Some Random Pictures from August, September, and October

We went to the first home BYU football game with the kids. Ashley and Camden were done with being there before the first quarter was over. So they took a walk around the whole stadium to pass time. This was the only game that the 2 of them went to this season. Alyssa has a ROC pass so she was at every game and loved being in the student section. Tyler got to go to another game with Danny later in the season. 

The boys had a dress up day at school. I think the theme was to dress like your hero or a superhero or something like that. But they didn't have any superhero costumes, so they dressed like American Ninja Warriors. 

I didn't think my cucumber plant was producing. The leaves were just so big and covering so much space. When I finally looked a little closer at the plant, I realized it was indeed producing and most of the cucumbers were past their prime. This was only half of them. We did eat some of them, but there were way too many to eat all of them before they went bad.

I went on a couple of fall hikes by myself. I usually take Lula, when I can, but this trail said that there was a portion of it that dogs couldn't go on. 

I did another hike after staying up at Sundance with Danny. I didn't take Lula on this one either because she was at home and it wasn't convenient to go get her. I carried pepper spray with me, just in case. I didn't need it because there were plenty of people on the trail. The view at the end was spectacular.

The leaves were still pretty amazing, too.

Ashley must have thought that her chocolate bar would make a good lipstick.

We went to Lagoon a few times during frightmares. 

We drove Alyssa back to her dorm via the alpine loop after conference weekend. We almost didn't make it because there was a bit of a freak out over Lula coming with us, but it resolved itself by the time we got into the canyon. The leaves were just changing in the mountains, so it was really pretty. The roads were also packed and some places did not have wide enough roads for 2 cars to pass, so that was fun (and scary).

We went to the scarecrow festival at Thanksgiving point. There were a couple of cute ones. Camden really like Scarella De Ville, mostly because he had been in the 101 dalmatians play this past summer.

After the scarecrows, we went over to the new Tree of Life Garden. It is pretty incredible. There are so many statues, and a long iron rod, a huge spacious building, and of course the tree of life. I can't wait to go back.

I went on a girls night with some of my friends that I play volleyball with. We went to dinner and then to a BYU Women's Volleyball game. It was a lot of fun.

Alyssa and I went on a hike right before she moved out up to Silver Lake. It was so pretty up there and Lula was a good hiking buddy. I accidentally dropped my phone on the trail and was slightly worried about finding it on the way back down. We had some other hikers tell us where to find it. I'm glad that people in Utah are for the most part honest. Because not only was my phone still on the trail, but the $50 in the case was also still there.

Brian's family came into town, so they arranged a breakfast with everyone who lives here from the family. We went to black bear diner and the kids had fun seeing all of their cousin's at once. The breakfast was also a celebration of Danny's parents 50th wedding anniversary.

We took a group picture outside before going our separate ways.

Danny took Alyssa back to the Philippines restaurant so she could try a specific dessert that they sell. (the halo halo, I think). She said it was delicious.

We went on a double date with one of Danny's YSA counselors and his Relief Society President (they have been dating for a few months). We went to a BYU football game and lunch. It was fun. Not too long after this date, they changed Danny's ward boundaries, and he lost this counselor with the change. He was pretty sad about that.

This was one of the only pictures we took from our overnight stay at Sundance in October. Danny was invited to attend meetings up there and they offered a free 1-night stay at the resort as part of it. We left Ashley, Tyler, and Camden alone for an evening and morning. They all woke up and made it to school, so I guess it worked out. Sundance was starting to set up for their Halloween lift ride, so I think these creatures behind us were part of that. We found them when we took a short hike around the grounds.

Alyssa Receives Her Endowment

On the evening of September 27th, Alyssa went through the temple to receive her own endowment. She chose to go to the Saratoga Springs Temple (her first choice was Draper, but it was closed that day for cleaning). She invited her parents, Grandparents, Aunt Shannon, Uncle Steve and Aunt Pam, and her cousin Zach. It was a special night and it has been fun to return with her multiple times since that night.

We are so proud of Alyssa for the choices she is making in her life and for the beautiful woman she is becoming.
 

Alyssa moves out and starts at BYU

Alyssa moved into her dorm room the last week of August. She is living in Building 6 of Heritage Halls. Her room is on the 4th(top) floor, so that was fun for getting all of her stuff up there. We started by getting all of her stuff into the room and organized a bit. Then we took her to Target to get some more essentials for her room and groceries. We left around 4pm and barely made it for Camden's flag football game that night. 

Alyssa has been looking forward to sitting in the student section at BYU football games her whole life. She was so excited to get a into group 1 for the first football game. They (her and her room mates) got there nice and early and ended up with seats on the south endzone on about the 10th row. She said it was so fun.

She is rooming with her best friend from high school, Kate. They get along really well and both sets of parents felt a lot better leaving them there, knowing that they have each other. 

Classes started after a few days of student orientation and Alyssa has been pretty busy ever since. She has psychology, a writing class, American heritage, missionary prep, and her university 101 class. She does not enjoy having homework again, but she does enjoy the social life at school. She also continues to pick up shifts at the convention center and with the BYU events team. She just refuses to work any football or basketball games. We see her quite a bit, between mission shopping trips, temple visits, and BYU events. But she tries to stay down in her dorm as much as possible.

Alyssa Receives Her Mission Call

Alyssa made the decision to serve a mission when she was a junior in high school. It is kind of a cool story, so I thought this is a good place to share. She was going through a rough patch, spiritually, leading up to that year in high school. She had recently made a split off from her friend group that she had had since childhood because she felt like most of them were making choices in their lives that didn't align with where she wanted her life to go. She went to FSY the summer before her junior year and told me after she got back that it was the best week, both socially and spiritually. She made the comment that she had forgotten what if felt like to feel the spirit and FSY helped her remember again. And then she got assigned to a seminary class with a teacher that changed her life. I don't even remember his name even though she has told me many times, but he made such an impact on her at a vulnerable time in her life. One night, I was headed out the door to something and I went to check in with Alyssa and she started to tell me about the experience she had that day starting in seminary. She said that they were talking about missionary work in class and it got her thinking about whether or not she should serve a mission. She got home from school and read through her patriarchal blessing as well as some scriptures about missionary work and received this really strong impression that she should serve a mission.

After making the decision to go, it was easier for her to make plans for her future. She also was heavily influenced by a new group of friends to continue in the path that led towards serving a mission. With a December birthday and an acceptance letter from BYU, she had to make the decision of whether to go after one semester of college or to go in the summer after completing a full year. She felt really strongly that she should go after one semester and put forth every effort to go as close to her birthday as possible. She submitted her papers on the earliest day she could and received her call on August 13th. She invited friends, coaches, family, and other meaningful people in her life to come watch her open her call. We put a world map and a US map up on the wall for people to make guesses. We also created an online guessing game for people from far away to make a guess, too. The lighting isn't great, but here is what the maps ended up looking like.

The nervous anticipation.

 

Reading her call letter. 

 She is going to the Philippines Angeles Mission and starts home MTC on January 6th. She will enter the Provo MTC on January 15th and then spend 8 weeks there before flying to the Philippines. We have heard that she will also spend a couple of weeks in the Manila MTC, but she hasn't received anything official about that yet. She will be preaching the gospel in the Tagalog language.

She is thrilled with her call, even though she has heard horror stories about the spiders and bugs there and the heat. She has heard that the people there are amazing and the treat the sister missionaries like princesses. They will especially love her blond hair and how tall she is. I actually told her back in June that I had the feeling that she was going to go to the Philippines. I don't know why. There are a lot of missions there, so I ended up guessing the Manila mission. Close, but not her exact mission. She will have such hard times over the next 2 years, but also so many joyful times too. I look forward to hearing about her experiences.

Start of School

The kids started school on August 14th (Ashley) and August 15th (Tyler and Camden) this year. I didn't get a picture of Ashley because she was quite grumpy on the first day of school and we barely made it on time. Tyler wasn't very excited for school either, but he did take a pic

Ashley is in 11th Grade at American Heritage School. Her classes include English, Algebra 2, Digital Design, Dramatic Improvisation, Seminary, World Religions, and Medical Anatomy and Physiology. Tyler is in 6th Grade with Mr. Cook. He is quite relaxed about discipline which makes for a chaotic classroom sometimes, but I think Tyler is enjoying his class. He has a drum set, guitar, and a foosball table in the classroom. Camden is in 4th Grade with Mrs. Oliekan (the same teacher Tyler had in 4th grade). He is loving being in her class, as well. Both boys are at Snow Springs Elementary School. 
 

Miner Family Reunion

Our biannual Miner family reunion was back at the YMCA Camp of the Rockies again this year. It's a beautiful location and the YMCA has some fun amenities. There was a fire down the mountain from Estes Park the week of the reunion, so our normal route had a road closure. GPS led us on a route through the mountains which ended up taking us into Rocky Mountain National Park. This would have been super annoying if we hadn't already been planning on buying a pass to go into the park on this trip. We ended up climbing up the winding roads to over 10,000 ft in the park. It was a beautiful drive, but caused a bit of car sickness. So we got out at the top for a bit.

We arrived at the Barclay Cabin around 4:30pm. Ashley was our only kid that was actually looking forward to the reunion. Alyssa was sad about it because Connor would not be there and she doesn't have any other cousins close to her age on this side of the family. Our boys were not that excited because they are a lot closer to their wheeler cousins than the Miner ones. However, after we got there, they found cousins to hang out with and ended up having a lot of fun.

On Saturday, most of us headed up to this mountain coaster in Estes Park. We have never done it before and it ended up being a lot of fun. Alyssa and Claire dressed in matching outfits that day without even planning it.

The kids got to play Bingo 3 of the nights we were there. Camden picked out this drawing board on the first night and spent the rest of the reunion drawing on it a lot.

On Saturday, I went with the boys and Ashley to the pool. I didn't get any pictures because I accidentally left my phone in the car. We stayed until Ashley, Tamma, and Claire were done swimming. I took them back and then tried to return with the boys, but the pool was filled to capacity, so they put us on a waitlist. We went mini golfing instead, which was also fun.

On Sunday, I went with Alyssa on a walk. We ended up on this trail that could have taken us into Rocky Mountain National Park, but we stayed on our side of the river instead. It was still beautiful.

On Monday, we joined Christy, Jeff, Becky, and anyone from their families that wanted to come at Rocky Mountain National Park. We did a hike up to Lake Haiyaha. It was kind of a stormy afternoon and it started dumping on us right when we got to the trailhead. Fortunately, it calmed to a crizzle by the time we started hiking and the sun came out at the top so that we could get some awesome pictures with the blue water of the lake.

It was so pretty and peaceful at the top. The hike down went much quicker. We stopped quickly at this waterfall on the way down.

We didn't see hardly any wildlife in the park. But we did see some elk on the drive back out.

We were a little bit late for Bingo that night, but they waited for us so it worked out. Camden got these waxy sticks on the last night. He wasn't that happy with them until I showed him how to use them. Then he quickly made some fun figures.

We also played tennis on Saturday and Monday and a lot of 1 high in the evenings. It's always fun to be with my family at these reunions. We aren't sure how many more we will have. We are looking into a location in Southern Utah for 2026, but we aren't sure if it is big enough to fit everyone.