Alyssa's 18th Birthday

As usual, we went to Tepanyaki for dinner on Alyssa's birthday. After such a terrible experience last year, we were determined not to have a repeat of that. So we called a week before to make a reservation, we showed up early, and we were seated within a few minutes of arriving. Dinner was good and our chef was fun. 

Instead of cake, Alyssa chose 2 gluten free desserts from Costco. French macarons and creme brulee. Both were delicious.

A few weeks before her birthday, she begged me to finally let her get highlights in her hair. I have been trying my best to convince her not to do it, since it will not be just a one time purchase, but I finally gave in for her birthday. My normal stylist couldn't get her in until mid January and she really wanted it done as soon as possible, so she found a stylist online that could get her in the following day. She was really happy with the result.

As part of her birthday gift, we also sent her to Colorado for a week to spend some time with the Knudsens. She had a lot of fun there with them, so much that we only talked to her once for about 5 minutes during the week long visit.
 

Christmas and Other December Fun

December is always a busy month for us. Danny and Alyssa spend the first 2 weeks of the month working A LOT. We have to put things on the calendar pretty early, if we want Danny and Alyssa to be there with us. Here are some of the things that we did during this busy month.

We did graham cracker houses with Tyler's activity days group and had a lot of supplies leftover afterwards. So anyone in our household who wanted to build one, had a chance to do it.

Alyssa and I did a lot of puzzles together. 

During that graham cracker house activity, Ashley called me and was quite upset because Lula was acting weird. She told me that Lula had a seizure and was having trouble breathing. I called our vet and they said for a seizure, we needed to take her right away to an animal emergency hospital. So after the activity was over, we took her in to the same place we took Casey when he had his seizures. After a couple of hours there and a pretty hefty bill, we learned that Lula was just having a bad reaction to having a very full tummy. You see, before the activity, we discovered an empty bag on the table that had contained a full loaf of bread earlier that day. The bread had been on our kitchen counter. After putting all of our stories together about the bread, we concluded that while I was upstairs in my room doing a workout that morning, Lula must have snatched the bread off of the counter, ripped into it, and then ate the ENTIRE loaf. Then she somehow left the evidence on the couch under Alyssa's blanket. Alyssa found it around lunch time and put it on the table after inwardly scolding the boys for eating bread on the couch. Let's just say that I was not to happy with our dog for a few days after that.

Ashley went in to work one of the Saturdays in December, so I took the boys to an indoor playground and then to the Orem Temple open house. It was the last week it would be open and I just didn't see any time for us to make it with the whole family. 

I took the kids to the outdoor ice skating rink that the city set up in the sports park near our house. It was a little tricky keeping 3 of them on their feet on the ice, so I took turns skating around with the boys and left Ashley on her own (Alyssa wasn't around when we went). As a result, they all took a turn falling. Ashley fell pretty hard and said she was done with ice skating after 30 minutes. Camden didn't love it either. But Tyler went back to the rink with Alyssa 2 more times before it closed for the season.

I had just the boys home with me one of the nights in December, so I took them to see a planetary show at a space center in Pleasant Grove. We were the only 3 people in the whole theater, so we got our own private show. It was about the Christmas Star and what might have caused it to appear in the sky that first Christmas. The boys were more entertained with it than I expected, so that was fun.

The kids opened their Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve. The boys both had holes in their pants before Christmas Day was over, so they were obviously high quality.

Christmas morning was too long of a wait for these 3. Alyssa took her time getting out of bed so they spent a good 15 minutes on the stairs. They started happy.

Then they were mad.

Then they were bored.

And then they were happy again.

We got free tickets to the lights at Thanksgiving Point, so we went to enjoy them one evening. Alyssa had already gone to see them with friends, so she didn't come along.

 

Elf the Musical

We took the kids to see Elf the Musical at the Hale Center Theater a few days before Christmas. Alyssa was supposed to come with us, too, but she got invited on a date the same night and since she doesn't really like going to plays, she chose to go on the date instead of coming with us. So we let Ashley invite a friend to come. The play was well done, pretty similar to the movie (which is one of our family favorites at Chrismastime). 

We weren't super excited about any of the shows coming to the Hale this year, except for Beauty and the Beast. So, we will take the kids to see that around Christmas at the end of the year.

Snow Choir Concert

Shortly after Thanksgiving, the boys had a choir concert. The theme was all about snow. So every song that they sang talked about snow or snowman. They sang about 6 songs and the choreography was so cute. Camden was on the front row and easy to spot. Tyler was also easy to spot because of his black arm brace. They did such a good job.

They got these little snowmen with a candy cane after the concert.

Shannon happened to be in town, so we invited her to bring Kennedi and Abbi to the concert. Then we all went out to dinner afterwards at Carls Jr. to let the kids play.

Their spring concert will be all about heroes. I'm so glad they have found an afterschool activity that they like so much. I would have posted a video of one of the songs, but they were all too long,
 

Other Happenings in October and November

I participated in an adult women's pickleball league in the fall. I played with my neighbor, Annemarie, who is pretty good at pickleball and doesn't like to loose. We lost against 2 teams in the regular season, but did well during the tournament play. In the end, it came down to us and the 2 teams we had lost against. But neither of their teams were able to play during the final week of the league and tried to get us to reschedule for the following week. Unfortunately, the following week was bad for us, so they ended up calling it a 3 way tie for first in the end, I think. We got these snazzy medals. It was a lot of fun, though.

Danny had an event at the convention center and they had a family night so I took the boys down there. They got to make and shoot off rockets, build lego cars, shoot nerf guns, plus a number of other things. I couldn't stay the whole time with them because I needed to pick Ashley up, but they had a lot of fun.

Alyssa picked out their school outfits one day so I took a pickture of them since they were looking so stylish.

BYU basketball season started again. We took the kids to one of the early games. 

I took Ashley with me to My Fair Lady at the Eccles theater. She had recently read Pygmalion in her English class, so she was very familiar with the story line. She also has really started to love musicals lately, so she really enjoyed the outing.

We raked up the leaves on the Friday after Thanksgiving because snow was in the forecast for that night. The kids jumped in the leaf pile for about 5 minutes before they were bored with it.

And the snow was very much unwelcome for the adults in our household, but the kids were super excited.

We had Connor come stay with us for a few days after his volleyball tournament in SLC. Alyssa loved having time with her cousin. We went to an escape room while he was with us. It was a CSI theme and we were supposed to help the detectives solve the crime. We figured it out with a few minutes to spare.

Ashley spent the week of Thanksgiving in California with her cousins. She got to do a lot of fun things while she was there, but mostly she just enjoyed being with cousins and wearing shorts and tshirts. We had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner at home with us, minus Ashley, and Gawbie and Grandpa. 

Lehi High School Sadie's

Alyssa had Sadie's the same weekend that Ashley had Newsies. She asked a boy named Kevin from her biology class and had a lot of fun that day. The theme of the dance was bougee, so the girls all wore black dresses with boas. The boys wore black shirts and pants with gold chains and they all had sunglasses. 

 

It was a huge group.

Newsies

Ashley's school fall musical was Newsies. She loved being part of the cast. Her part in the play was one of the Brooklyn Newsies. We got a couple of tickets to each of the performances and took turns going to support her..

On the last night, some her friends came to the show, so that was fun for her. 2 of these friends are no longer at the school, so it was fun for her to catch up with them.

On one of the nights, they had the special treat of having Elder and Sister Rasband in the audience. Their grandson, Camden, was cast as Jack Kelly in the play, so they were there to support him. He said some things to the cast after the show and then they took a picture together.

I happened to have seats right next to them that night and there was a constant flow of people greeting them anytime there was a break in the play. It made me grateful to not be a celebrity.

And here are a couple of videos of Ashley dancing.

Ashley was so sad when the play was over. But she did have more free time after it was done, so that was nice. Although, she started up with practices for the next school play a week or 2 after it was over, so she didn't have much of a break.