May 2012

We had the most crazy, busy month!  At one point, Bryce asked me if we were ever just going to have a “normal” evening without having to go somewhere and I told him we would…in June. Lots of fun events and celebrations!  And for added fun, we had family in town nearly the entire month!  We started the month with a visit from Dave and MaryLou for several days, then my mom was in town for a couple of weeks looking for a new home in the area (she and Bernie have now started construction on a home in Daybreak in South Jordan and will be moving here around November – YAY!), and then my dad was here at the end of the month.  So fun to have grandparents here to share the fun of our busy month!
The month started with Megan going to her Senior Prom with her friend, Cole Erickson.  She had a great time and looked rather beautiful, in our unbiased opinion. :)

Bryce spent 2 weekends in the mountains doing Wood Badge training for Scouts.  The kids all teased him that he looked like Russell from “Up” in his uniform…

Seth celebrated his 12th birthday on May 5, and for his family birthday celebration, he wanted to go see “The Avengers”, so we all (including Grandma and Grandpa Ririe) went to see the movie, and of course, loved it!  Here are the kids all dressed in their shirts ready to go.




The day after his 12th birthday, Seth was ordained to be a deacon.  It’s so fun to see him pass the sacrament, and even better to be able to go to the temple with 3 of our 4 children now.



Megan was busy studying for and taking her 3 AP tests – Literature, Physics and Stats.  Once those were out of the way, she had fun wrapping up her internship with her kindergarten class (she has grown to love these cuties almost as much as they love her), performing in her final choir concerts with Chamber (with a few tears shed), going to 2 Lagoon days (one for an AP Physics fieldtrip and one for Senior Sluff day), seminary graduation (the picture is of her and the other YM/YW from our ward who graduated this year), and attending various awards and end of year banquets.  Megan was surprised and THRILLED to find out at the Knight of Recognition that she was ranked in the Top 30 of her graduating class, which is a huge deal at Lone Peak.  It was a proud moment for her and evidence of all her hard work paying off.




Devin was recognized at the Junior High’s Evening of Excellence for having a cumulative GPA higher than 3.95 – way to go Devin!  He also performed in his final choir concert in Junior High, ran the Run the Ridge 5k with his classmates (Sasha and I tagged along as well) and is now really looking forward to starting high school in the fall.
All 4 of our kids performed in a piano recital and all did well.

Autumn kept super busy with her final dance competition of the year, her 3 dance recitals, tryouts for next year and all of her regular dance classes.  She has had this past week off of dance before summer session starts and keeps talking about how much she misses dancing.  It is definitely her passion right now.

Seth’s 6th grade class had a ceremony celebrating the end of Elementary school, which Seth is mostly excited about, except for the fact that some of his best friends will be going to a different Jr. high next year.  Another milestone!



Of course the biggest event of the month was Megan’s graduation from High school on May 29.  Despite the fact that we had to sit through more than 650 names being read, the graduation was actually really good and it was a super fun occasion for Megan.  I have to admit that it is a bit of a surreal moment watching your oldest child graduate from High school, but we are so excited for her and know she will continue to accomplish great things.









May 31 we celebrated the official end to another year of school with our annual neighborhood silly string party.  We are all looking forward to a few months off of school and a wonderful summer to come!




Bring on Summer!! :)

April 2012

Here’s a look at our April:

Autumn participated in her school’s invention fair by inventing an Ice Cream Catcher to stop those pesky ice cream drips from ruining your clothes when eating an ice cream cone.  To demonstrate how well it works, we took a before and after picture. :)

We celebrated Easter with a traditional Easter Egg hunt on Saturday and a yummy Easter dinner on Sunday.

We celebrated Spring Break with a trip to Zion National Park and had a great time!  Instead of camping this time, we rented a guest house on a working ranch and the kids had a great time visiting the longhorn cattle, horses, and chickens and also enjoyed a refreshing dip in the pond on a hot afternoon.

We also enjoyed several gorgeous hikes that we hadn’t done before.  We did an 8 mile hike to Observation Point, which was gorgeous and gave us some pretty views of the canyon from high above, plus had a fun time hiking down along a sheer cliff face and through some gorgeous slot canyon areas.

Along with our Observation Point hike, we also did the harrowing, heart-pounding Angel’s Landing hike and all safely made it all the way to the top and back down again.  If you haven’t done this one, it definitely isn’t for the faint of heart.  The last half mile of the 2 1/2 mile each way hike is along a narrow rock ridge with 1200 ft sheer drops on either side.  You navigate to the top by holding on to a chain that has been secured to the rock face.  The views from the top are incredible and we were all glad we overcame our fears and conquered Angel’s Landing, but it’s not something I am in a rush to do again, especially with 4 kids in tow.  Whew!!  Here are pictures of us on the famous Walter’s Wiggles on the way up and triumphantly sitting at the top. (Bryce is taking the picture).

The view from Angel’s Landing.

My nephew, Alex Jensen, was married to Lacey Christensen in the Salt Lake Temple on April 20 and we had a great day with family to celebrate their wedding.  They make a gorgeous couple!

Megan kept busy with AP practice tests, Solo and Ensemble performances (her ensemble earned a 1 – the highest score possible – at the State level competition), working, etc, and getting ready for prom – more on that next month.  The month of May promises to be a big one for her with AP exams, finals, prom, and all sorts of activities for the Senior class before she graduates at the end of this month.

Seth kept busy with schoolwork, running, playing outside in the warm weather, and indexing – he set a goal to index 1000 names by the week after his 12th birthday and rarely misses a day of indexing as he works to accomplish this goal.  He is well on his way – over 800 names done and 2 weeks to go.

Devin was busy with play rehearsals and wowed us all with his performance of the Candyman in “Willie Wonka” this past weekend.  Wish we had a video to share so you could see how well he did, but here’s a couple of pictures anyway.  Devin was thrilled to have his Grandma and Grandpa Ririe come all the way from Oregon to see his play, as well as lots of his cousins and his Aunt Kristi and Aunt Becki who live nearby.  Thanks for all the support!!

Devin with a few of his Oompa Loompa friends:

That’s it for us for April – hope everyone has a very merry month of May.