November 2019

Novermber started out on a sad note when we discovered our Beta fish, Diamond died.  I had noticed the last couple weeks that he wasn't as active and didn't eat as much so I kind of knew it was coming.  The girls had their friend Finley over for the first time and went to show her their fish and she said 'I don't think he's alive'  oops.  I told them to go outside for a bit but pretty soon they came back and I couldn't keep it from them, Diamond was gone.  The kids were devastated.  I knew they were going to be sad when she died but seriously I've never seen more tears over a fish.  They did love him a lot, and talked and fed him every day.  We said our good-byes and then made some fish out of felt which made them a lot happier to have something to remember him by. It was fun remembering how Diamond magically came into our lives on the girl's birthday the year before.  They were also happy they still had Gilbert to play with.


Jaron played Jr Jazz basketball and it was the cutest team all made up with boys from our neighborhood.  He had some much fun playing and practicing with them.


Shane and the girls got to go on a Father/Daughter Date night put on by the Primary Activity days.  And since I'm the primary president, I got to go and help as well.  It was a cowboy themed night.  They ate dinner and then rotated around to play different games.


Thanksgiving fell kind of late this year so we decided to decorate our Christmas tree the weekend before Thanksgiving which I usually do not do.  The kids were excited and definitely got us in the Christmas spirit.  They even let Gilbert join in on the festivities.


The 2nd graders learned all about the history of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and then put on a Balloon parade.  These 2nd grade teachers helped their class make them all.  I was impressed at how different and creative they all were.  Siena's was a butterfly and Aria's was a unicorn.


We spent Thanksgiving at my parents house like we usually do and had a good day.  Before we went over there we took the kids to see the new Frozen 2 movie that had just come out.  We got a snow storm that morning so the kids were excited to see Frozen 2 on a Frozen morning at Thanksgiving Point on Thanksgiving Day!


We got a pretty good snow storm towards the end of the month so the kids of course wanted to go sledding. It was a fun first time sledding for the season.

October 2019

October was such a busy month for us.  Between just regular life, the girl's baptism and then we decided to go to California for Fall Break all while trying to fit in our regular October/Halloween traditions it felt a little crazy.

I got to go with Siena and Aria on their field trip to a farm.  It was fun because they had about 15 rotations every 5 minutes about all different things.  It was great because it totally kept their interest moving every 5 minutes and each station was different.  Then we ate lunch and played at a park for a while.


Siena and Aria got to go to their first Women's Conference since they're 8 now.  They weren't that excited to go but I got to take them to dinner before and since they chose pizza, their favorite, then it was ok I think.


The girls entered their first Reflections contest this year in photography.  The them was 'Looking Inside'  Siena did a picture and essay on our trees in our backyard how they might look scary but when you go inside them you find all sorts of pretty things in nature.  Aria took a picture of an apple and talked about how you would never know from the outside how good and juicy an apple is on the inside.  Aria ended up winning 2nd place for her entry and both had fun going to the awards ceremony and getting a ribbon and some fun prizes.


We went to the Witch festival at Gardner Village on the coldest day of the entire year it felt like but we made it!


By the time we made it to the pumpkin patch this year all the pumpkins were green or rotten.  So wen played with some corn and went on a couple slides and called it good.  We ended up buying them at the grocery store and I don't think I've ever done that in my entire life.


The kids were all random things for Halloween..no theme, sad!  Siena was a bunny, Aria a horse and Jaron was Dracula.  And of course we always love the Halloween parade at school.  That night we trick or treated.  Both Shane and I went out this year since we get so few trick or treaters on our street so it was fun to all be out together.  We keep saying how we only have another year or 2 before they won't let us go with them.

Fall Break to California

When Christy called me and asked if I wanted to come down to California for our Fall break because it just happened to be the same week her and Brett had booked a trip to Spain, I of course said yes.  She was leaving her 4 girls home and they thought they were old enough to just stay by themselves, which really they were.  But she was hoping someone could just be there just in case and mostly to help Emmy.  It was the perfect plan.

We left Tuesday after school and drove to Las Vegas.  We got in late and left early except we had to stop by Techna glass to get a huge rock chip repaired we had gotten on the way down.  It was right by the airport so we were very entertained watching planes land.


We got to Christy's and the weather was of course perfect, warm and sunny.  So we heated up the hot tub and the kids went swimming and decided to catch lizards.  They of course had to jump into the freezing cold water of the pool but they didn't care.


The next day we went to Sea World.  Emmy got to hang out with us and miss school and it was so fun having her along with us.  My kids have never been there and we had a great time.  They have so many more rides there then when I was there last (probably 25 years ago)  The bummer was a dolphin had given birth the night before so the dolphin show got cancelled.  But we saw the sea lion show (and the sea lions weren't performing very well.) but the Orca show was amazing.  The kids insisted on sitting in the splash zone having no idea what that meant.  When one of the orca's came by pushing waves of water on us, they were screaming.  We had a few tears from Siena but after that they thought it was fun and cool that we got so wet.  Such a fun day and not crowded at all.




The next day we went to the beach.  Emmy got to skip school that day too...yay!  It was fun to relax and let the kids just play.  We had this aggressive bird eat Aria's sandwich right from her hand and then kept pacing in front of our stuff and as soon as I would turn my head it would try to charge in and grab something.  It was seriously the most aggressive bird I've ever encountered at the beach but was pretty enteraining.


Saturday we went up to Newport after we dropped Emmy off at her gymnastics practice and had fun walking around Balboa, eating ice cream at the pier, riding the ferry, etc.  Then we went and found a few tide pools even if it wasn't the right time of day for the tide.


Sunday we went to church and got to listen to Emmy give her part and sing in the primary program.  We went and walked along the beach for a while after church and then my friend Konstantina came down to eat dinner with us.

Monday we had to drive home all day...boo!  We made a long stop in St. George for lunch and to play at the park.  It was such a fun trip and the Brian's are always so nice to let us stay with them.  They were so polite the whole time even if the older ones didn't think they needed us, we were happy we got to come.