Fall Colors

Ashley had a Friday off of school this month so we had planned to go on a hike in the mountains. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with that plan. We woke up to a rainy morning. We decided to to and drive the Alpine loop, instead. The colors were amazing!

We even got out of the car a couple of a times for a quick selfie, but ended up pretty wet afterwards.

It was a fun morning and as Ashley said, "much better than spending the day in school."
 

Cornbelly's and the Children's Museum

We love Thanksgiving Point. We have been members for years. Towards the end of summer, I was trying to fit in last minute outings and took the 3 younger kids to the children's museum at thanksgiving point. They had a lot of fun and asked me to take them back more often. They had a lot of fun with these soft building blocks on this visit. 

They even took turns walking up these stairs.

Ashley discovered the animation machine and made a little movie.

Tyler built a small fort out of these legos. We would have made it bigger, but some kids decided to do the same thing as us and stole half of the legos in the room.

We also got passes to Cornbelly's this year, which is a massive pumpkin patch on Thanksgiving Point property. We have gone multiple times and still haven't done everything there is to do there. Although, some of the things we do every time we go. The kids were excited to see that they got a new scary creature for their nighttime scary area.

They love this crooked house. There are a few of these in different parts of the pumpkin patch.

Ashley still thinks she is little sometimes, even though she isn't. She had a really hard time getting out of this car after I took her picture. 

We have gone to their scary part once, so far. They only have it open 3 of the nights of the week. I thought the boys would be scared of it, but they actually had a lot of fun going through it and have asked to go again.

Lula Had Her Puppies

Lula was due to have her 4th litter of puppies on September 15th(The picture above is Lula on Monday, the 13th). This fell right in the middle of the school week and Ashley really wanted to be there for the birth of the puppies. So in the weeks leading up to the due date, Ashley had numerous talks with Lula about how she needed to wait to have them at a time when she wasn't at school. Her day of choice was Friday, the 17th since she didn't have school that day. The breeders had taken Lula's temperature on Sunday evening and told us that according to her temperature, she should have the puppies within 24 hours. When Monday came and went, they started to worry, so they asked me to bring Lula over there during the day so they could keep an eye on her. Nothing happened all day.. On the morning of the 15th, they started to worry, so they took her in for an ultrasound to find out how many puppies there were. They were worried that she wasn't going into labor because she only had 1 puppy(this happened with one of their other dogs). The vet could see 4-5 puppies, so they weren't sure what was taking Lula so long. I told them about Ashley's talks with Lula and we had a good laugh about it. We brought Lula back home Wednesday afternoon and she started acting anxious that evening around 10:30. Alyssa, Danny. and Ashley took her over to the breeder's house, and Ashley stayed with her to keep her company. They left Ashley and Lula in their garage and went off to bed, thinking that nothing would happen until morning. Ashley said that they hadn't been gone long when Lula started acting funny. Ashley checked her out and saw the first puppy coming out. She got the attention of the breeders and they had a long night. Danny and I went to bed shortly after the first puppy was born and told them to text us when Lula was all done so that we could get Ashley. They brought her home around 3 am. Lula had 4 puppies (3 boys and 1 girl). We let Ashley sleep in the next morning and go to school late.

She is a good mama dog and takes good care of her pups. Ashley goes over to spend time with them every day. 
 

Tennis Season Update

We took a short trip down to St. George in the beginning of September to support Alyssa for her tennis tournament down there. We almost didn't go, but our friends, who also have a girl on the team, invited us to stay in their vacation condo down there. It ended up working our really well because they have kids that match up in age with Ashley, Tyler, and Camden. So they had fun playing at the Condo while we melted away in the St. George heat watching Alyssa play. Because she is on Varsity this year, she had a lot more play time than she did last year. Alyssa and her doubles partner, Mylee, did really well. They only lost 1 match throughout the whole tournament, against Lone Peak High School. They faced them again in the championship match of the tournament and beat them. It was very exciting to watch.

The kids didn't get as much pool time as they would have liked to have gotten, but I did spend a few hours with them at the pool on Saturday morning, which they loved.

As I said before, they paired off really well. Ashley hung with Savannah in the tubes. Camden and Scarlett jumped off of the edge about 100 times together. And Tyler and Tanner went back and forth between the hot tub and the shallow end, where they fetched diving toys.

Both JV and Varsity did really well in the tournament. Varsity placed 2nd overall for the whole tournament, only losing to Herriman by 1 game.

While the team was in St. George, the new tennis courts at Lehi FINALLY got finished. they were supposed to be done before June. Everyone was so excited to play their last few matches of the season on the new courts. The team took some pictures on them, as well.

These 3 coaches have been such a blessing to the girls tennis team this year. Alyssa was a little sad not to be able to play for Coach Al(who took a new job in Spain after coaching Lehi tennis for 30 years), but she has absolutely LOVED her coaches this year. And it has been so good for the girls to be coached by female coaches. Their team has been so close this year. 

Alyssa competes with Mylee in their region tournament tomorrow and Thursday. If they place in the top 3, they automatically go to state. If they place 4th, they have a play in match on Oct. 5th to get into the state tournament. State will take place Oct. 7th and 9th up in SLC. And then her tennis season will be over, but the tennis playing will continue as long as the weather will allow it.

First Day of School

All of our kids started school last week. This year, Alyssa is at Lehi High School. There was quite the excitement on the first day when one of Alyssa's teachers was recorded by a student saying some rather inappropriate things for a 10th grade chemistry class. She used some colorful language while telling her class her opinions on topics such as Trump, the COVID vaccination, how stupid all of their parents are, how the administration doesn't care what she says to her class, about how much she loves gays and lesbians, and that if any of them don't believe in global warming then they need to get out of her classroom right now. The video made national news. Alyssa was not in the classroom where the video was taken, but she had the same teacher for Marine Biology for her very first class that day at the high school. And she said that she discussed most of the same topics in her class as well. Danny sent an email to the principal that evening about his disappointment in the experience his daughter went through that day and how something needs to be done about the teacher in question. Almost seconds after he sent it, the principal sent out an email to the school community about the issue and said that it was being investigated. The teacher was let go the following day. Other than that, Alyssa is learning that high school classes are hard, especially since we made her take AP US History as well as multiple honors classes. Not to mention her tennis season is in full swing so she is at practice and matches until 5 or 6 every day. 

Camden and Tyler are at Snow Springs Elementary again. Camden is experiencing his first year of full day school and he seems to be loving it. We were sad to find out that he is not in the same class as any of his friends from last year, but we are confident that he will make new friends. His teacher is super nice and he likes her a lot.

Tyler loves school, too. He has a hard time making friends and we were sad to find out the his best friend from last year is not in his class this year. She isn't even on his bus this year. So hopefully he is able to find another good friend. He loves his teacher, as well.

I escorted them to school the first day, but I really didn't need to. Tyler was able to teach Camden all that he needed to know.

Ashley started school a day after the others. She is at American Heritage again this year. Her teacher is brand new to the school, but so far she seems to like him. She was so sad to find out that she would not be in the same class as her best friend again this year for the 3rd year in a row. But she does have a couple of electives with her, so at least there is that.

She was also excited to get a locker for the first time this year since the high school classroom space was finished this summer and the 9-12 grades were moved over to the new building. She hasn't had much need for her locker, yet, because she is able to keep all of her books and notebooks in the different classrooms where she has class.

Ashley was the only one NOT excited to start school again. She just wishes it wasn't quite so long. We also have worked out a carpool for her this year with a family that has a very quiet 9th grade boy. But at least it is half the driving that we used to do, so that is good.

Here's hoping they all have a good year.
 

End of Summer Fun

We squeezed in a lot of activities during the last couple of weeks of summer. We spent a lot of time at the pool. But I also took the kids to Thanksgiving Point a couple of times. I helped Tyler and Camden build their own maze...

They each got to ride on the same pony(that's just the way the numbers worked out). They were the biggest boys in line at the time, so they each got the biggest horse.

(This one is just because he is so cute. :))

We went on the wagon ride.

I also let them try out the ropes course at Thanksgiving Point for the first time in a long time. We haven't had very good luck with ropes courses in our family. The kids tend to get scared. But this time was a complete success. No one chickened out and they stayed on it the whole hour. 

Danny took both girls in to work for a big dinner. After dropping a car full of kids(Alyssa's friends also worked the dinner) I took the boys to a splash pad park. When they got bored of the splash pad and park, we headed over to try out a nearby mini golf course. They had fun.

They talked me into getting them snow cones afterwards and then we ended the night with happy meals from McDonald's. We had a fun night together.

We are all sad to see the end of summer. But it will be good to be back on schedules with a little more structure in our lives.