Ashley's Senior Trip- Driving to Canada

For Ashley's Senior trip, she wanted to go to a beach in an area of the country that we hadn't been to before...and she wanted to bring our dog with us. Traveling with a dog took a lot more planning and it limited some of the things we would normally do on a trip. Danny and I worked through some different ideas of where we could go and we settled on Vancouver, British Columbia. It was a long drive, but we planned out some things to see on the drive there and on the drive back home. We left on Friday afternoon (May 29th) and our first stop was Twin Falls, Idaho. We had never been to Twin Falls and the map made it look like not much of a detour from our route. We were excited to see the falls. And they didn't disappoint.

Fortunately, Shoshone Falls was dog friendly. We wouldn't have made this a stop if it wasn't. Lula did not like the metal grated stairs down to the lookout, but she loved the wildlife around us. 

The gorge leading away from the falls was pretty incredible, too.

I imagine the Falls are even more impressive in a year when there was actually snowfall and rain. I guess we will stop and look if we are ever passing through again during a wetter year.

We stayed at the falls for maybe 45 minutes. The gnats were pretty annoying, though, so we were ready to go after we had walked to all of the lookouts and gotten some good pictures. The boys were also excited to get back to the hotel to swim.

The first hotel we stayed in was a Holiday Inn Express. I was happy that the pool area also had a hot tub for me to sit in while the boys swam. We were also grateful that the hotel overbooked and didn't have the room available for us that we had originally requested. They gave us 2 rooms with a connecting door instead and we all slept really well that first night.

We got pretty sick of hotel breakfast on this trip, but on day one, we enjoyed the sampling of pancakes, juices, cereals, and assorted bread offerings.

This restaurant was near the hotel, so we passed it a few times and thought it had a funny name.

Ashley has read the entire Michael Vey series in the past year and is obsessed with it. When she heard that we would be passing through Boise/Meridian, she asked us if it would be possible to stop at Meridian High School, since that is where the whole series starts. It wasn't much of a detour, so we made the stop.

For lunch that second day, we picked up take out at Arby's and then took it to a park in a small town in Oregon. We did not realize when we picked the park out that it would be full of squirrels. This is not usually a problem, but Lula has that chase instinct in her and she has not had much experience with squirrels since we don't have many near our house. She could not relax in that park and wanted to chase them the whole time we were there. We had to retrieve the bark collar from the car because she kept barking at the squirrels when we wouldn't let her get them. It was actually hilarious.

We crossed over and went under so many interesting bridges during our trip. This was one of the first that we went over.

Our second night in the hotel, a Comfort Inn and Suites, was not as good as the first night. Danny and I need a somewhat dark room to sleep and Camden and Tyler are used to a lot of light in the room. Ashley had a sleep mask and headphones, so she was good to sleep in any conditions. We convinced the boys that they could sleep in the dark because we were right next to them. But Camden was struggling well into the night. He started crying around midnight because he couldn't sleep. I finally gave him my earbuds with calming music. I thought it was the snoring that was bothering him. It did the job anyways (even though it was the dark) and he finally fell asleep. I don't think I actually got to sleep that night until 1:30 or 2. 

We were staying in the Tri Cities area of Washington that night. Danny's niece, Breanna, lives in Kennewick so we planned to meet up with her for dinner. At first, she had picked out a sushi restaurant for dinner, but she said it was pretty small and our group would fill up all of the dinning space in the restaurant. So we went to a pizza place instead. It was good to catch up with Breanna and to meet her boyfriend. She seems really happy.

We got back to the hotel in time for the boys to have another swimming night in the hotel. This pool also had a hot tub, so I went with them again. We decided to go to Sacrament meeting at the local church building before getting on the road. We had 3 or 4 different people approach us to see if we were new or visiting. I think they were all disappointed that we were just passing through.

Danny had picked out a dog friendly beach for us to eat lunch on that day. Since it was Sunday, we packed a picnic lunch ahead of time to eat there. We didn't know before we got there that the parking lot would be a 1/4 of a mile walk from it to the beach through thick trees. As we started walking with our lunch food in hand, Danny started to feel uneasy about our car full of belongings and the overcrowded parking lot. He headed back to the car and the rest of us continued on to the beach.

There were so many dogs on the beach and it did not require leashes, so it was worth the stop. There weren't very many birds for Lula to chase, so she mostly stuck close to us. She got friendly with the group of people next to us, running up to them and letting them pet her, which was surprising. We stayed for about 45 minutes and then headed back to the car. Danny ate quickly and then we were on our way. We arrived at our VRBO around 6pm. Danny and I had to make a quick trip to the local grocery store to get supplies for our 5 day stay there, including stuff for dinner that night and for breakfast the next morning.

Just a quick note about our VRBO. When we were looking for a place to stay in the Vancouver area, we were really struggling to find somewhere that we thought would work for our family. They all seemed so cramped, old, and they all had upstairs or basement tenets. We really wanted our own space. Danny came across this house on the southern tip of this peninsula south of Vancouver. It had a large amount of land around it, was located right on the water, and the best part - no tenets. We had to contact the owners ahead of time because they had a 20-pound maximum on pets staying there. They gave us the ok to stay there with Lula (around 50 pounds) and we are so glad that they did. The house was the best VRBO we have ever stayed in. More pictures and info about it to follow in the next post.
 

All the Senior End-of-Year Things for Ashley

 Ashley was pretty busy during the last couple of weeks of the school year. She didn't actually have any classes for the last week, but she had some different senior activities, plus she was dog sitting for a family with 2 dogs and a puppy that required her to be there at the house most of the day and night, and she worked a couple of shifts at the Convention Center. The first of her senior activities was Seminary Graduation.

Ashley loved Seminary. She had good teachers every year she was in seminary and she loved the break it gave her from the school day. She has such a strong testimony, and I know that a part of that comes from the discussions and things she learned in seminary.

Her senior class went on a trip to St. George during the first part of graduation week. She got offered the puppy sitting job and decided to take that instead of going on the trip. She wasn't really excited about going to St. George in the heat of May and sleeping in the same room with noisy girls and all of the driving to get there and home for a 3-day trip. She wasn't really sad about her decision not to go, except for the few days after when so many people were talking about the trip.

She went to school on the last day for an awards ceremony, to get her yearbook and have people sign it, and to see her friends, some of them possibly for the last time. I went into the awards ceremony, which mostly highlighted academic achievements and sports achievements for the high school students. there was a quick slide about the students graduating that year that had been at the school since kindergarten and first grade. The principal botched it a little bit and I thought for a second that they were not even going to recognize Ashley. She said something like "We have 5 students who have been at AHS since kindergarten." (Ashley's name was not on the list showing. But then there was a second slide that had 4 more names, including Ashley).

After school that day, she had a graduation rehearsal and then a senior recognition dinner that night. Danny and I were invited to attend the dinner with her, where she received a tribute from one of her teachers. Ashley has had quite a few teachers at American Heritage that have made a huge impact on her life. The teacher that volunteered to write and present her tribute was not one that I would have expected. She is a math teacher, after all, and Ashley hates math. Mrs. Thompson gave a beautiful tribute and we were happy to be able to be there to support Ashley.

Ashley with her best friend, Kaci (I'm glad that we got this picture because we were unable to find Kaci after the graduation the next day to get a picture of the 2 of them together).

Ashley with her 8th grade teacher, Mr. Brewer (his first year teaching at AHS), and all of the students from that class who were still at the school for senior year.

Graduation was on May 22nd at 10am. Ashley had to be there at 9am, so we all went that early to claim our seats. The program was long, but good. The reading of the names went pretty quickly with a class of 70 or so. Finding Ashley and then her friends after the ceremony was very tricky. But we were able to locate everyone she wanted to see, except for Kaci. Here are some of the pictures from afterwards. I made Ashley a money lei to wear after the ceremony (they wouldn't let her wear it during).

Waiting to walk across the stage

Walking across the stage

Participating in the final choir number

Ashley and Emily Preston

Ashley with Josh and Sandra

Ashley with Kailohi

Ashley has loved going to school across the street from the temple, so we couldn't miss the opportunity to get a shot of her on school grounds in front of the temple. We were grateful for video editing to take all of the people out of the shot that were standing around.

Ashley with Gawbie and Grandpa

Our family shot (minus Alyssa)

We are so proud of Ashley for all of her accomplishments. She has loved going to American Heritage and will really miss the teachers and the friends she has made there. She is still trying to figure out what comes next for her life. She knows that she wants to go into dog training, which will require her to do some online schooling to get certified. Eventually, she plans to own her own training business. She is also thinking about a mission but doesn't feel ready to commit to it yet. Maybe she will in the future or maybe she won't. She is beautiful inside and out and is going to do incredible things in the future.

Ashley's Final Improv Show

Ashley got to participate in a final Improv Show for her Improv Troupe in May. The theme of the show highlighted the 7 seniors as the kings and queens of Improv and the other 9 members of the troupe were given the opportunity to prove that they could carry on the greatness of the troupe in the years to come. During the first act, the seniors each chose a game for the "underlings" to play and then judged them on how well they did it.

During the second act, the seniors showed the others how improv is really done. So Ashley was in most of the games of the second act. The only one she didn't do was one that involved sticking your head in water over and over. She does not like getting wet so gladly sat that one out. The videos are all too long to post, but it was fun to watch her do her thing. It is too bad that she did not get into the troupe early in high school so that she could have participated for more than her senior year.

The Seniors

The whole troupe

Ashley with her best friend, Kaci. They have been best friends since first grade.

After the show, she went out for ice cream with everyone. It was a late night for her and she was worried about the dog for a dog sitting job that she had that day, but everything ended up working out.

Hope of America Concert

Camden got to participate in the Hope of America Concert at the Marriot Center this year. This event happens every year as part of Provo City's Freedom Festival and 5th graders from all over the state come to BYU to participate. We had seats saved for us by the director of the Marriot Center (who is good friends with Danny), but had trouble finding them when we got there. They let us sit in some unclaimed seats in the VIP section. After we were settled, we learned that our seats were on the opposite side from where we were sitting. Oh well. We told the lady in charge of the program to remove our name tags from those seats. Danny ended up having the BYU Basketball coach right in front of him, which he thought was pretty cool. Besides the high pitched noise level from having hundreds of 5th graders inside the Marriot center, the program was really good. Camden was easy to spot since he was on the aisle and only 4 rows up from the bottom. His cousin was also there that night, but she was much higher up and also got moved from her original seat on the aisle when they had to fill in some of the empty seats. So I had a hard time finding her during the program.

They sang an hour's worth of songs, but most of my videos are too big to post here. Here is just one of them. 

We were glad to be able to go and support him. It is kind of sad that he is our last kid to participate in this event. 

Camden's 11th Birthday

We celebrated Camden's Birthday with him on May 1st. He and Tyler are really into this Roblox game called Steal a Brainrot, so for his cake he requested one of the characters from that game. Each one is a combination of 2 things. I looked at a bunch of the characters and narrowed it down to 2 options that I thought I could maybe form into a cake. One was a cow mixed with the planet Saturn and the other was a crocodile mixed with a watermelon. He chose the second option and said that it is actually one of his favorites. My biggest mistakes while making it was not making the cake in a bigger bowl and not having green rice crispies on hand (if they even sell those), Here is the finished product (his figurine is on the counter next to the cake).

He chose Texas Roadhouse for dinner that night. I don't even think he remembered about the saddle birthday shout out, he just really likes the rolls there. We invited Gawbie and Grandpa to join us. When we got there, they told us we would have to wait 3 hours to get a table big enough to seat 7 of us. WHAT!?! I told the hostess that we would squeeze into a booth for 6 and they got us a table within 15 minutes. Dinner was good and Camden had fun riding in the saddle.

 

We were all pretty full after dinner but managed to have some cake and ice cream an hour or so after we got home. Camden didn't eat much of the cake, though. I ended up throwing the leftover cake out a week later and he was in tears because he said that he never even got to taste any of it. Oops.

Camden is a fun little caboose to our family. He is super smart and talented. He can solve almost any kind of rubiks cube that is given to him. He loves geometry dash and Roblox and watching YouTube. He also enjoys playing games. His favorite sports to play (and watch) are football and American Ninja Warrior. He will be going into 6th grade after the summer.

Tyler's Track Season

 Tyler signed up to run with the track team at his middle school this year. After practicing with the team, he was given the opportunity to run 2 events at every track meet, the mile and the 800M. When he started the season, his mile time was around 8 and a half minutes. and his 800M was around 4 minutes.

He loved running in his uniform because it was so much cooler with the tank and the material than his normal tshirts.

His Grandpa Wheeler was able to come and watch a couple of the meets which was special for him.

His final meet of the regular season, he was able to get his mile time down under 7 minutes.

And his 800M was much better than the start of the season, too.

He thought for sure that he was going to run in Alpine Days, the only post season meet. Only the top 3 times for each event/grade/sex get to go. He was told at the first practice after the final meet that he didn't qualify. There was a 7th grade boy that had run the mile in the first meet and got a better time than him. This boy hadn't run the mile in any other meet. Tyler was so upset that he wouldn't get to run in Alpine days, but continued to go to practice anyways after returning his uniform. And then on the Friday before Alpine Days (which was Monday and Tuesday), his coach called him out of class and asked him if he would like to run the mile in Alpine Days. He was so excited! He had to get a new uniform after school that day.

I was able to slip away from work to watch him run.

He had one of the slowest times, and the 2 that were slower than him didn't even show up to the race that day (funny thing is that they were from American Heritage). He was able to finish the race in front of quite a few of the other runners, so he did better than we expected.

He now has the runners itch and has been running consistently this summer. He plans to do cross country in the fall and track again in the spring. We love seeing him get stronger and improving. The two of us are going to run in the temple to temple race again on July 24th, so I have been trying to run 3 times a week, as well, so that I can hopefully not slow him down too much.

Ashley's Last Experiential Learning at AHS

Ashley had a hard time deciding which experiential learning class to sign up for this year. She got into the most popular one last year, so this year wasn't as nerve wracking for her. She had it narrowed down to 2 different classes, Japanese Arts and puzzles. She was excited about the sushi day for the Japanese Arts class, so she ended up doing that one. Each day was a different art including oragami, bonsai, anime, pottery, and pottery repair (probably has a Japanese name, but I forgot it). Ashley got more and more frustrated each day and had a full-on breakdown on Friday. They were having a showcase that night and she felt like her projects all got ruined in the end. She was also sad because there was a snail that came with her bonsai tree and had made a home there, but he wasn't on her tree after they moved it out of the classroom to the showcase room. She had grown attached to him and was really feeling the loss of her beloved pet. LOL. When we got there that night, she was doing a little better, especially when she saw that her things turned out better than she had thought.

Her repaired pottery, a mug. She couldn't get the handle to stay on, but the rest of it stayed in tact.

Her pottery project. She was supposed to move her bonsai tree to this when it was done in the kiln, but she liked the temporary pot that the tree came in better, so she left it in that one.

Her shadow box paper cutting turned out the best! It looked way cooler than most of the other ones that her class did. She was sad about this one because after spending hours measuring and cutting the papers so carefully, they didn't fit right in the frame. She had to shove them in to get them to fit and they warped a little inside the box. However, this ended up giving it a more 3D appearance. 

Her Bonsai was her favorite of her projects (well until her pet snail, Gerald, got lost). She has been worried all summer that she isn't going to keep her tree, named Gerald the 2nd, alive. He is doing well so far.

Actually, her real favorite activity of the week was in fact the sushi day. She said that she ate so much sushi that day and it was so good.