June 2010

June has been so much fun around here – I can hardly believe it’s nearly over already!

We started the month with a trip to Southern California.  We spent the first few days at Disneyland and had a great time there.  It was so nice having all of our kids big enough to ride everything and to not have to push a stroller through the crowds. (Obviously it’s been a while since we’ve been to Disneyland – 5 years!)  The only one of us who was not completely exhausted by the end of each day was Autumn who was always pushing for “just one more ride” before we left the park.  Her energy is amazing! 

 

After Disneyland, we spent a cloudy and cool day at Newport Beach where the kids had a great time playing in the waves, building sandcastles and watching a pod of dolphins play just off the shore.

We then headed to San Diego for 3 days where we spent a day at Sea World and a day at the San Diego Zoo, which we loved.  Devin has always been a big fan of pandas so it was fun to see them in real life along with all the other animals there.  Seth has been spending the summer writing a research paper on his top 10 animals and got a lot of great information and some new favorites while we were visiting the zoo.  It was a great and exhausting vacation.

Autumn had her big dance recital this month and did a fabulous job.  She absolutely loves to dance, especially in front of a live audience.  Her favorite was a dance to Alice in Wonderland’s flower song, but my favorite was her ballet where she got to dance as a toy bunny and was a featured dancer in the opening and closing numbers.

Devin, Seth and Autumn are all back on summer swim team and enjoying their daily workouts.  Megan has been running with me once a week (only by force – our young women are training for a 5k later this summer and I make Megan come on the training runs, even though she hates running and pretty much all forms of exercise right now – maybe it will grow on her:))

Devin joined the leagues of junior high kids everywhere by getting braces put on.  Lucky for him, he will only have to wear them for 18-24 months which Megan reminds him is nothing compared to the 4 years she was in braces.

Megan celebrated her 16th birthday and is now a legally licensed driver.  She swears that people do a double take when she is behind the wheel alone like she is too young to be driving, but I think she is just self-conscious.  I love that she can drive alone and have already used her to run several errands for me – it’s awesome.  Unlike the big to-dos Rob talks about back east, her birthday was pretty low-key and very low-budget.  She had a few friends over for games, pizza and a movie.  She had a great time!

Bryce and Devin went on a 3 day backpacking trip with the scouts and had a great time exploring a remote area down in Southern Utah where there were plenty of lakes to fish and mountains to climb.  They didn’t have any luck catching fish themselves, but did get to enjoy some of the bounty from the other boys and dads.

Hope you are having an awesome summer!!

May 2010

May has been a busy and fun month at our house.  Now that it is the last week of school,our activities are winding down and now Megan is getting through finals week and the other kids are having their fun last week of school with plenty of parties – field days (although Seth’s was cancelled today because of the SNOW that is falling outside (seriously 2 inches on the ground and counting!) – I am SO done with snow!!), game days, and cleaning days for Autumn and Seth, Devin has a few more papers and projects to do and then ends the year with his Jr. High’s annual 5k.  Should be a fun last week! (Megan might argue with that!)

As I mentioned last month, we started May with our Stake Decades performance and it really turned out to be an amazing production!  There were 3 separate showtimes and I got to be at all 3 either watching in the audience or helping out back stage.  It was so much fun and worth all the time and effort getting there.  Here are a few pictures:

Dancing the Jive for our ward’s decade – The 40’s!

Devin doing our ward’s short skit – he was funny!

Megan singing a small group part on “Be Strong” – the finale number

Our ward’s young women backstage before the show starts

Megan and Devin backstage ready to go!

The girls dressed up in their Jive costumes

Devin with his dancing partner (Ashlyn) before going on for the Waltz.

Autumn had her last dance competition of the year on May 1.  Her other competitions were done for her age around noon or so, but this one was a State final competition and lasted all day.  Autumn had her first dance at 9:10 am, which meant we had to be there by 8 am, and her last dance at 6:45 pm.  She stayed for awards and didn’t get home until around 11 pm that night – tired but still happy.  She seriously never gets tired of dancing.

Autumn and her good friend, Anna.

Seth celebrated his 10th birthday on May 5th and decided to celebrate both his birthday and Cinco di Mayo by having dinner at Los Hermanos.  We were lucky enough to have Grandma and Grandpa Ririe in town on their way to Italy which made Seth’s day even more special.  He loves the fact that he is now a decade old.

Megan and Devin both had their final choir concerts of the year.  They both really enjoy singing!  Megan tried out for and made her school’s acapella choir for next year and Devin decided to join the Men’s chorus for next year as well.

Bryce took a camping/hiking trip down to Escalante with a group of friends and had fun hiking for 3 days through some pretty cool areas.  He really enjoyed the narrow rock canyons and was really in awe of hiking through the Hole in the Rock area, especially since he recently finished reading “Undaunted” by Gerald Lund.  He still can’t believe that wagons ever made it through there.

 

Megan was inducted into the National Honor Society and looks forward to doing service projects with them.

Autumn and Seth both participated in their school’s dance festival.  Autumn’s grade danced with their hug-a-bears to a song called “Gummy Bear” and Seth’s grade got down to “Dancing in the Streets”.  As always, it was entertaining and fun to watch them show off all their hard work.

I have spent the month attending various graduation activities for the 9 Laurels who are graduating this week – wow!  It makes me sad to lose them!  I am still very much loving my calling and it promises to get even better in June when Megan turns 16 and becomes a Laurel – how fun!!

March/April 2010

Rather than consider ourselves last for the March post, I’ll just consider us first for the April post. :)  It has been a crazy couple of months – sorry I haven’t gotten around to the blog.

The kids have all been busy with their various activities and working hard in their school work.  They are all on the countdown to summer – only 4 1/2 weeks left for us! 

We started March with a snowstorm that left more than a foot of the most perfect snow on a Friday that the kids were already out of school – perfect snow day.  We spent the day building snow forts and snowmen, having snowball fights, and making snow angels.  It was so much fun!

 

We spent the first week in April camping in Green River for Spring Break with our good friends, the Gardiners.  The weather was mostly cooperative – our only really cold and windy day was spent in Goblin Valley.  We all had fun there despite wearing our winter coats – brrrr!

We also took a couple of hikes we have never done before – one near Moab called Fisher Towers that is one of our all time faves – the 5.5 mile hike covers some gorgeous territory and includes gorgeous, steep ledges, lots of red rock and even a ladder down a ravine.

We spent an afternoon in Canyonlands National park and look forward to returning sometime to spend more time there – it is gorgeous!

Megan and Devin have been working hard since January for a production our Stake is doing with all the youth (over 300 of them) called “Decades” and will be performing this weekend.  It is all about dating/appropriate relationships and dancing through the decades and is quite the production. Devin is part of a skit in between dance numbers and Megan was chosen to sing one of the songs as part of a small group.  They have both learned how to dance the waltz and the jive and will be performing them at the production.  I’ll include some pictures next month.

Autumn has been busy with dance competitions and is loving it!  She and Megan and I took a weekend trip to St. George for one of her competitions and had a great time!  The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, Autumn danced beautifully, it was fun to have some girl time, and Megan got 9 more driving hours in towards her driver’s license.  Autumn has also been asked to dance a ballet solo as part of a routine for their upcoming recital and has been enjoying learning her part and going to extra practices.

Devin and Bryce went on a hike in March to reinact Bro. Moyer’s hike from Alpine to work on the Salt Lake temple each week while it was under construction (Bro. Moyer carved the “Holiness to the Lord” into the temple stone and made the hike to Salt Lake each week on foot even after he had to have one of his legs amputated).  The scouts (and a few dads) started at the Salt Lake temple and then hiked home from there (minus a few miles that they rode on trax – cheaters :))  It was a long day including a hike over the mountains by Draper that were still covered knee deep in snow – they were both tired when they got home!

The scouts (and Bryce) also did a campout in April to a place where they got to dig for geodes.  Devin and Bryce had a great time, enjoyed some great spring weather and came home with a box full of geodes!

Seth designed and with the help of his dad, built his pinewood derby car and competed in the pinewood derby.  He didn’t win any awards this year, but had a great time anyway and thought his car, which he named “Seth’s bullet”, was awesome!

Seth finished up his Storytelling class with a PJ’s night for the entire school and their families.  He told a story he made up on his own and has developed quite the flair for comedy.  He recently informed us he wants to be a stand up comedian when he grows up (every parent’s dream).  As long as we can keep him from being the class clown at school, the comedic flair is actually a lot of fun.

Hope you are enjoying spring!  I will try to be on time next month!

February 2010

February sure went by fast! The January snows all melted and we are finally starting to have some warmer days mixed in with the colder ones – hooray for the coming of Spring! :)

We started the month with a trip to the Olympic Oval in Salt Lake that was built for the 2002 Winter Olympics to go ice skating. It was fun skating around the outside rink while watching hockey games and figure skaters practice on the inside rinks. Seth wasn’t a huge fan of ice skating, but had fun anyway. Megan, Devin and Autumn all loved it!

Seth continued to play basketball and keep us all updated on the BYU basketball team as well. He and Bryce went to a BYU game together and had a great time cheering on the Cougars. Seth loves all things BYU, especially BYU sports. He also earned his Bear award in Cub Scouts, and performed in the 4th grade music concert, where he volunteered for 3 speaking parts. He was so funny because he was so excited for the concert and then wouldn’t look at me or smile at all the entire time. After it was over he said he had so much fun, but you wouldn’t have known it by looking at him for sure! :)

Devin joined the Jr. High track team and is enjoying practices after school. He has decided that he is definitely more of a distance runner than a sprinter and plans on running the 400, 800 and mile races when track meets start this Spring. He also went on a scout “campout” to the YM President’s cabin. They had a great time snowshoeing in to the cabin and roughing it overnight!

Autumn has been busy getting ready for her Spring Dance competitions – she has her first one in a couple of weeks. She loves dancing and rarely complains about having to go to practices, even when they call extra Saturday practices. She and Seth have also been taking swimming lessons together and their swim teacher always comments on how competitive Autumn is because she always has to beat the other class members to the wall, even when they aren’t supposed to be racing. She does like to come in first!

We hit a major parenting milestone this month when Bryce and I went to Salt Lake overnight and left Megan in charge overnight for the first time. She did an amazing job with the kids and had the house sparkling clean by the time we got home. It was a happy moment as a parent!! Megan has also been busy with drivers ed. She passed her road test yesterday, so now she just needs to pass the class, finish her hours of driving, and turn 16 and she can get her license.

I had an overnight Laurel retreat at Sundance and had Megan come along since she will be a Laurel soon. We had a great time despite the snow and ice all over the roads leading up to the cabin that led to some pretty hairy experiences getting there – let’s just say I don’t want to relive that drive ever again. :)

Hope you all had a great February, too!