Some Random Things from January and Early February

Ashley is taking a world religions class at school this semester. One of the religions they learned about was Hinduism. As part of the study of Hinduism, they had a field trip to the Krishna Temple down in Spanish Fork. She got to pet llamas, see peacocks (which are apparently sacred to Hindi people), play with parrots, learn from a practicing Hindu about their beliefs, practice yoga, and eat a vegetarian meal in their buffet. She had a lot of fun on the field trip, but her favorite part was the llama, Apricot.

Tyler went on a field trip to the state capitol. They were required to wear their best clothes for the field trip, so he wore a suit. He said it was a cool building and he liked learning about the things that happen at our capitol building.

Ashley was in another school play, her second this school year. It was not a musical. It was called Trail of Hope and covered some of the stories of the pioneers who lived in Nauvoo and had to leave their homes because of persecution. Each of the students in the play had a monologue about their characters story and it was very powerful when it was all put together. She did a really good job with her part and had a lot of fun participating in the play. 

We celebrated Danny's birthday almost a week early this year. We were going to be in Florida on his birthday and he didn't want to try to fit a birthday celebration into our busy day there, so we made some no bakes, played a game or two and surprised him with a PS5. He has been having fun playing it with the boys.

I took Camden to an arcade to kill some time while Ashley and Tyler were at a play together. He played this spin the big wheel game and landed on the big prize on his first try. It was awesome. Too bad the arcade didn't have any really cool prizes.

And I think that gets us all caught up to our Florida/Bahamas trip. 

Ashley's 16th Birthday

Instead of having a big sweet 16 party like Alyssa did, Ashley chose to go somewhere fun with her closest school friends. She chose the Homestead Crater up in Midway, followed with pizza at her favorite pizza restaurant in Provo (Two Jacks). Sadly, the weather did not cooperate with us, so Danny ended up taking the kids up the canyon to the crater while I took the boys swimming. We all met up at Two Jacks afterwards.

They had fun at the crater. They only downside was that we had to reserve and buy the tickets in advance and Ashley had one friend that would not give us a committed yes to coming. Our back up plan was to have one of the boys go if she backed out last minute. But when she backed out last minute, the boys had already decided that they didn't want to go unless they both could go. And there weren't enough seats to take them both in our 4-wheel drive vehicle. So basically one of the tickets ended up not getting used.

After a delicious dinner, we went back to our house for games, presents, and dessert. They played Jackbox games and had so much fun.

Ashley's request for her treat was no bakes. They were gone before the end of the night, so they must have been good.

On Ashley's birthday, she requested to go to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. Danny's parents dropped off a balloon and a treat for her, but the weather was pretty bod, so they didn't stay for dinner. 

The food was good, but Alyssa was sad that she couldn't have the rolls (she is gluten free now), so we let her pick an appetizer instead.

Ashley got to sit up on the saddle and have the waiter recognize her birthday, so she thought that was fun.

Her request for a cake this year was just a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. It was pretty good.

I think she enjoyed her birthday. She has been slow to finish driver's Ed and to practice driving, so she has not gotten her license. We don't feel the need to rush her since she wouldn't have a car to drive anyways. But we definitely want her to have a license by the time school starts in the fall.

New Year's Eve

On New Year's Eve, we went over to Gawbie and Grandpa's house to celebrate. Shannon, Kennedi, and Abbi were in town so the boys enjoyed playing with their cousins. We had yummy food and Gawbie and Shannon planned some fun activities led off with popping a balloon to find out what the activity would be. We played games, we heard a story and scored some fun light up toys. The kids tried to wear all of them at once. 

We finished the night off by watching the ball drop at 10 pm, then we headed home and killed some time until midnight so we could watch the ball drop again. It was a fun night.

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.