Spelling Bee Champ

Alyssa was able to participate in her school spelling bee again this year. In order to be part of the school spelling bee, you have to get either first or second place in your class spelling bee. Alyssa got second place in her class spelling bee. She lost to the girl that got second place in the school spelling bee last year. She did really well in the school spelling bee this year. She was very confident and spoke clearly as she spelled her words. It got down to her and the other girl from her class in the end. They went on a few rounds without missing words and then they got to the 7th grade spelling words(ones we hadn't practiced with Alyssa). She got out on the word wherewithal (if that is even how you spell it) and placed 2nd overall. We were very happy with how well she did. I think she was happy too, even though she admitted afterwards that she really wanted to participate in the spelling bee the next day for the 4th-8th graders (only the first place winner from the 2nd and 3rd grade spelling bee goes on to compete with the older kids). She came down with a fever the following day, though, so she wouldn't have been able to do it anyways, even if she had gotten first place.

The winner, Nora, is in the center of this picture. The other boy is a 2nd grader who got 3rd place. I love how happy the two girls look. They loved being there together and spent the rest of the day together. They became good friends through competing together.

 Here they are with their principal afterwards.

We are so proud of her and look forward to many more spelling bee's in the future.

Moab Trip

We took a trip down to Moab during Fall Break. We joined Becky and Jake's family there since they were also on Fall break. We only spent 3 days, but had tons of fun. It was mostly fun to get our families together and see the kids play so well. On one of the days there, we went to Arches National Park. Here is our family in front of "Balanced Rock."

 I guess people thought it was cool to stack up rocks next to balanced rock because there were tons of these little rock piles. These two girls are so similar and had so much fun together.

 Here are the older kids in front of "Delicate Arch." We opted to do the shorter hike to the upper viewpoint instead of the strenuous 3 miler to the actual arch. It would have been fun to get closer, but not with tired kids in tow.

These two couldn't get enough of the climbing. Some places they climbed to scared me to death, but they always managed to make it safely back to the ground. If you look closely in the second picture, you can see Jake, Conner, and Alyssa in the shadows of that huge rock towards the top.

I guess Ashley and Claire were not in the mood to smile in this picture, but here are all of the kids together.

The Moms with the kids.

We rented a 2-room condo south of town, which ended up working really well for our families. The kids kind of sprawled out in the living room, with the younger kids in the parents bedrooms. The condo ended up having a hot tub on it's patio and access to the community pool. The kids loved the pool and the adults loved the hot tub. The kids also loved the shared backyard area complete with a patch of red sand to play in. Ashley and Tamma spent most of the time we were at the condo out in that sand.

 We learned quickly that Moab is the place to go to do some serious offroading. Becky and Jake knew this and mostly planned the trip for this purpose. They brought their jeep and the guys took the oldest two kids out one morning to do a trail.

 This hole is called the Hot Tub and the drove their jeep right through it.

They sounded like they had a lot of fun. Becky and Jake had to head out of town a little earlier than us because they had a longer drive home. After we parted ways, we went for a drive along the Colorado river and found this dirt road that took us into Canyonlands National Park. (Danny had been told about it by a couple of people, so we went looking for it). We stopped along the way to do some more climbing.

We also stopped to take another look at the Colorado River.

 Here is a picture from the top of the cliff that we drove up. you can see the small dirt road that we came from. That road lead us right to the bottom of the cliff and then zig-zagged us up to the top. It was beautiful and a little scary at times, but well worth the 2 hour detour.

It was a really fun trip and we were glad that the Knudsen's invited us along. I have wanted to visit Moab and Arches since I was a student at BYU. It was nice to see the beauty down there and cross another thing off of my bucket list. The weather was also perfect.