January 2015

January seemed to fly by at our house - so many fun things happened. Take a look:

I started babysitting my nephew’s baby girl, Raeleigh, every Tuesday while dad is at school and mom is working - it’s great fun for me and she is such a darling baby.

Of course, the best part of the month was the welcoming Megan home from her mission in Houston. It felt like the longest day ever as we waited for her flight to come in at 2:20 that afternoon. It didn’t feel real that she would be home even as we put out her welcome home sign, tied yellow ribbons around the yard, picked the other kids up from school and drove to the airport, where we waited anxiously for our beautiful missionary:



It wasn’t until we saw her coming down the escalator that it finally felt real - Megan was HOME!!! We laughed, yelled and jumped up and down and then when we finally got to hug her, many tears were shed:









After our reunion at the airport, we drove to the Church Office Building where our Stake President works to have Megan officially released as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was a bittersweet moment for her when she removed her name tag and officially became a civilian again. :) It was a tender moment for all of us.

A few days later, we got to hear her homecoming talk in sacrament meeting and it was obvious to us all that she has grown and developed in some pretty awesome ways during her 18 months of missionary service.  Her testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the possibility for change for all of us was powerful.  We are so proud of her and her hard work and continued optimism and faith.  It is beyond wonderful having her home and having our family all together again!!




On the day Megan gave her homecoming talk, we were also privileged to get to hear Autumn speak in Sacrament Meeting for the first time ever as a Young Woman.  She did an awesome job sharing her testimony of temples and how the Personal Progress program is helping her develop her testimony of and relationship with her Savior, Jesus Christ.


In other family news, Devin had a great evening with his date, Natalie, at Lone Peak’s Preference (or Girl’s Choice formal) dance. They had a lot of fun together and looked pretty spiffy, too.



Autumn had her first dance competition of the year in conjunction with a dance convention (2 days of intensive dance classes) in Provo.  Her team did such a great job and showed great maturity and resilience when they had to re-space their lyrical dance 10 minutes before performing after one of her team members injured her foot in an earlier dance. You never would have known that they had reworked it all from watching it on stage - it was beautiful!  They are off to a great start!!


My sisters Kristi, Becki and I along with Bernie and Megan got together for lunch to celebrate my mom’s birthday. It was a fun gathering and so fun to reminisce and share memories of my mom.


Seth is keeping busy trail running with Bryce, keeping up with school and starting rehearsals for the Spring Musical, “Shrek”.

After weeks of job hunting and interviews, Megan has been offered a full-time job at a local company, Vivent, doing office work.  She is so excited to have her first “grown-up job” and is looking forward to starting her training next Monday. :)

Blog you next month!!

December 2014

Here’s a look at our warm Christmas month:

Seth portrayed the characters of Sam, Myra’s father and Stanley Yelnats in two separate casts of “Holes” over a 4 night period.  He had a great time and we enjoyed watching him perform what his theater class had been working on all semester.

Devin played a beggar at LPHS’s Madrigal Feast.  He swordfought, begged, performed various tricks for spare change and sang some pretty awesome Christmas music to get us all in the Christmas spirit.  He did an awesome job and we had a great evening together.

Seth sang with his advanced choir at the State Capital and even the governor came out to hear them sing.  It was a really fun experience for him and I think by looking at this photo, you can all figure out why he loves choir so much – those are some pretty good odds.

We had the battle of the beards. ;) Devin dressed up like a hobbit to go to a premiere party for the new Hobbit movie with his friends and Seth dressed up for ugly Christmas sweater day at his Jr. High.  Who wore it better?

We enjoyed the lights at Temple Square – beautiful!

 

Autumn had so much fun dancing in her first professional dance show when she danced as a party kid in Odyssey Dance’s “Redux Nut-cracker”.  It was the CRAZIEST schedule with 3 early morning television news performances (she and I had to get up at 3:30 am to get there on time) and then a week of evening and matinee performances, all in Salt Lake City. She was a trooper and even though she would fall asleep in the car each night on the way home, she loved the entire experience and was so sad to see it come to an end.  It was an AWESOME show, easily the best version of “The Nutcracker” I have ever seen and she was talking about doing it again next year before the show even closed.  I think I may be too old to do another week like that, but I’m so happy that she loved it so much.

We had an awesome Christmas Eve and Christmas day!  I didn’t take many photos this year, but we did all the normal things like playing games, acting out the nativity, eating way too much yummy food, and opening presents and stockings.  Of course, the highlight of Christmas was being able to Skype with Megan and the best part of that conversation was being able to say, “See you in three weeks!” when we hung up.  She is doing so well and we are SO excited to welcome her home next week!

Can’t wait to have our family all together again!!!

November 2014

We had a very happy, fairly low-key November – here’s a look:

Devin, Seth, Bryce and I ran a Turkey Trot 5k to help the high school raise money for their annual Gold Rush where they raise money for charitable causes.  It was a freezing cold morning, but still lots of fun and Seth continued his streak of outrunning us all.

All the kids had fun with their friends doing various activities – Autumn and Seth both went to the fall Jr. High play with their friends – here’s a look at Autumn with her friends getting ready to go:

Devin went to the 80’s dance with his friend Ashley – they had a great time together.  This dance was held at the local ice arena, so it was more skating than dancing, but still tons of fun and I hear the music was awesome! :)

Autumn had her first dance performance of the year with The Pointe’s annual Benefit concert and she was so happy to be back on stage performing again, all while helping to raise money for one of her classmate’s family, whose baby daughter was born with Cystic Fibrosis.  It was a fun dance concert and Autumn is dancing stronger than ever.  Her team looks really good this year!

We took the kids to an amazing costume exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art – it was cool to see how intricate costumes for movies are – they are beautiful!  We also went to the Museum of Natural History, where we took this picture of our lion family counterparts.  When we sent it to Megan with an explanation that she was the lion a little ways away from the rest of the family attempting to share the gospel with the zebras, she commented back that she found it hilarious and had to keep herself from laughing too hard since she was in a library. :)

Autumn tried out for a part in Odyssey Dance Theater’s “Redux Nut-cracker”, a hip-hop/jazz telling of the classic story.  There were more than 30 girls who tried out for only 8 spots and Autumn was super excited when she was selected as one of the party kids!!  She will perform in shows at Kingsbury Hall in SLC from December 17-23 and in the meantime is spending her Fridays and Saturdays in rehearsals – she is loving it so far!

Autumn also had to have 3 teeth pulled the Tuesday before Thanksgiving – no fun.  But it wasn’t too bad and she was able to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with us on Thursday. :)

Nervously waiting at the dentist’s office…

3 fewer teeth and a few dollars richer.

We had a great Thanksgiving here at our house with Jeff and his family and my sister Kristi and her family and Bernie, too.  We all enjoyed time together, yummy food and being thankful for all that we have been blessed with.

The kids had a great time entertaining themselves when they discovered that water would pool into droplets on the tablecloth – they all worked together to see how big of a pool of water they could make and then had fun blowing it across the table.

Speaking of blessings, Megan starts her final transfer this week!!  She is absolutely loving her mission and tells us that she is way too busy to feel trunky.  Enjoying every last minute of it!!

Oh yeah, and then this happened…

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas season!