October 2014

October is my favorite month in Utah – warm Autumn days, gorgeous fall colors, a break from school and one of my favorite holidays.  This October did not disappoint:

We celebrated Autumn’s 12th birthday by getting up early and going to the Mt. Timpanogos temple to do baptisms for the dead, something Autumn has been counting down to for a while now.  It was a near perfect experience being in the temple with 3 of our 4 children and doing baptisms for some of our ancestors.  It will be absolutely perfect when Megan gets home January and we can all go together.

We also celebrated with presents, dinner at Los Hermanos and an evening at “Thriller” with Odyssey Dance. Still having a hard time believing my baby is 12, but so it goes…

Devin wasn’t able to join us for the evening birthday celebrations because he was at Lone Peak High School’s Sadie Hawkins dance with is friend Jessica.  He had a good time going with a group of his superhero friends.

We attended both Devin and Seth’s choir concerts – their choirs sound awesome already this year.  Devin found out that the Chamber Choir was selected by audition to be the featured choir when they sing in Carnegie Hall in NYC next spring, which means that they get to perform several songs alone before the large choir from all over the country performs.  It’s a huge honor and Devin is excited for the experience!!

Megan continues to love life as a missionary.  She is so busy right now and loving every minute of it.  We love her!!

The highlight of the month was a Fall Break trip to Arizona.  We started our trip with a visit to the Grand Canyon – it really is as spectacular as everyone says it is and we loved hiking along the rim for several miles and enjoying the views. We spent our first night in a hotel in the Grand Canyon Village.

The next day, we drove to Phoenix where we enjoyed our “3 temples in 1 day” day.  I think the kids were even more excited for this day than they were for the Grand Canyon. We drove 3 hours from the Grand Canyon to the Phoenix, Arizona temple, which was in the middle of it’s open house.  We took a tour of the temple (it’s absolutely gorgeous – the kids want to go back to do baptisms after it is dedicated), stopped to get some lunch and then drove 45 minutes to the Mesa, AZ temple.  We did baptisms there, which was especially cool for me because the Mesa temple was the first temple I ever attended as a 12 year old Beehive living in Albuquerque, NM.  If you ever have a chance to go, you really should – the baptismal font is simply amazing.  After taking some pictures outside the temple, we drove about 20 minutes to the Gilbert, AZ temple, which was just recently dedicated this past summer.  We didn’t have time to do baptisms there, but we did walk around the grounds and get some pictures as the sun was setting.  Gorgeous end to a spectacular day!

We then drove 45 minutes back to Scottsdale where we enjoyed the next 2 days at the Rob and Kim Ririe 5 star resort and spa.  I highly recommend staying there if you are ever in the area.  We attended a rodeo, went on several hikes through the amazing desert surrounding their home, relaxed by the pool, went swimming, enjoyed spectacular views of both the day and night skies and had some great food provided by our hosts.  It was seriously one of the most relaxing and fun vacations we have had recently.  We all loved exploring the desert and can’t wait to go back for another visit.  Thanks Kim and Rob!!

Bryce and the boys enjoyed a weekend campout to Cassidy Arch where they did some pretty spectacular rappelling.  I have decided after hearing about this area from Bryce who went earlier in the year with some friends and now Seth and Devin that we need to plan a family trip out there once Megan gets home so we girls can have some fun, too.

We ended the month with another warm, gorgeous Halloween.  We carved pumpkins, with Bryce carving a special tribute to his daughter in Texas and the kids all dressed up.  Devin dressed as Link from the Nintendo video game (he did get mistaken for an elf occasionally, but just said anyone who was nerdy enough knew who he was), Seth dressed as Calvin and carried Hobbes around all day (when Megan got news of this, her response was, “Finally!! I have been waiting for Seth to dress as Calvin and accept who he truly is!”), and Autumn dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.  The kids all went to their various parties and trick or treating activities with friends while Bryce and I had my nephews Ben and Brandon and their wives over for a party of our own.  It was a fun night and a great month for all.

Hope you all have a great November!!  Blog you then!!

September 2014

September marks the beginning of my favorite season – bring on autumn!!  Here’s a look at some of the things we did:

Devin went to Homecoming with his good friend, Emelie.  His cousin Trevor came into town just before Homecoming, so Devin had him invite a friend of his, Jessica, to Homecoming as well and they ended up having so much fun together.  It was a fun night for all.

Autumn went on an overnight fieldtrip with the girls from her 6th grade class and had lots of fun doing all sorts of outdoor science activities.  She said the food was pretty gross, but she still managed to have fun. :)  She also participated in her school’s fundraiser – the Hawk Walk – where she walked and ran several miles to raise money for her school.  After years of helping with the Hawk Walk at the elementary school, it was a little sad to go to our last one ever.

While Autumn was busy at a Saturday dance practice, the boys and Bryce and I joined a couple of my nephews and their wives for The Dirty Dash 10k up at Soldier Hollow.  It was a messy, muddy, crazy fun running mess and we had a blast together!

We enjoyed welcoming Alex home from his mission and attending his homecoming talk – he did an awesome job and it’s so fun to have him home.  We were pleasantly surprised to get to meet the Pingrees, who were Alex and Megan’s mission president until this past July.  It was fun to meet with them for a while and we learned why Megan loves them so much – they are great people!  Megan continues to love her time as a missionary!!

The LP Choirs took on a concessions stand at the BYU Football stadium this year to earn money and both Devin and I have spent a ton of time working with that – me coordinating behind the scenes and Devin working as a cashier in the stand during football games.  It’s been fun and crazy and a real learning experience for me while Devin has loved working the games and getting to be with his friends at the same time.  We are all enjoying BYU’s undefeated season so far – fingers crossed!

Devin also performed in the Chamber Choir’s annual Disney Concert – a fundraising concert where the Chamber Choir kids perform all sorts of Disney songs in various groups they put together themselves.  It is always a really good concert, but I think this year was the best yet!  One of the students wanted to perform a piano solo of “Pirates of the Caribbean”, so Devin and his friend Jacob choreographed a 5 minute sword fighting scene and performed as swashbuckling pirates during the piano solo, and it was seriously AWESOME!!  It was a little crazy dangerous because they were fighting with real sabers and weren’t wearing any protective gear, but they tried to be careful and luckily no one was killed. :)  Devin did end up with a slice right above his eye that I was extremely grateful wasn’t any lower so he wasn’t blinded, but other than that, they were fine.  Devin also sang a duet with his friend Emelie – “I See the Light” from “Tangled” and it was really good!  He also sang several songs with the choir and other smaller groups. I didn’t get pictures of him dressed as a pirate, but here he is dressed as Flynn Rider with Emelie, who was dressed as Jasmine for the finale.  Very fun night!

Bryce and I went to Park City for a weekend for a belated anniversary trip that was lots of fun.  We enjoyed some gorgeous hiking in the beautiful fall mountains and just had a nice, relaxing couple of days.

Bryce turned another year older, but I failed to get any pictures of the big day, so you will just have to take my word for it – he’s older. :)

That’s it for September – have a great October, my favorite month of the year!!

August 2014

I know it’s long overdue, but here’s our month of August -
Autumn had a crazy busy month at dance with her in-house dance convention, Pointe Break, which is a week long dance intensive with awesome guest teachers – Autumn loved it – and then she also had 2 weeks of choreography where she got to learn all of her new dances that will be competed this coming year of dance.  Good thing she never gets tired of dancing.:) She also had a fun day at Boondocks with her dance team, just to play and have fun.


We had what we decided to call our “Play-a-palooza weekend”.  We took the kids to see “Wicked” at the Capitol Theater in SLC on Friday night, which everyone loved, of course!  Devin had seen it on a trip to Denver when he was in 4th grade, but this was Seth and Autumn’s first time seeing “Wicked” and they both loved it! Autumn is so much like Glinda it’s honestly a little scary (she even does the hair “toss-toss” thing).  It was a super fun night.  The next day, on Saturday, we took them to see “Mary Poppins”, which was playing at Hale Center Theater in West Valley.  It was so awesome and we all had a hard time deciding which play we liked better.  “Wicked” is an amazing story with great music and a fun Broadway style production, while “Mary Poppins” has an amazing story and great music and it was fun to be close to the action in the theater in the round.  Plus the staging at Hale Center is always so cool.  It was a really fun weekend, for sure.

Megan is still loving her life as a missionary! I still think it was super cool that she got to serve with Alex for his last transfer before going home. Stay updated at sisterririe.blogspot.com.

We took a trip to the new Living Planet Aquarium, which is really super impressive, especially for an aquarium located in the middle of a desert.  You should check it out the next time you are in SLC.

Autumn finished her “Faith in God” award in Primary! She is so excited to move up to Young Women soon and to get started on Personal Progress.

My nephew Brandon and his wife, Nicole, welcomed their beautiful daughter, Raeleigh Nicole Buttars into the world on August 11. She is perfect and we love spending time with her.

Devin, Seth and Autumn all returned for another year of school.  Despite my best efforts, I can’t seem to slow down them growing up and we are now in our final year of elementary school with Autumn in 6th grade and Devin is now a Senior in high school and Seth is in 9th grade – what?!?  They are all doing well and have gotten used to being in school and the crazy schedule again.


After trying for several months to figure out what was causing headaches, roaring sounds and fatigue, my dad went in for brain surgery to drain some fluid and do a biopsy on the membranes surrounding his brain. He was recovering well until, 2 days after surgery, an MRI revealed large amounts of fluid building up again around his brain.  He was rushed in for another emergency surgery and drains were installed.  Several days later, the drains were removed and he was sent home from the hospital where he is recovering well.  The good news is his doctors think that the whole thing was caused by a fall he took back in May and he is now expected to make a full recovery. He thinks his Frankenstein style scar (from the second surgery when they had to get in quickly) is pretty cool.

I celebrated another birthday with a family trip to the Thanksgiving Point gardens on a gorgeous summer day.

Bryce and I celebrated 22 years of wedded bliss, but postponed our anniversary trip when my mom’s health took a major turn for the worse towards the end of the month.  After finding out that the brain tumor she has been fighting for more than 10 years was growing despite weeks of radiation that had caused her health to dramatically decline and that there was no hope that things were going to improve for her health-wise, my mom decided to stop taking the medications she had been taking and to go on hospice care.  The doctors thought that she would most likely have 1-6 months or more, so we moved her to a really nice care facility expecting to have several months with her.  She declined very rapidly and was gone within a week, which was actually such a tender mercy for her.  All of her children were able to come to town the weekend she was moved to the care facility while my mom was still alert and lucid and everyone had a chance to visit with her and share their love with her, which was another tender mercy.  She passed away on the afternoon of September 3 and her funeral was held on September 8. She was an amazing woman and I feel so blessed to call her mom.  So grateful for the plan of salvation and the knowledge that we will see her again and she will be healthy and whole, and as she said near the end of her life, “not fat”. :) Love and miss her!!

Bryce and the kids attended the Ririe family reunion over Labor Day weekend and really enjoyed all of the fun activities and getting reacquainted with family members we haven’t seen for a while now.  Because of the timing with my mom’s health decline, I wasn’t able to attend too much of it, and Bryce is not the best at taking pictures, so I don’t have any to share, but you will have to take my word for it that it was a good time. :) I did get this one super cute picture from Tami of four pretty cute girls:

See you all on our September update.