Alyssa's Garbage Can Cleaning Service

Alyssa decided she wanted to earn a little bit of cash, so she offered up a garbage can cleaning service to our neighbors. We had a pressure washer that we borrowed from the Convention Center and she cleaned each can for $5. I think she learned that it was a really gross job, but she stuck with it for a good 4 or 5 hours one afternoon and made like $150. Danny was the driver, and she paid Ashley $20 to go with him and help load and unload garbage cans. We were proud of her for doing most of the hard work. 

 

Carving Pumpkins

We almost forgot to carve pumpkins this year. The kids wanted to carve them the night we brought them home from the pumpkin patch. But I told them it was too early and that they would rot before Halloween. My plan was to carve them the weekend before Halloween, but that weekend came and went and must have been busy because I totally spaced it. The Thursday before Halloween arrived and the pumpkins still hadn't been carved, so I told the kids we were doing it after dinner, or not at all. When they brought them inside, we were sad to realize that most of the pumpkins were soft and sad looking. I guess our first hard freeze got to them. It was pretty gross, but we carved them anyways.

A scary face(with Forky eyes) - Tyler

A character from Ashley's imaginary game - Tyler

A normal pumpkin face with "BOO" for the mouth(Camden came up with that on his own)

And Luigi(from Super Mario Bros. That is Camden's favorite character right now)

Now that I'm looking at these pictures, I'm realizing that I didn't even take pictures of Ashley and Alyssa's pumpkins. They finished carving theirs after the boys and I was already busy getting the boys cleaned up and ready for bed. The boys ended up with 4 pumpkins each. A big and a little from the pumpkin patch, a medium sized one from school, and a little one from their friend's birthday party. They painted the small ones and carved the bigger ones. Ashley carved a dog with it's owner. Alyssa made a pretty ordinary triangle eyed pumpkin face.

Pumpkin Patch Fun

I took the kids to the pumpkin patch across Main Street from our neighborhood, again this year, to pick out pumpkins. They have the best price for pumpkins around and the owners are so nice. The kids posed for a picture after they had picked their pumpkins. I really like how the picture turned out. 

The kids talked us into taking them to Cornbelly's again this year(Alyssa opted to go with her tennis team instead of with us this year). We picked a day later in the month of October than usual and I think we all regretted it a little. While it was nice having fewer crowds, it was not so nice having wind and cold. We all had, at least 3 layers on and were all a little cold once the sun went down. The most annoying part about it is that the day before we went was in the 60's with no wind. The day that we went was in the 40's, with wind. But we made the most of it and I think the kids still had fun.

It wouldn't be a visit to Cornbelly's without a picture in one of the many face signs.

We got everyone hot chocolate/hot apple cider after the sun went down to warm us up a little. The warmth it brought didn't last nearly long enough.

The boys had fun in this little play area that was set up like a miniature town. There was a castle, a post office, a grocery store, a city jail, an ice cream shop, a car repair shop, etc. I liked being able to duck into the little buildings with them for a few minutes to find some protection from the chilly wind.

Cornbelly's has about 100 play areas. This is one of the kids favorites. There are stacked up hay bales that have 3 or 4 different kinds of slides off of them There are also rope ladders and stairs to climb up to the top. They especially love sliding down head first. 

I didn't get any pictures, but we also played numerous games involving balls, they had fun on the mini ropes course and the zip lines, we rode on a couple of different trains, they went through mazes(not including the giant corn maze- we managed to skip that one this year because of the cold), we watched pig races, and a dog show, and played mini golf to end the night. They asked about going back multiple times in the week following our visit. Next year, I think we will go earlier in the month, or just pay for the season pass so we can spread the fun out over the entire month in small doses.

I took the three younger kids to the Scarecrow festival at Thanksgiving Point. Tyler liked all of the Star Wars Themed scarecrows. 

This one was Ashley's favorite(mine too), depicting a 2020 business meeting.

Camden liked the Super Mario themed scarecrows. There happened to be 3 this year.

It was beautiful weather and the gardens are always refreshing to walk through. So many wonderful smells and sights. The kids favorite part is rolling down the grassy hills. Ashley made herself sick from rolling too much. One time down the hill would have been too much for me, so I totally get it. I guess that is part of getting older. We ended the afternoon with some ice cream and a couple of lawn games that they had set up(tic tac toe with pumpkins and gourds, connect four, tetherball, and jenga).

St. George Trip

When Alyssa went to St. George with her tennis team, we decided to go along to support her(and to be close in case she or any of the other girls on her team got sick that week). We were all going to go, but then we found out that Ashley had an all day field trip at a Ranch in the mountains during the trip. She didn't want to miss it and we didn't want to force her to miss it, so we arranged for her to stay with Gawbie and Grandpa while we were gone.

We left for St. George on Thursday afternoon, after the boys got home from school. They were so easy to travel with. They each had an electronic device to entertain them in the car. They didn't have strong opinions about which restaurant we chose to eat at. They were most excited about swimming and playing at the park(mostly free forms of entertainment). And they didn't mind sharing a bed. It's crazy to think that it used to be this easy when Alyssa and Ashley were little.

When we got to St. George, we checked into our hotel, unloaded our stuff, and then headed out for dinner. We ended up at Black Bear Diner. The next morning, we were up bright and early for Alyssa's 8 am tennis match. After the match, we had about 2 hours to kill, so we headed to this park I had read about called Thunder Junction. It was one of the coolest parks I've ever taken the boys to. It had a dinosaur theme and was an all abilities park, so there were some different things to play on. It also had a little train that went around the outside of the park. It didn't start running until and hour and a half after we got there, but the boys were the first kids in line to ride when it did open.

After lunch and Alyssa's second tennis match, we had another 2-3 hours to kill. This time we headed back to the hotel and I took the boys down to the pool to swim. We stayed there as long as we could without making us late for Alyssa's last match of the day. After the match, we grabbed dinner and then headed back to the hotel again. The boys talked Danny into taking them to the pool again. They stayed until Alyssa's whole tennis team showed up at the pool and made it too crowded down there.

The next morning, Alyssa had another 8 am tennis match, so we were up early again. The boys wanted to go back to Thunder Junction again(this time in their swimming suits so that they could play in the water feature). Because Alyssa and her teammate won their 8 am match, it gave us an extra hour to allow time to go back to the park. We were surprised when we got there, to find that the parking lot was full and there were a bunch of college aged kids in the park. It just happened to be Dixie Day and all of the Athletic teams from Dixie State were there running activities in different sections of the park. There was also a scavenger hunt, that they gave the boys. I think they had the most fun squirting the swim team with water sprayers.

We even ran into a girl that used to be in our Ward(her parents still are). She is on the cross country team at Dixie. So we got a picture to send to her parents.

We let them play until we got a call from Alyssa telling us that the matches were happening earlier than the schedule said. So we headed out quickly after that. We watched her last match and then we found a Chuck O Rama on the way out of town for lunch. It was the first time going to a buffet since the pandemic hit, but they had plenty of precautions to make it safe to eat there. The drive home was uneventful. We ended up getting to Gawbie and Grandpa's house before Ashley had gotten back from her field trip. But she arrived within 10 minutes. She had all kinds of stories about taking a sinking kayak onto the pond and then falling into the water in her clothes. She also spent a lot of time with the dogs on the ranch. It was a fun weekend for all of us and so good to return home again.
 

First Day of School

We feel fortunate that our kids got to return to school this year. Alyssa is at Willowcreek Middle School for 9th grade. Our High School is in the process of expanding, but until that is finished, the 9th graders have to attend at the Middle School. She started school on Aug. 18th. They are just about finished with first term and have attended 5 days a week, in person. The school district has been telling kids who have been exposed to COVID to quarantine for 14 days. None of our kids have been exposed so far, knock on wood. 

They get to wear masks all day, which they all love.

She doesn't follow the mask rule when she is with her best friends, though.

Ashley is back at American Heritage this year. She is still getting used to the homework load required for 7th grade. She is also attending school 5 days a week. Her first day of school was Aug. 19th.

Camden started Kindergarten this year. He is at the public Elementary School-Snow Springs.  It's been a rough year for him, so far. He came down with a fever the day before school started, which lasted for the whole first week of school. Then, last week, he had to miss another week of school because of a stuffy/runny nose. Fortunately, he hasn't suffered academically, since he knows most of the stuff that they will be teaching him this year in Kindergarten. His first day was supposed to be Aug. 25th, but it ended up being Sept. 1, instead. 

Tyler is also at Snow Springs. He is in 2nd grade this year and loves his teacher and his new school. He especially likes riding the bus to school. His first day of school was the same as Alyssa, Aug. 18th. After about 2 days, a good chunk of Tyler's class had to be quarantined because someone in his class had COVID. Fortunately, he wasn't close enough to whomever had it so he got to still attend school in person. 

I took this picture of Tyler one morning at the bus stop. I thought it was funny how his whole face was covered between the eye mask and the nose and mouth mask.+

So far, it has been an okay school year. The kids are making the best of the situation. I think they are just happy to be in school. We did find out that because of the growing number of cases in the secondary schools, they are changing over to a hybrid schedule for 2nd term. Basically, Alyssa will have 4 days in person a week and one day online. She isn't thrilled about it, but it's better than only 2 days in person which would probably be the next step if the number of cases doesn't decrease.  We are really looking forward to the day when this is behind us and we can be around people in a normal way again(without the face masks and without the fear of being exposed).

 We took an end of summer camping trip to Bear Lake. We booked the campground before Alyssa even expressed an interest in tennis, but by the time the camping trip rolled around, she was full swing into her tennis season. As a result, Danny had to head out on the camping trip with the three younger kids without us so she could be here for a tennis match. We headed up there the next day, but they managed to do a lot of stuff without us in that time. The explored all of the amenities of the campground(this campground had a lot of super fun stuff)

The Big Picture Perfect Rocking Chairs

The miniature golf course

The playground

The giant jumping pillow

The swimming pool

They also went to our favorite raspberry shake spot.

On Friday, they headed up to the North Shore Beach. They took the canopy, lunch, sand toys, and life jackets and made a fun day of it. 

They were surprised to find this food truck(or maybe I should say boat) out on the water.

Alyssa and I arrived at the campground about the same time that they got back from their beach day. We enjoyed the evening together and lit a campfire to enjoy after dark.

The next morning, we rented a boat. Alyssa has a bit of a fear of deep water, so we let her stay behind in the trailer. The other three loved our boating outing.

We rented an inter tube with the boat and they all had fun going out on it. Danny and I even tried it once each. 

The boys got a bit cold by the end and curled up under blankets on the front bench seats.

That afternoon, we took the kids to this adventure park. The girls wanted to try out the ropes course.

Ashley got a bit scared up there and didn't last as long as Alyssa.

Her favorite crossing was these platforms that swung back and forth. She is sitting on one of them in this picture.

The boys got to go down this huge slide 7 times each.

After the adventure park, we went back for more raspberry shakes and then another campfire night. We headed back home on Sunday. It was a fun weekend. We want to go back here again. The only down side is that Garden City does not have any public tennis courts and Alyssa really wanted to go play every day. We were also quite jealous of our neighbors who had a private patio with a hot tub and grill. Next time we want to book that campground.