December 2009

December was filled with fun activities and went by in a blur!  This time I did manage to take some pictures, so here’s a little of what happened at our house:

Autumn performed in her Christmas dance recital – it’s amazing how much she has learned this year – I guess going to practice 4 hours a week really does make a difference!

Autumn also performed in the First grade play - “The Gingerbread Caper”.  It was a fun play that we have now watched each of our four children perform in (first grade tradition at our school), plus Grandma and Grandpa Ririe flew in the day before the play, so they got to see it, too – what a treat for us!

Seth had his first Storytelling concert and did a good job telling the story of “Demeter and Persephone”.  He learned a lot and wants to choose a more funny story for his concert in the spring.  I was impressed just with the fact that he got the names of all the people in his story right – it was quite a feat!!

Megan had her Christmas choir concert and the choirs sounded amazing – especially “Joy to the World” in surround sound with the most amazing teenage girls accompanying on the piano – it was incredible!

We made gingerbread houses – thanks again grandma!!

We had 2 nativity plays – one with my family at our Christmas breakfast the week before Christmas and one on Christmas Eve where Grandma Ririe did a pretty convincing angel.  :)

We went to Temple Square to see the lights in the middle of a gorgeous snow storm, ate dinner at the Lion House Pantry, and took the kids to see “Savior of the World”, which was beautiful – great way to celebrate Christmas.

We had a wonderful Christmas – playing together as a family and having a great day together and enjoying the special treat of having Grandma and Grandpa here to enjoy it with us.  Thanks to Seth’s special request, Santa brought us all BYU pajamas this year – it appears that even the man in red really prefers BLUE!!

New Year’s Eve was lots of fun – fondue, Lego rock band, games and nearly 100 balloons filled with glitter to celebrate the New Year – it took Megan, Devin and I two hours to blow them all up, 15 seconds to pop them all, and we are still finding glitter all over 2 days later – our house sparkles!  Very fun, though – Happy New Year!!

November 2009

November at our house must not have been very exciting - I didn't take a single picture. Here's what happened around here:

Lots of BYU football. BYU managed to win all of their games this month, but the only one we really cared about was the Utah game - Go Cougars!! We are looking forward to the Las Vegas bowl later this month.

Seth started an after school storytelling class where he goes once a week and learns more about writing and telling stories. It is a good outlet for his imagination and has inspired him to start writing stories on the computer - we're pretty sure he will be publishing a novel soon. :)

Devin started the Speech and Drama portion of his foreign language rotation (7th graders take a quarter each of spanish, german, and french and then a quarter of speech and drama). So far he is only doing the speech part, but really enjoys it. He has given 4 speeches so far and has done a great job writing and delivering his speeches.

We had a great Thanksgiving with my sisters who live around here and their families coming over for a yummy feast and fun games - it was a wonderful day. Bryce lived through another Turkey Bowl and had extra fun this year taking Devin along for the first time.

Autumn and Seth both did a great job in the primary program - hard to believe we are halfway out of primary - how time flies!

Other than that, it was pretty much the same old stuff. We are now looking forward to Christmas and all the fun it brings. We'll tell you all about it next month.

October 2009

October went by in a blur! We enjoyed watching the mountains turn their gorgeous fall colors and the cooler temperatures (although we could have done without the snowstorm we had last week - way too early!!) and watching BYU football (most of the time at least - Bryce and I sat through three freezing quarters of the TCU blowout before heading home rather depressed). Here are some other things we did:

Seth enjoyed his month of playing flag football, scoring several touchdowns, getting lots of "tackles" and even catching an interception in his final (and VERY cold) game. He has decided that flag football is "his sport", though he's also sure he doesn't want to move on to tackle yet because he thinks the boys in his class who show off their football bruises are just plain crazy!

Autumn celebrated her 7th birthday with a bunch of her friends at a place called Kangaroo Zoo where they ran around, jumped in bouncy houses and slid down inflatable slides - they were exhausted! It's hard to believe she is already 7 and only has one more year before she gets baptized.

Megan had two very exciting events - she finally got her braces off and was awarded her Young Womanhood Recognition Award, and we are all so happy for her and pleased for the goals she is still setting to become an even better person. She is a hard worker and a determined person and we love her very much!

Devin went to the scout pow-wow and has been busy earning merit badges for scouts. He and Megan have been volunteering for the past few months at place nearby called Courage Reins, which is a facility that does theraputic horseback riding for physically and mentally handicapped kids. Right now, Megan and Devin are working hard cleaning out stalls, moving hay, feeding the horses, and bringing horses into the stalls. It is hard work, but they both love it and try to go at least once a week. Megan is looking forward to being able to lead walk and side walk during the lessons and they will both be able to groom and tack the horses soon, too.

We had our fall break in the middle of October and decided to do some fun things around here. We went hiking to a place called Donut Falls, and even though it was freezing, we had a great time in the fall mountains! We also went on a picnic, to the aquarium (yes, we do have one here in Utah!), and took the kids to Lagoon on a gorgeous fall Saturday. The kids had a great time on all the wild roller coasters and Bryce and I endured it because we love them so!

The kids all finished the first term of school with straight A's - they have all been working very hard in school!

Halloween turned all of our kids into little ghoolies - Megan as a hippie chick, Devin as a ninja, Seth dressed as an old man, and Autumn as a little black kitty. We celebrated Halloween by trick or treating in some pretty mild weather, and Megan had a party here with all of her friends. We love having the basement finished so that the kids love to hang out here with their friends - it's the best!

September 2009

Well, we have finally settled in to school and are enjoying fall in Utah. In September, the kids kept busy mostly with school, homework, piano lessons, guitar lessons, karate, and dance - same old stuff - but we did do a few new things:

On Labor Day, we took a long and steep hike up Alpine Canyon to this waterfall - we're still not quite sure where we ended up and were only able to get to the waterfall after Bryce led us trecking through some pretty rough (and even steeper) terrain - we never did find the actual trail, if there is one. The kids all had a fun time playing in the waterfall and on the very slippery rocks before we trecked our way back home - it was quite the adventure!

My dad came out from Seattle for a few days to watch the kids while Bryce and I took a trip to San Francisco, which was very fun! We did a lot of sightseeing, walking, trolley riding, eating, running, biking, eating delicious food, and even took in "Wicked" again, which was great as always. Bryce had to work 2 of the days, but I had fun sightseeing on my own, so it was a great little trip. Of course we forgot to take the camera, so you'll just have to trust us! Thanks, Dad, for taking such great care of the kids!!

On the 19th of September, Bryce and I ran the Top of Utah Marathon in Logan and have decided we never have to do that again. It was pretty grueling, but we stayed together the entire run and crossed the finish line together with Megan, who had traveled up with us, cheering wildly from the sidelines. We both have new respect for the distance 26.2 miles- and are happy to have crossed that one off of our life lists and to be done with training!!

Devin did another scout campout and another 15+ mile hike up the mountains around here. He came home exhausted and will be glad when the scouts have finished their hiking merit badge so they can go camping without so much work involved!

The entire family walked in the Juvenille Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk for a Cure 5K, including the dog. We had a great time and the kids all loved all the donated free food they got to eat and the games they got to play after we finished the walk. It was a really fun thing to do together - I think we'll do it again next year!

Seth started flag football and is loving it again this year. He is fast on his feet and loves to catch and run the ball and is learning to endure defense - not his favorite. He had his first game on September 30 and it was actually snowing at the start (it was 90 degrees the day before). We are looking forward to lots of games in October, hopefully with warmer weather!!

See you all next month!

August Report

Here's what we did in August:

Devin, Seth and Autumn finished up the summer swim team season. They all did great and improved quite a lot, and we had fun cheering them on at the meets.

Megan went to EFY with her cousin at BYU and had a great time again this year. She is already saving to go to EFY in Nauvoo next summer.

Devin hiked to the top of Mt. Timpanogos with his scout troup and Bryce went along because he has always wanted to do that. They were both pretty exhausted when they got home, but enjoyed an awesome view from the summit!

Autumn started back to dance, and has decided to join her school's company team which means she has 4 hours of practice a week (which she loves, except for her one hour technique class which she thinks is too boring), plus she gets to do extra performances and spring competitions. She loves to dance and is having lots of fun so far - hopefully her enthusiasm will last.

All of the kids started back to school. Megan loves High school and despite all the extra homework, is really enjoying all her honors classes. She is even really enjoying early morning seminary, but has started going to bed earlier to compensate for the getting up early part.

Devin is enjoying Jr. High so far. He likes having lots of different teachers and the added freedoms you get in Jr. High and is making new friends all the time, so that is good, too, since all of his good friends around here are a year behind him in school.

Seth loves his fourth grade teacher, but still wishes we were back in summer. He says the only parts of school that are any fun are recess, PE, and coming home. He is a good student, though, so it can't be all bad.

Autumn has settled into being gone all day in 1st grade, though she still wants to only have to do half day because school is "so boring". She loves the social aspect of it at least.

That's it for August!! Blog you later!

July 2009

What a fun month!! We started July with our long-awaited 2 week road trip that took us through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illiois, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and back home to Utah. It was even more fun than we thought it would be, and we saw some really fun things along the way, including 2 presidential libraries (or the outside of them anyway). Here are some of the highlights:

LIBERTY JAIL - we also stopped at Independence and Far West in Western Missouri. Very interesting and spiritually uplifting.

HANNIBAL, MO - we took a boat ride down the Mississippi River and hiked through some caves. We also hiked to a lighthouse and toured Mark Twain's childhood home.


NAUVOO, IL - We had a Finch family reunion and had a great 3 days touring around Nauvoo, going to the Nauvoo pageant and other shows, going to the temple for Alex's endowment before he heads off to Brazil for his mission and also doing baptisms and sealings for some of our ancestors there, and doing a 3 mile handcart trek in the rain - quite an adventure! Most of all, we had a great time being together with family.

WINTER QUARTERS, NEBRASKA - We all learned a lot at the Visitors Center and Pioneer Cemetary here and were very touched and humbled by what we learned. We have it so good. We also got to see the Winters Quarters temple, which was beautiful.RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA - We spent 2 full days here and loved all the fun things we got to do, like Alpine sliding, horseback riding, a cowboy show and driving through Bear Country. The highlight was visiting Mt. Rushmore - it is amazing! - and attending the patriotic lighting ceremony at night.We also stopped at Martin's Cove and saw Independence Rock and Devil's Gate on the way home through Wyoming. Pretty inspiring!!

The other highlight of the month was Devin turning 12 and being ordained to the Aaronic priesthood. He is excited to be a Deacon!

At the end of the month, Seth had a great time building his raingutter regatta boat with Bryce and blowing his way to a 4th place finish - Way to go!!

Ririe Roses in June

I know it's already halfway through July, but I thought I'd finally get to what we did in June. We took a camping trip at the beginning of the month with our friends the Gardiners and had an awesome time hiking, biking, and enjoying the great and beautiful outdoors around Heber. We even got to see what a hail storm sounds like inside a trailer - it's pretty loud and had Sasha cowering in a corner shaking until it was over. It started raining on the last day of our camping trip and pretty much didn't stop until the end of June - it was crazy wet here!

The second weekend in June we drove to Boise, Idaho for my niece Amanda's wedding. It was a great weekend as everyone from my family was able to be there except for Kim's husband and her 3 sons - it was like a short family reunion. It was great to all be in the temple together, too. The kids would definitely say that the most fun was dancing at Amanda's reception - we sure know how to have a crazy fun time together.

Autumn, Seth and Devin have all been going strong with swim team this summer. They have already completed their first 2 swim meets and Autumn is proving to be a strong free style swimmer while Seth and Devin both prefer the breaststroke. They are all getting good exercise with daily workouts and are becoming stronger swimmers all the time. The swim meets are a lot more fun now that we have 3 swimmers to cheer on at the meets!

Megan has picked up 2 more piano students this summer and will add 2 more in the fall. She loves teaching and the fact that she can earn some money doing it - all those lessons are finally starting to pay off for her. She also celebrated her 15th birthday at the end of June with a late night movie party here in the basement with all her girl friends. They had a great time and Megan has grown another year older.

Autumn had her dance recital this month and did a great job dancing to "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend". The dance had tons of attitude, so it was perfect for Autumn - she definitely shines on stage. The dance school director came up to us after the recital and said that she wants Autumn to join the company dancers team, but we're not ready for all the added time commitments, plus Autumn wants to try a different school that combines singing and dancing for a year along with her regular dance class to see which one she likes better. Autumn also started piano lessons this month and loves practicing the piano!

We ended the month with Megan and I going to Girls Camp for 4 days, which was a blast! We both had a great time and Megan learned pretty quickly that if she wanted to get my attention, she had to call me "Sis. Ririe" instead of "mom" - I was definitely out of mom mode!

Well, you will have to tune in next month to hear all about our amazing 2 week and 9 state road trip. Blog you then.