Field Trip and Ninja Competition

I got to chaperone Tyler's field trip to Clark Planetarium the week after Halloween. I don't get to go on very many of the boy's field trips because of my work schedule and because the high number of parent volunteers, so I was excited that it worked out for this one. I was especially excited to go to Clark planetarium, since I have never been there.

It was a little chaotic keeping a group of 6th grade boys together, but most of the time was spent in the theaters there. First was the planetarium show and second was the IMAX show. In between the 2 shows, they got to explore all of the hands-on exhibits. This picture was in a room set up like the surface of Mars.

Tyler also competed in his first Ninja Warrior competition in November.  He was pretty nervous and he was like 23rd to go, so it was a lot of sitting around and waiting. When it was finally his turn, he rushed through some of the obstacles that we thought he should be able to do and missed the points on those. But it was a good experience for him to get a feel for future competitions. 

 

Halloween

Danny and I went up to Sundance to ride the Halloween Lift. We have gotten free tickets to go for the past 3 years or so, but this is the first year that we made an effort to go. It was fun to ride it, but it didn't have nearly as much decor as we expected it to have. We were glad that we didn't pay the $35 ticket price, because we did not think it was worth that much and we would have been very disappointed.

The kids barely got pumpkins carved. We were so busy in the fall that there just wasn't time to do them. We bought the pumpkins 2 days before Halloween and then carved them later that night.

The kids all dressed up like dogs this year for Halloween. Tyler was a husky (his favorite breed of dog).

Camden was a dalmatian, probably because of the play he was in during the summer.

Ashley dressed up as Lula and dressed Lula up as her. She even found a little blonde ponytail to but on Lula. It was a cute idea, but her costume was kind of a nightmare to make.

Ashley took the boys trick or treating and Danny and I stayed home to hand out candy and watch "The Shinning." 

Alyssa has Finger Surgery

In October, Alyssa had surgery on her pinky finger. She broke it playing volleyball for fun outside of her dorm. I took her to the surgery and got to spend the day with her doing a lot of waiting. We snapped some pictures while we waited for them to take her back to the surgery room.

After the surgery, she was pretty funny. Mostly, she repeated herself about being cold, and hungry, and telling me that the IV was hurting. We got the nurses to bring her extra blankets and eventually a heated air blanket. They also brought her pretty much every snack that they had that was gluten free. String cheese, Jello, ice cream, etc. They took longer to release her than expected because her blood pressure was a little low. The nurse that pulled out her IV said that it looked like a medieval torture device. The needle was the biggest he had ever seen used for an IV. I guess that explains why it was hurting her so much. 

When we were finally allowed to leave, we stopped at a Thai restaurant to get some food in Alyssa. Then we picked up some medicine and ice and headed back to her dorm. Then I left her in the care of her room mates. She was glad to have the surgery behind her and to be able to start the process of healing.
 

SaintCon

This even comes to the Convention Center every year in October. The people that run it are so nice. The past 2 years we have gone down for their family night. The people that attend this event are not exactly our crowd, but the boys and Ashley had fun at some of the booths. The boys built lego cars both years to race down the track.

They got to work the hot glue gun to glue letters onto a square board in different designs.

They made rockets to shoot up 3 stories high.

Ashley made a little paper fan that actually spun when you put the plug on a certain point on the paper. I did not get a picture of this one but it was cool.

Danny showed us this video of himself and some of the people at the event and we all had a good laugh. The funniest part was that as he was waiting for the elevator to come and talking to someone, the door opened and he actually jumped like 10 feet away from the elevator door when he saw what was inside. And then he rode up with them

 

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.