December 2012

We had a great month in December! Of course our favorite part was having a long break from school, but before that, we enjoyed a few fun things.

Devin and Seth both had Christmas choir concerts and they were both really good.  Autumn had a short in studio Christmas dance recital and it was fun to see what she has been working on for the past few months.  Devin, Seth and Autumn all performed in a Christmas piano recital – it’s been great listening to them all practice Christmas songs throughout the holidays.

On December 1, my mom and her husband, Bernie, moved from Oregon into their new home in Daybreak in South Jordan.  We are glad to have them close by, especially since my mom is having some pretty major health issues and now 4 of her daughters are close by to help out. 

Megan came home for Christmas break after earning a 4.0 her first semester at Utah State. Autumn, Megan and I went to see Autumn’s friends dance in “The Nutcracker”.

We had plenty of snow throughout December, especially the last week when it snowed every day and we are left with lots of snow on the ground and very cold temps.  The kids enjoyed playing in the snow and Sasha is in heaven – she never gets enough of chasing snowballs.

My family all braved a huge snowstorm to come to our house for Christmas Eve and we enjoyed an evening of food, gift exchanges and of course, acting out the nativity.  It was great fun and we were grateful to have everyone get here and home safely through the storm.

We had an awesome Christmas day – relaxing and enjoying new presents and time with our family.  We went to Jeff’s house in the afternoon and enjoyed a yummy Christmas dinner with his family.

We braved the freezing cold temperatures and went tubing at Soldier Hollow, where despite the cold (6 degrees), we had a great time playing together.

We all stayed up to ring in the New Year.  Devin went to a party at one of his friend’s (but not before enjoying our traditional fondue), and the rest of us watched movies and then rang in the New Year.  Seth spent most of New Year’s Eve creating this awesome New Year’s banner!  Here’s to a great 2013!!

November 2012

Here are a few things we are thankful for this November:

Healthy bodies! Autumn continues to dance more than ever and never tires of it!  On a recent Saturday where she had 6 hours of rehearsals, Bryce commented that she had a long day of dance ahead of her and she just smiled and said, “It’s only 6 hours dad!” :)  Devin is staying active with his fencing classes and enjoying them more now that he has his own equipment and has gotten good enough to actually win a few matches.  He plans to start tournaments in the spring.
 

Music!  Bryce and I took a trip to Logan to see the USU choirs perform and we were so glad we made the trip! The choirs were awesome and the concert was wonderful!  The entire concert was amazing, but the finale of all the choirs singing “Angels we have Heard on High” was definitely a favorite – AMAZING! 

Pets!  Okay, our cat is super crazy, even a little evil, but we love her.  And Sasha is an awesome dog – we love our pets!  It was especially fun to have Rob and Kim and Shelby come stay for a couple of days – now we love Shelby too! (Sasha might say “love” is a bit strong for her – “tolerate” might work a little better.:))

Spending time with family!  We had the greatest Thanksgiving weekend with our Ririe family (minus the Bakes – we sure missed you guys) at a cabin in Deer Valley and had a great time being together.  Eating tons of good food, playing games, getting reacquainted and just being together. We sure love our family!

Getting ready for Christmas!  We loved decorating the house and the tree this year.  Of course, our favorite part of getting ready for Christmas was watching the kids decorate gingerbread houses over Thanksgiving.  They are super creative – it was fun to see their individual creations. Thank you Grandma for baking all that gingerbread for us!

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season – see you next month!

October 2012

We enjoyed having Megan come home for Conference weekend.  She had a bunch of friends (both BYU and Utah State fans) come over for the BYU vs. Utah State football game on Friday night.  We BYU fans were happy when BYU eeked out a win over Utah State, especially since Utah State is definitely the better football team this year. (not that that’s saying much).  We also went up to the mountains in between Saturday sessions of Conference to enjoy a picnic in the gorgeous fall colors.

 

We enjoyed a fun fall break from school for Devin, Seth and Autumn and even took a trip to the zoo, which we haven’t done for years.  It was actually a lot of fun and great to see all the improvements they have made at Hogle Zoo.  The kids loved seeing, and acting like, little animals. :)

We celebrated Autumn’s 10th birthday by making and decorating Frankenstein and Creature cupcakes, going to The Cheesecake Factory at the new(ish) City Creek Mall in downtown Salt Lake, and taking in Odyssey Dance Theater’s production of “Thriller!”, which we all really loved again this year.  The pictures are taken outside of Kingsbury Hall with some of the zombie dancers. 

Devin continued with his fencing classes, moving from the Adult Beginner class to the Teen competitive team class, which he is really enjoying so far.  They meet twice a week for an hour and a half and work on conditioning and technique and then practice fencing against each other.  Devin is looking forward to getting his own gear, which should come in the next week or 2, so he doesn’t have to use the smelly club masks anymore, and getting good enough to go to competitions and add the saber to his weapon repertoire.  Right now he is working on getting his foil technique down since that is the basis for all other fencing.

Seth finished up his flag football season – making it to the semi-finals before losing to a team whose players were twice the size of his team.  He had a great season and loved playing flag football again this year.

Megan continues to do great at Utah State.  She only wishes she had been able to get into the math class she needs to take since she is a little bored with her current class schedule.  Not to worry, though, she is planning on 18 credit hours next semester including math, chemistry, and physics along with some other general credits she needs – I don’t think she will have to worry about being bored. :)  She is having lots of fun and loves life in college!

We had the typical fun carving pumpkins and dressing up for Halloween.  Devin dressed up as one of his favorite TV characters right now, Dr. Who; Seth dressed as his favorite character from his favorite book series “Fablehaven”, Seth Sorenson; and Autumn dressed as Miss Mad Hatter.  Devin had a bunch of friends over for a Halloween party and Seth and Autumn went trick-or-treating with friends. We had the warmest Halloween on record here in Utah – it was awesome! 

September 2012

Megan returned home from USU for the Labor Day weekend and we really enjoyed having her home for a few days.  Since the younger kids hadn’t seen her dorm or even been to USU, we decided to drive her back to school on Labor Day and on the way, go to the Brigham City temple open house.  Turns out you should NEVER go to a temple open house in Utah on a holiday, even if you do reserve tickets beforehand.  We spent more than 3 hours in line on a very hot day, but the kids were all patient and decided it was worth it in the end – the temple is beautiful!!  After the open house, we all enjoyed a tour of Utah State with Megan – it’s fun to see her excited about all the places she knows so well already.

We attended Devin and Seth’s court of honor where Seth was awarded tons of merit badges and was also promoted to the rank of Star scout. 

Seth completed his triathlon summer with a 50 mile bike ride with Bryce and Seth that started way up Provo canyon and ended at Thanksgiving Point.  Here they are getting ready to go early in the morning.

We attended our nephew Zach Caldwell’s farewell (he is headed to the Oklahoma City mission, which is the same mission his dad served in many years ago) at the beginning of the month and then drove to Boise, Idaho for the last weekend of the month to celebrate our nephew, Ben Buttar’s, homecoming.  He served an honorable mission in Vitoria, Brazil and had some great experiences to share of his time there.  One of his areas includes the most violent city in the world, so he had quite a few experiences with shootings, drugs, etc, but was still able to find humble people looking for the truth.  We are glad he is home safe and had a great weekend in Boise with family.

Seth is in the middle of another season of flag football and has had a good season so far with his team.  Since he is in 7th grade, he plays in a Jr. High league and the kids playing can be in 7th, 8th or 9th grade, so there is a huge difference in the size of the players.  Seth somehow managed to get placed on a team of all 7th graders, and they often play teams much bigger in size then they are, but Seth’s team is full of kids who are quick and athletic, so they have definitely held their own, winning the majority of their games.  Seth plays running back most of the time on offense and goes after the quarterback on defense – he is quick and tenacious and really enjoys playing football.

Devin has decided to join a fencing club and is in his 3rd week of an adult beginners class.  He is the only teenager there and is fencing grown men, but he is holding his own, learning a lot and having a ton of fun so far.  I’ll have to take a picture of him in his fencing gear to include in next month’s blog.  Devin is also taking a digital photography class and is loving that – here are a couple of his pictures so far. (He also took the picture of Seth’s tackle above).

Autumn has been busy as usual with dance lessons, piano lessons and school work.  She decided a few days ago that she doesn’t have the time to practice 2 instruments on top of homework and dance lessons, so she decided to give up playing the violin.  It was hard for her, especially because she has loved her violin teacher, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day for everything she wants to do.  Autumn also participated in her school’s annual fundraiser, the Hawk Walk, and walked 4 1/2 miles to earn money for her school.

I spent a weekend in Park City with some close friends and had a great time enjoying the beauty of the fall mountains in Utah – my favorite season, for sure!

Bryce celebrated his 45th birthday and our clever children decided to give him the “gift of laughter” by dressing up in their old Halloween costumes. :)

After months of working to accomplish the goals he set at Wood Badge training back in May, Bryce officially earned his Wood Badge beads at a special Beading Ceremony.  Once again, he donned his full scout uniform and we all headed to the mountains to witness the historic event.  It was a gorgeous fall evening, and we were entertained with cheers from each of the groups before Bryce and his fellow Owls (along with Buffalo, Foxes, Antelope, Eagles, and a few other animal groups) were awarded their beads.  I have video of the Owl cheer and the Wood badge song, but won’t post them – have to keep the marriage intact.  :)  We are proud of Bryce and his work to become a better leader.

Have a happy October!!

August 2012

August marked the end of summer and the beginning of another school year for us, and of course we are again wondering where all the time is going!  But before school started again, we did manage to get some fun in. 

We had our Holloway cousins come for a visit and had a great time playing in Park City and at Seven Peaks – they were lucky enough to be here for Bryce’s company party where they closed the water park to everyone else, so it was pretty awesome to play without having to battle the crowds.  The kids also wrote and produced yet another epic video – a tradition they have had with their Holloway cousins since they were very little.

Seth really wanted to prove to himself that he could complete the mile swim, so one day at the pool he swam just over a mile and is really glad he accomplished that goal.  And he has been reminding me throughout the month to include his accomplishment in the blog. :)  There you go, Seth!!

We had family pictures taken – here are a few of our favorites:

Bryce and I celebrated 20 years of marriage with a weekend in Park City, which was very relaxing except for the bobsled ride we decided to take down the Olympic bobsled track at the Olympic Park.  It was CRAZY fast and very jarring – definitely gave both of us a healthy respect for bobsled teams.  It was fun to not only try out the bobsled but to sit and watch the ski jumpers practicing into a pool of water.  They do some pretty impressive tricks!

Megan moved to Logan on the 18th and after a week of freshman orientation classes and activities is now enjoying her first semester of college.  She is loving USU, gets along well with her roommate Crystal (who has even somehow managed to talk Megan into running 3 mornings a week), likes all of her classes (especially her women’s choir class – that girl needs music), and has already made some good friends.  I have to admit it was harder than I thought it would be to leave her there that first day, but she is doing great and only really admits to missing the dog and the piano. :) We miss having her around the house for sure!

The week after Megan moved out, Devin started his first year of high school, Seth started his first year of Jr. High and Autumn started 4th grade.  They are all adjusting really well to their new schools, new schedules, new classes and new teachers.  Of course we celebrated the first day of school with our neighborhood Back to School breakfast, which Devin missed because of early morning seminary, and as you can see, it is still very dark when he leaves for school.

We got to see Grandma and Grandpa Ririe for a very short visit when they were in town for Alex’s farewell.  We loved having them here!  We are all really looking forward to Thanksgiving!

The last week of August proved to be an expensive one as we had to replace our dishwasher, lawn mower, the tires of Bryce’s truck and our furnace – ouch!  We are hoping everything else holds together for a long while now so we can recover.