May 2012

We had the most crazy, busy month!  At one point, Bryce asked me if we were ever just going to have a “normal” evening without having to go somewhere and I told him we would…in June. Lots of fun events and celebrations!  And for added fun, we had family in town nearly the entire month!  We started the month with a visit from Dave and MaryLou for several days, then my mom was in town for a couple of weeks looking for a new home in the area (she and Bernie have now started construction on a home in Daybreak in South Jordan and will be moving here around November – YAY!), and then my dad was here at the end of the month.  So fun to have grandparents here to share the fun of our busy month!
The month started with Megan going to her Senior Prom with her friend, Cole Erickson.  She had a great time and looked rather beautiful, in our unbiased opinion. :)

Bryce spent 2 weekends in the mountains doing Wood Badge training for Scouts.  The kids all teased him that he looked like Russell from “Up” in his uniform…

Seth celebrated his 12th birthday on May 5, and for his family birthday celebration, he wanted to go see “The Avengers”, so we all (including Grandma and Grandpa Ririe) went to see the movie, and of course, loved it!  Here are the kids all dressed in their shirts ready to go.




The day after his 12th birthday, Seth was ordained to be a deacon.  It’s so fun to see him pass the sacrament, and even better to be able to go to the temple with 3 of our 4 children now.



Megan was busy studying for and taking her 3 AP tests – Literature, Physics and Stats.  Once those were out of the way, she had fun wrapping up her internship with her kindergarten class (she has grown to love these cuties almost as much as they love her), performing in her final choir concerts with Chamber (with a few tears shed), going to 2 Lagoon days (one for an AP Physics fieldtrip and one for Senior Sluff day), seminary graduation (the picture is of her and the other YM/YW from our ward who graduated this year), and attending various awards and end of year banquets.  Megan was surprised and THRILLED to find out at the Knight of Recognition that she was ranked in the Top 30 of her graduating class, which is a huge deal at Lone Peak.  It was a proud moment for her and evidence of all her hard work paying off.




Devin was recognized at the Junior High’s Evening of Excellence for having a cumulative GPA higher than 3.95 – way to go Devin!  He also performed in his final choir concert in Junior High, ran the Run the Ridge 5k with his classmates (Sasha and I tagged along as well) and is now really looking forward to starting high school in the fall.
All 4 of our kids performed in a piano recital and all did well.

Autumn kept super busy with her final dance competition of the year, her 3 dance recitals, tryouts for next year and all of her regular dance classes.  She has had this past week off of dance before summer session starts and keeps talking about how much she misses dancing.  It is definitely her passion right now.

Seth’s 6th grade class had a ceremony celebrating the end of Elementary school, which Seth is mostly excited about, except for the fact that some of his best friends will be going to a different Jr. high next year.  Another milestone!



Of course the biggest event of the month was Megan’s graduation from High school on May 29.  Despite the fact that we had to sit through more than 650 names being read, the graduation was actually really good and it was a super fun occasion for Megan.  I have to admit that it is a bit of a surreal moment watching your oldest child graduate from High school, but we are so excited for her and know she will continue to accomplish great things.









May 31 we celebrated the official end to another year of school with our annual neighborhood silly string party.  We are all looking forward to a few months off of school and a wonderful summer to come!




Bring on Summer!! :)

April 2012

Here’s a look at our April:

Autumn participated in her school’s invention fair by inventing an Ice Cream Catcher to stop those pesky ice cream drips from ruining your clothes when eating an ice cream cone.  To demonstrate how well it works, we took a before and after picture. :)

We celebrated Easter with a traditional Easter Egg hunt on Saturday and a yummy Easter dinner on Sunday.

We celebrated Spring Break with a trip to Zion National Park and had a great time!  Instead of camping this time, we rented a guest house on a working ranch and the kids had a great time visiting the longhorn cattle, horses, and chickens and also enjoyed a refreshing dip in the pond on a hot afternoon.

We also enjoyed several gorgeous hikes that we hadn’t done before.  We did an 8 mile hike to Observation Point, which was gorgeous and gave us some pretty views of the canyon from high above, plus had a fun time hiking down along a sheer cliff face and through some gorgeous slot canyon areas.

Along with our Observation Point hike, we also did the harrowing, heart-pounding Angel’s Landing hike and all safely made it all the way to the top and back down again.  If you haven’t done this one, it definitely isn’t for the faint of heart.  The last half mile of the 2 1/2 mile each way hike is along a narrow rock ridge with 1200 ft sheer drops on either side.  You navigate to the top by holding on to a chain that has been secured to the rock face.  The views from the top are incredible and we were all glad we overcame our fears and conquered Angel’s Landing, but it’s not something I am in a rush to do again, especially with 4 kids in tow.  Whew!!  Here are pictures of us on the famous Walter’s Wiggles on the way up and triumphantly sitting at the top. (Bryce is taking the picture).

The view from Angel’s Landing.

My nephew, Alex Jensen, was married to Lacey Christensen in the Salt Lake Temple on April 20 and we had a great day with family to celebrate their wedding.  They make a gorgeous couple!

Megan kept busy with AP practice tests, Solo and Ensemble performances (her ensemble earned a 1 – the highest score possible – at the State level competition), working, etc, and getting ready for prom – more on that next month.  The month of May promises to be a big one for her with AP exams, finals, prom, and all sorts of activities for the Senior class before she graduates at the end of this month.

Seth kept busy with schoolwork, running, playing outside in the warm weather, and indexing – he set a goal to index 1000 names by the week after his 12th birthday and rarely misses a day of indexing as he works to accomplish this goal.  He is well on his way – over 800 names done and 2 weeks to go.

Devin was busy with play rehearsals and wowed us all with his performance of the Candyman in “Willie Wonka” this past weekend.  Wish we had a video to share so you could see how well he did, but here’s a couple of pictures anyway.  Devin was thrilled to have his Grandma and Grandpa Ririe come all the way from Oregon to see his play, as well as lots of his cousins and his Aunt Kristi and Aunt Becki who live nearby.  Thanks for all the support!!

Devin with a few of his Oompa Loompa friends:

That’s it for us for April – hope everyone has a very merry month of May.

March 2012

March was quite the eventful month! We started with a trip to New York City for Megan with the Chamber Choir and Bryce and I tagging along as chaperones.  We had a great time – here’s a look at some of the fun things we did:

Visited the 9-11 Memorial and museum, which was quite stirring, especially hearing personal accounts from a fireman who was in one of the towers when it collapsed and was the only survivor from his ladder company and from the owner of the deli across the street and his memory of that day.

Taking the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Ellis Island is fascinating and it was really cool to hear the choir sing the National Anthem on the front steps.

Seeing the choir perform in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  Both cathedrals are incredibly beautiful and very impressive in size and grandeur!  This picture is at St. Patrick’s.  Kim and Rob met us for this performance and also came into the city the following night to take us to a delicious dinner in Greenwich Village for Kim’s birthday – thanks for sharing your birthday with us, Kim, and thanks to both of you for showing us around the city!!

Taking in Broadway musicals!  We went to see “Wicked” and “Lion King” with the choir and then Bryce and I also decided last minute to see “Mary Poppins” once we were on our own.  All were wonderful, but “Wicked” is still our favorite – this was Megan’s second time seeing it, and Bryce and mine 4th time!

Of course, we also visited Chinatown and Little Italy, Canal Street, Times Square, Central park, the Lincoln Center, FAO Schwartz, The Plaza hotel, and went to church on Sunday with the ward that meets in the same building as the Manhattan temple.

The highlight of the trip was seeing Megan, along with the rest of the National Youth Chorus, perform in Carnegie Hall.  It was truly amazing and an experience I know Megan will never forget!  The choir sounded so incredible!  Bryce and I were so glad we got to be there.

After the choir kids went home, Bryce and I took the train out to New Jersey and got to spend a wonderful evening with Kim and Rob (and a little bit of Brandon :)). The home cooked dinner and breakfast the following morning were awesome and the company even better! Thanks for putting us up!!

After our trip to NJ, we took the train back to NYC and spent the remaining 3 days of our trip enjoying some of the things we didn’t get to see while we were busy shepherding choir students.  We took a long run through Central Park (LOVE!), went to the Museum of Art and the Natural History Museum, visited Times Square and Rockefeller Center, pretend shopped on 5th Avenue, visited Park Ave.and Dillan’s Candy Bar, and had lunch at Serendipity.  We also took in Blue Man Group and of course, Mary Poppins.  It was an awesome trip and we can’t wait to go back to New York!

While we were in NY, my dad was busy here with the other three kids.  He attended Devin’s Grand Concert, which we heard was amazing, Seth’s basketball tournament,  and also cheered the boys on at their Court of Honor.  Seth received 3 rank advancements (he is now a First Class scout) as well as several merit badges, and Devin was awarded his bronze Eagle palm and several merit badges as well.

My dad was also thrilled when they had a snowstorm that produced more than 8 inches of snow so he could spend the day snow blowing the entire neighborhood, which he did. He had been praying for snow while he was here even though I told him it wasn’t going to happen since this winter has been so mild and the most snow we had received before this storm all year was a small skiff.  Guess he must be living right. :)  Bryce and I were glad to miss it.

Autumn and Seth both participated in the school Storytelling competition and both did well enough to progress several levels.  Autumn was eventually chosen as one of 8 storytellers (out of more than 300 that originally entered) to tell at the school assembly, plus she earned a medal with her name and “2nd place” engraved on it – she was pretty thrilled.  I’m including the video of her telling her story if you care to watch. :)

Autumn–Little Hoot

Autumn competed with her dance team at their second dance competition of the season and did a great job.  Their hip hop and jazz dances both took first place in their categories and their lyrical dance took second.  They also took an all-around high point with their jazz dance, which means it was the top scoring dance of any dance in their age division, which included some pretty tough teams.  They did a great job and are continuing to improve even more.

Seth also performed a musical with his Storytelling Troupe called “Big, Big World” and did a great job with that.  He has worked really hard with this after school group for the past 3 years and is sad to see it come to an end now that he will be leaving Elementary school behind.

Devin is keeping busy with school and after school practices for “Willy Wonka”.  We can’t wait to see the finished play at the end of April!

After weighing lots of different factors and some prayerful contemplation, Megan has decided to join the small percentage of college bound students who say “Thanks, but no thanks” to BYU and will be attending Utah State University this fall on a four year full tuition and fees scholarship.  She is SO excited for this next chapter of her life!!  She is going to be rooming with a friend from choir and has decided to major in Elementary Education with a double emphasis in math and music.  We could not be more proud of her and all she has accomplished, the wonderful young lady she already is and the person she is becoming.

February 2012

February was pretty much more of the same, but we did have a few interesting things happen:

When Autumn won the dance down last month, she won 2 tickets to see Odyssey Dance Theater’s production of Romeo + Juliet.  I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical going into the show – I don’t love the story of Romeo and Juliet to begin with and a dance version sounded a little boring, but Autumn and I both LOVED it!  It was a hip-hop/contemporary dance telling of the story and it was pretty amazing!  Here’s a picture of Autumn and I waiting for the show to begin.

Seth went to an overnight Space Camp and had a blast with a bunch of his friends from school. He also finished up his basketball season, scoring 12 points in his final game.  He has grown a lot this year and become even more assertive as a player.

We had friends over for dinner a couple of times, but didn’t take any pictures – it was lots of fun anyway!

Autumn performed a hip hop dance at one of the Lone Peak basketball games and brought down the house – they had the crowd on their feet and Autumn thought it was such a fun experience!  She also performed in her studio’s annual Benefit Concert and helped raise money for The Christmas Box House, which was also a good experience.

Devin auditioned for the spring musical – “Willie Wonka” and was cast as the Candyman.  He has an entire song he sings as a solo and a couple of scenes with several speaking lines, so he is very excited.  It will be his first role where he will wear a mic and he is really looking forward to performances in April.  He will be plenty busy with rehearsals until then.

Megan stayed busy with homework, her internship as a kindergarten teacher’s aide, working at Mathnaseum, getting ready to perform both singing and a piano solo at Solo and Ensemble, and preparing to sing in Carnegie Hall as well as a couple of cathedrals in NYC.  Megan, Bryce and I will all be heading to New York on Feb 29 with Grandpa Finch coming to enjoy a week with the other kiddies.  We are super excited and will have lots to report on for March.  See you then!