May 2015

Here it is the last day of school, which in past years I have spent celebrating with the kids after a very short day of school, but this year Seth and Autumn are both hanging out with friends all day and Devin is working after sleeping all morning to recover from his all night graduation party last night, so I am all alone and decided I could at least blog about our month:

After months of rehearsals, Seth played a member of the ensemble in Mountain Ridge Jr. High’s production of “Shrek, the Musical”. I am always surprised at the amazing things they are able to do at the Jr. High productions, and this was no exception. The play was really good and the talent pretty amazing. Seth got to play a variety of roles, but my favorite by far was when he played a citizen of Dulock and was part of a song welcoming everyone to Dulock, where everyone is always happy. Seth did a perfect job of playing someone happy and this picture still gives me the giggles:



We were so happy that Grandma and Grandpa Ririe were here to see Seth’s closing night performance, too.




Seth also celebrated his 15th birthday with a party with friends, presents, dinner at Malawi’s pizza and cake.




Autumn finished off an amazing year of dance with her Company Showcase, one final benefit concert, her end of year recital and tryouts for next year. Whew!







Megan is still staying busy with work and plenty of social activities with friends. She has been happily planning our trip to Houston that will take place at the beginning of June - more on that next month.

We attended the Payson Temple Open house as a family. The Payson temple is so beautiful and very unique - we’re all excited to go back once it’s dedicated in June.



Seth and Devin both did an absolutely amazing job at their first voice recital! I can’t believe how much Seth has improved in a few months time (his tone and annuciation were both awesome!!) and Devin had us all in tears with his rendition of “Stars” from Les Miserables, even his voice teacher who was accompanying him on the piano.



Seth attended the Jr. High’s Evening of Excellence, where he was given an award for maintaining a 3.97 GPA for the 3 years he has been in Jr. High. Way to go, Seth!!



I forgot to mention last month that my neice Jessica moved in with us mid-April and stayed with us for the month of May as well. We’ve had fun having another daughter/sister for 6 weeks and will miss her when she moves to Boise to join my nephew, Ben, (her husband) next week.



After 4 years of waking up early (simply because he prefers early morning seminary), Devin graduated from seminary:




In between weeks of rain and thunderstorms (much needed in our area), Autumn had her outdoor dance festival (the 6th graders danced to “Walk Like An Egyptian”),




Autumn also had her very last field day,





both of the boys enjoyed days at Lagoon with their 9th grade and Senior classes, and we went to the Ririe family Memorial Day breakfast and while it rained during the breakfast, it cleared shortly thereafter and we enjoyed a hike through the mountains.





We had our very last 6th grade sending off ceremony when Autumn officially graduated from elementary school - hard to believe that after 16 years of having at least one child at Highland Elementary, that chapter of our lives is over.

We ended the month with Devin’s graduation from Lone Peak High school. We couldn’t be more proud of all that he has accomplished in his first 13 years of school and look forward to all the great things yet to come.

April 2015

April was a fun and crazy month at our house. I feel like that is pretty typical these days. :) But we love it! Here’s a look at what we did:

We started the month with our Spring Break, but it was the first spring break in years where we haven’t gone anywhere. It was actually kind of nice to stick around home and do a few fun things and also just relax. I mean, it’s not like we didnt do anything fun - Devin had his wisdom teeth taken out, after all - and that’s always a party. :) He had a pretty quick recovery, all things considered.

Autumn’s studio had all of their company dancers do individual photo shoots, which we also did over spring break. Autumn wasn’t too excited about the thought of doing the photo shoot, but she loved it once she got there and had fun seeing what she could do. I think her favorite part was when the photographer asked her if she could not jump quite so high because she kept jumping out of the frame - she has a lot of power in those little legs. Here are just a few of her favorite pics from the shoot:









I decided to try something completely new and had Bryce take me skiing for the first time in my life. We got free passes from Bryce’s work and they were date specific, so we couldn’t change the date even when a massive spring blizzard just so happened to hit on that date (seriously - over 40 inches in the mountains in 24 hours). Skiing was quite the adventure for me - hated it after the first run but loved it by the time we were leaving. Lets just say that falling in feet of fresh powder might be soft, but it sure is hard to get back up. :) It was a fun, terrifying, exhilerating, beautiful, crazy day!



Devin decided he wanted to apply to work at the sub shop he worked at last summer again this summer and went in for an application thinking it would take a few weeks to get hired and all that. Well, the manager remembered him from last year and pretty much hired him on the spot. So now he is working 3 jobs while also studying for 4 AP tests - let’s just say his life is crazy busy and pretty stressful right now. But he is handling it all well and is excited to get his AP tests done starting next week.

We took the kids to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point - it’s incredible! Our Lillie cousins were staying for the weekend, so they got to come, too. We are loving Spring!!





Megan is busy with work, where she was chosen as one of 12 top producers for the company (which is several thousand employees) for this past month and got to have lunch with all of the bigwigs at Vivint. She said it was fun to meet with all of them and is still really enjoying her job. The best thing is that they have already told her that they would love to hire her back next summer when she is off of school. Yay for not having to do the job hunt all over again!

Autumn had her 2 final dance competitions of the dance season and her team did really well. She has loved her dance team this year - they are fun to watch!


Her jazz company (minus one) with their amazing director, Tiffany.

Her ballet company


Her Jazz company

Me with some of my dance mom friends - they certainly make dance competition days so much more fun!

Devin took his good friend Chloe to prom on a rainy April day and they had a great evening with a good group of friends. I still can’t get over the fact that his Senior year is quickly winding down already - wowzer!!





We also had one super sad thing happen this month.  Our new backyard neighbors decided to put up a fence, so we decided that since we were going to have a fence cutting all along the back of our yard, we would fence in the rest of the yard so we could at least enjoy some of the benefits of having a fenced yard.  So after nearly 17 years of having a completely open yard, we are now fenced in.  Honestly, it's depressing.  Still trying to find the benefits.

That’s about it for us - hope you all have a great month!!