This year for Halloween Dianna and I were Ryan and Sharpay Evans, from High School Musical. You might think it's not that special, or scary (well, that's debatable), or Field-like. However, we didn't just dress up like them, we actually learned the song and dance to "What I've Been Looking For" and performed the routine. I even bleached my hair blonde to make it more authentic ;-)
"Everybody loves a good Jazz square." ~ Ryan Evans
Ok! My Uncle took this video with his still camera. It at least captures the "magic" of it. We'll probably do this again and get another video of it but for now...
October 25, 2008 ~ BYU vs UNLV ~ 42-35 ~ Cinda (Dianna's sister), Dianna, Kevin
It wasn't much of a defensive game until the end where BYU kept them from scoring with a Quaterback sack and then an interception in the endzone with time running out to end the game. I think the defense lost their confidence last week against TCU. We got the footlong brats with grilled onions and sourkraut. So tasty! And, of course, we had to get a Cougar tail (a maple bar doughnut about 18 inches long).
September 20, 2008 ~ BYU vs Wyoming ~ 44-0 ~ Warner, Parker, Robbie Whitworth
This was Warner's very first BYU football game and he did awesome! He had heard a lot about the games and especially the Cougar tails! He actually watched most of the first half and now says he wants to be a football player. He is named after his great grandpa Sears who played football when they wore leather helmets. Gpa Sears said that the only game his mother ever came to, he got knocked out in!
September 13, 2008 ~ BYU vs UCLA ~ 59-0 ~ Parker and Kevin
This was the same day as Parker's baptism. We were glad that the baptism was at 9 am so we could go early to the 1 pm game and tailgate with Chris Whitworth and others beforehand. It was an amazing game and a lot of fun. Parker got a Cougar tail and a frozen lemonade.
Stewart Falls is a hike that you can start at the base of the Sundance ski resort, towards the top of Sundance (after riding a ski lift), or at Aspen Grove that is further up the Alpine Loop past Sundance. We decided to hike from Aspen Grove, which I am glad we did because the last time I hiked to the falls, I did it from Sundance and I think I enjoyed the Aspen Grove trail much more.
The trail is pretty low impact and is only about 2 miles. It starts out by taking you through pine trees which reminded me some of Seattle (without the ferns, moss, and banana slugs). It smelled wonderful too. It made me question why we haven't done more of this. 
After hiking through the pines for about the first third of the way, you then go through the second third of the hike in aspens. It still had some nice fall colors, although it probably would have been even brighter in color 2 weeks ago. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Sven and Terrilynn and their kids came on the hike too (as did Lauren Elison).
I got the kids to pose for a moment in a particularly colorful part of the trail (Ashton, Lauren, Jade, Parker, and Payton-against his will, of course!). The last third of the trail took us through a somewhat rocky section of pines as can be seen in the picture below.
We arrived at the falls and before Payton could consume all the food we brought, I told him we had to take pictures (with a good attitude and no silliness-as those are the only pictures he likes to take) beforehand. Ashton was quite the trooper as he hauled the backpack with our food and clothes for pictures. I was proud of him as he did not complain even once (another miracle) the whole way there and back.
The picture above is of, what I call, the upper falls (you can see Ashton in the bottom right corner). The lower falls can be seen below and is where we ended up taking the kids' pictures. The first 4 kids were fairly quick and painless. Even Payton's forced smiles didn't keep us from getting a few good snapshots. Warner on the other hand just couldn't quite get in the groove. I had to take the most pictures of him and the one we finally chose still had him squinting because of the brightness of the sky. But, it does capture his personality pretty well!
The rock second from the bottom right in the above picture is the one the kids sat on while I took the pictures. Once the picture taking was done, Payton was ready to "hork" the food down. We brought salami, cheese and Ritz crackers, granola bars, bananas, celery, carrots, dip, and dried apple slices. And yes, we hauled our trash out.
On the hike out, Parker was a little tired. He had been sick the previous week with croup and was just getting over it (of course we had to haul him along; it was a family outing). He did great, however, and just kept plugging along, except for one time when he just sat down in the middle of the trail. Warner complained a couple of times that his legs were tired and even tried to convince me to carry him once. But Ashton was great in that he kept him going by playing some sort of game with him.
The hike took us around 4 hours altogether but went by pretty quick. It was a good one for the kids and I think they enjoyed it enough to convince them that they could do another one in the future. The trail and scenery were absolutely beautiful. One of the amazing things was that there really wasn't any fighting between the kids until we got in the car to go home.
