December 2010

My, what a fun and busy month December has been for us!  Reality is a bummer to come back to – way too much responsibility and WAY too cold!  Here’s a little glimpse into our month.

We had a fun celebration at the beginning of December where we let the kids take sharpie markers and decorate the tiles in our kitchen counters before they were ripped out.  What fun!!  We were very excited to get rid of our ugly tile countertops and have beautiful granite counters installed along with a new beautiful tile backsplash.  What a difference!  The only bad part was having the installers find black mold behind the kitchen sink area when they ripped out the old counters, but Bryce came home from work and spent 12+ hours ripping out drywall, insulation and even some of the subfloor under the kitchen sink and getting it all put back together in time for the installers to come back the next day and get the granite in – whew!  We LOVE our new kitchen!

Megan and Devin had choir concerts (great as usual) and Megan also performed in her choir’s annual Madrigal feast.  It’s a week long fundraising event where each night the choir students dress as characters from medieval times, decorate the school cafeteria like an old castle, and perform while they serve a 5 course dinner.  We attended one night and had a blast!  Megan was our paige and we all enjoyed the dinner, singing, dancing, and play acting very much.  Autumn particularly enjoyed giving the Master of Salt a kiss on the cheek for a scoop of salt for her food.  Let’s just say that she ended up with quite a pile of salt on her plate! :)

Autumn’s highlight of the month (and the year, if you ask her) was performing as a mademoiselle in “The Nutcracker”.  We had such a great time watching her – she is definitely a natural on stage and is a beautiful dancer.  She didn’t even mind having to wear her hair in curlers 2 days in order to have the hairstyle required for her part.  She already wants to try out again next year and is keeping busy with her regular dance classes in the meantime.

On Dec 21st, we took off for Hawaii and spent the next 10 days in paradise!  I think we would all say that it was our favorite family vacation ever!  We stayed in a rental house on the North Shore of Oahu in the tiny (very non-touristed) town of Wa’ailua.  We spent at least part of every day but one (when we went to the Laie Temple, BYU-Hawaii campus and the Polynesian Cultural Center) at the beach and we never got bored of playing in the waves and enjoying the warm sunshine.  Some of our favorite things:

• Visiting the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor
• Snorkeling at Hanauma Bay – Devin especially enjoyed this!
• Getting tossed in the waves at Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay (Megan has quite the bruise on her hip from hitting the sand when one wave hit her)
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• Visting the Laie temple visitors center and Megan and Devin going with Bryce to do baptism for the dead

• Playing in the sand!

• Learning about different cultures at PCC (plus the luau was awesome!)
• Eating hawaiian shave ice – we tried to fit it in every day, but missed a few
• Playing at our local beach – we were often the only people there and saw several sea turtles.  The waves were great, too!
• Eating Christmas dinner OUTSIDE on our own lanai – beautiful!
• Swimming in a rather cold pool at the base of Waimea Falls
• Outrigger canoeing (my favorite) and for Megan, Devin and Bryce surfing at Waikiki Beach

• Waterbending.  For those of you familiar with Nickeloeon’s series “Avatar” – let’s just say Seth spent most of the vacation perfecting his technique!

Oh, and just for Tami – we thought we would include a family picture of what we think the beach should really look like. :)

And as Seth predicted, the only bad part of going to Hawaii is having to come home.

Of course, this is just a small sampling of our pictures and our adventures.  Maybe I will include more of them for our January blog – otherwise it will most likely say “We did nothing – and it’s cold!”  Hope you all had a great Christmas!

November 2010

November started with Autumn’s baptism which was a really special, fun day.  It was great having so many family and friends here to celebrate Autumn’s big day!  We had a yummy brunch after the baptism and then enjoyed the rest of the day with family – good times!

Devin went to Scout Pow Wow at BYU and earned merit badges in Chemistry, Weather and Computers.  He is now a Life Scout and will soon start working on his Eagle Scout project – fun for us!

Megan got all excited for the new Harry Potter movie – you should have seen her high school on premiere day – you would have thought you were actually at Hogwarts!  We all got to go see the movie thanks to our dentist who took all his patients for Patient Appreciation Day – it was lots of fun!  We all got dressed up, except Bryce who is a true muggle.  We all loved the movie and can’t wait until next year to see the finale!

We enjoyed the great weather until the week of Thanksgiving when a “blizzard” hit.  You would have thought that we lived in the northwest for the way people were panicking about a storm that hadn’t even hit yet.  Schools canceled, businesses sending employees home early – it was quite the storm – that never actually came, at least not to Utah county.  We got maybe a skiff of snow and a couple of hours of wind.  The blizzard did bring cold temps that lasted through Thanksgiving.

We enjoyed Thanksgiving with Jeff and his family.  Delicious dinner, movie on the big screen and fun games – who could ask for a better Thanksgiving?  It was very fun and relaxing.

The rest of the month was spent doing the same-old, same-old.  Autumn is busy now with dress rehearsals for “Nutcracker” (you should have seen how bummed she was when she found out she only gets to wear her fancy dress for dress rehearsals and performances and doesn’t get to keep it – it was pretty funny!) and we are in the throws of having our kitchen counters and backsplash torn out and replaced – finally!  I will post pictures next month when it is all done.  Have a great Christmas season everyone!!

October 2010

Is October really over already?  I think I must have said “I can’t believe it’s Halloween already!” at least 10 times last weekend.  Crazy!!!

We enjoyed some awesome fall weather in October and drove up to the mountains one Saturday for a picnic and to enjoy the great Fall colors. 

Autumn celebrated her 8th birthday on October 11th and we had a fun evening together as a family.

 

The weekend after her birthday, we went shopping for her baptism dress and she had the best time trying on every white dress we could find to find the one she liked the best.  She is so excited to be baptized this Saturday.  Hard to believe our baby is getting baptized already!

Seth finished his flag football season and is already counting down to when basketball season starts.  We were blessed with great weather for football this year – we only had one game that was cold.  Unfortunately, that was the one game Grandma and Grandpa Ririe were here for, but the rest of the games were in some pretty awesome weather.

Devin and Megan both had their first choir concerts of the year and both did a great job.  Devin is singing in the Junior High’s Men’s Chorus and Megan is in her school’s Acapella Choir.  Megan’s choir did a version of “Lean on Me” that was just amazing and Devin’s group did a song called “Joshua” that I loved.  Fun times!

Autumn decided that she just didn’t have enough already going on and that she wanted to try out for Utah Regional Ballet’s performances of “Nutcracker”.  She is cast as a Mademoiselle and has started once a week rehearsals that will continue through December when she will get to perform in 3 performances of the ballet.  She is so excited to be in a “real ballet” and we can’t wait to go see her at Christmastime.   This is her showing off one of her dance moves with Curious George. :)

Grandma and Grandpa Ririe have favored us with a visit a little early for Autumn’s baptism so that they could be here for one of Seth’s football games and other activities.  We feel very lucky that they are here and are loving spending time with them through this week as well.

We celebrated Halloween in a torrential downpour this year.  Autumn didn’t last long trick or treating but when the rain got so bad that I decided to go and “rescue” Seth and his friend that were out trick or treating, when I found them and asked if they wanted me to drive them home, Seth just said, “No way, Mom!  We are warriors!”  He came home soaking wet, but loaded with candy.  What fun!

Blog you in November!!

September 2010

September was gorgeous around here – it felt more like a continuation of summer than an entry into fall. We took advantage with plenty of outdoor activities and enjoying the beautiful fall colors in the mountains. This is definitely the time of year we love being close to the mountains the most!

Besides all the normal things – dance, karate (Devin’s last month – he has officially moved on to other things), piano and guitar lessons, scouts and young women activites and lots of homework, we also had a few things unique to September.

We started the month with our Young Women’s 5k. We challenged the girls this year to “do hard things” and then worked throughout the summer to be ready to run our 5k together. It ended up being a really fun event. We planned our course through the ward boundaries and ward members came out to cheer the girls on along the way. Megan set a goal to run the whole thing and she and I ran the whole thing together, which was really fun.

We spent Labor Day at This is the Place State Park and had fun exploring our pioneer heritage. The kids liked playing pioneer games, panning for gold, seeing dad get in trouble at school, riding the train, seeing all the animals, and enjoying some unique pioneer treats as well as making a leather craft and an Indian arrowhead necklace. It was a fun day!

We took the kids to a Jon Schmidt piano concert at the outdoor Waterfall Ampitheater at Thanksgiving Point which served as a great inspiration to all of them to keep up with practicing the piano. He is a very fun entertainer and we all had a wonderful time!

Autumn decided to add a tumbling class at the Recreation Center on Saturday mornings with a couple of her friends. She loves tumbling and is CONSTANTLY doing cartwheels through the house or wherever she goes and is now loving doing round-offs, front and back handsprings (on the tramp) and front flips in class. She loves to move, that’s for sure!

Seth and Autumn both participated in their Elementary school’s annual walk-a-thon to raise money for the school and both did a great job. Seth ran for nearly his entire time (one hour) and logged just under 5 miles and Autumn walked/ran just under 4 miles. It’s a fun fund raiser and the kids look forward to it each year.

Seth started back up with flag football and has been having a great season so far. His first game was on Bryce’s birthday and Bryce told him he wanted a touchdown for his birthday present. Seth had a few really good runs (he is playing running back this year, which he loves), but he didn’t score a touchdown until his game on the following night, but I think Bryce will take it just the same. Seth’s coach this year is really intense, but Seth is learning a lot and his team plays well together – overall it has been a good experience. Bryce is helping out as an assistant coach and has been having fun having more time to spend with Seth.

Megan went to her first school "date" dance and had a really fun time. The dance had a costume theme, so her group went as pirates. All of the couples in her group seemed to have fun and she came home excited to tell us all about it. :)

Bryce and I took a late anniversary trip up to Park City at the end of the month and got to enjoy some gorgeous fall weather and colors. It was nice to get away from the craziness of life for a couple of days anyway.

That’s it for September – see you next month!