-boarding Wicked

Ivy and Seth riding Odysea

Seminar time!  One of my favorite weekends of the whole year!  This year they had us go the the Grand America hotel in Salt Lake.  I missed having it so close but the hotel was super nice.  My first class on Thursday morning was an informational class put on by Operation Underground Railroad.  After lunch, I took a knitting class.  They gave us large balls of chunky yarn and taught us how to finger-knit a small lap blanket.  I liked this class a lot-different from any of the other craft classes they've ever had. 

finished product

  Then comes one of my favorite parts-when I get to check-in to the room and do whatever I want for a couple of hours.  Poor Justin has a longer meeting that afternoon so I have the room to myself.  I usually read, watch TV, and take a nap and it feels wonderful.  The room was way nicer than anything we've stayed at at the Zermatt.

View from our balcony but through the window because the door actually doesn't open.

sitting room

bedroom

Huge bathroom-I couldn't even get the whole thing in a photo.

The entertainment that night was a local company that did a variety of things.  I would say they weren't as polished as some of the other entertainment we've had in previous years.  I took lots of pictures and sent them to the kids because I thought they would be impressed.  Also, the food is a lot more gourmet at the Grand.  I like to think of myself as an adventurous eater but I wasn't loving the food.  It's hard to feed that many people buffet-style and I'm not sure the Zermatt did it any better but at least when it was there, I could fill half my plate with a normal green salad.

Sometimes we hang out with friends after dinner but I requested that we go back to our room for a night in and hang out later on Friday.  I took a long soak in that big bathtub which was heavenly and then went to bed.  I hadn't signed up for a class Friday morning because my plan was to go to the temple that morning while Justin was in his class.  That didn't work because I realized I had forgotten my temple bag and recommend when I was halfway down Parley's Canyon Thursday morning.  Instead I went to Home Goods to see if I could find anything for the shelves in the bathroom-no luck-and relaxed some more at the hotel until lunch.

Our afternoon activity was Top Golf but we had an hour to kill before we needed to be there so we went and walked around Gardner Village and saw some of the witches.  We were in Archibald's looking around when it started hailing like crazy!  We were only gone for 20 minutes but when we got back to the car, it was like a river going down the parking lot!  I also bought the very first decoration for our built-in bookcases for the house that hadn't been installed yet.

A couple of months before seminar, Justin called to tell me that they were planning on having a talent show for the Friday night entertainment and did we want to do our unicycling trick?  Ordinarily, I would say absolutely not because it would have to be such a good prize to do something like that in front of that many people.  Well, it was a good prize so we signed up.  I was so nervous all that day and through dinner but once we actually started, I was not nervous.  Justin rode his unicycle around the auditorium for several minutes talking about how he started unicycling, his experiences riding it around USU campus, and how we got started doing our little trick.  He also played his trumpet while riding at one time!  The finale was him riding with me on his shoulders while I played a little song on the fiddle.  The full-length video is very entertaining...he even fell when he first put me on his shoulders-something that he's never done before!  Anyway, after all the acts were done (there were only 9), they brought everyone out onstage while the audience members used an app to vote for their favorite.  Then they announced the winner, and...drumroll, please...we actually ended up winning!  The prize?  A trip to Hawaii!  We completely made a fool of ourselves (mostly Justin) and we laugh every time we think about what we actually did in front of so many people (all the way up to the CEO!) but it was completely worth it.  We plan on using our free trip in the fall of 2020.  All the photos are grainy but I'll add a little video snippet of the finale.

 

I felt like such a dork up there on stage while everyone voted.  Trying to get everyone to vote for number 7.

So crazy!

My mom was at home with the kids.  She missed us being close as well since we usually would meet and go shopping at a cute craft store in Midway.  She sent me this picture of Ivy all ready for preschool.

Some friends got us some lei's to wear during our act and then we got even more when we won the grand prize.  The girls had lots of fun wearing them around the house.  I think this was the week that Brynn decided to be a hula dancer for Halloween.

Stockton's orthodontic journey began this fall.  I took him to the ortho and was told that he needed to have 4 teeth pulled and then he'd need a retainer.  I took him to Jeff for that and they both did a great job!  Jeff was so gentle and Stockton so brave.

We went outside one day to see the two remaining kittens in the bike basket.

Coconut and Charlotte

There was one day that had been so busy and I didn't actually know when we were going to sit down for dinner so I made a breakfast pizza, took it straight from the oven to the car, and converted the back of the car into our dinner table so we could watch one of Molly's soccer games.  It worked fairly well and I congratulated myself for giving my family a somewhat decent meal...or at least  warm one!  The boys joined us at the end of baseball practice and practically ate half the pizza between the two of them.  It was a pretty night at the field too!

Two days later Molly had another soccer game, all the way up in Providence (near Logan).  So that was a drive to get there and the weather was not nearly as nice...it was a downpour pretty much the entire drive and game.  At one point in the game, I ran over the the players to give Molly an extra blanket and came back to a soaking wet chair.  It started hailing so bad at the very end of the game that you couldn't hear the person sitting next to you, let alone the coach from the sideline.  I'm not sure they called the game because it was actually over or because of the conditions.

Since we were going to all the trouble of driving up to Logan, I thought we might as well do something fun while we were there.  I picked up Abby on the way (poor girl, she was a trooper to sit through that miserable game) so when the game was over, we had lunch and went to the temple to do baptisms.  Main Street was insane (I realized later that it was USU's homecoming game that day) but the temple was not busy.  When I was a student living in Logan, I would go to the baptistry every Wednesday afternoon after classes and I hadn't been back since.  I was happy to share it with Molly and glad that Abby could come too.