Girls Trip to Denver

In October, I had the awesome opportunity to go with my old college roommates to a Time Out for Women in Denver!  We'd all been on the same floor at Helaman Halls our freshman year, and then lived together in Jamestown 31 at Liberty Square.  It was me and Becca (who couldn't make it because her daughter was sick), Julie and Sandra, and Melissa and Sara.  Then Julie and I lived together our junior year as well after the others had either gotten married or left for internships.  We hadn't all been together for about 15 years, so it was about time we had a reunion, and Sandra performs at the Time Outs for Women so that gave us a great excuse.  We flew in Friday and it was so fun to see how everyone had changed, or not changed, over the years.  In some ways it didn't seem like we'd been apart for very long!

As good as it was to see everyone, what made the weekend SO great was the Time Out for Women.  I loved it so much more than I thought I would!  I'd expected it to be kind of fluffy, but it was really good, hard-core gospel nourishment!  I was so impressed by all the speakers, especially the women - Sandra, Mariam Kallon, Jennifer Brinkerhoff Platt, and Emily Freeman.  What amazing examples!  Because we were Sandra's "special guests" we had 2nd row seats (right behind the speakers), which really made for a great show.  Here are all the speakers together...

Jericho Road was the featured musical group and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed them! :)

In my eyes, though, Sandra was the star of the show.  He singing and testimony touches so many people!

We spent most of the day Saturday at Time Out, and then we went to dinner and chatted until late that night.  We had a couple suites next to each other in downtown Denver, which was fun.  The only weird thing about the weekend was the zombie walk that was also taking place downtown!  When we walked to lunch or to our hotel we were surrounded by people dressed as zombies!  (It was some event to raise money for a charity, and they were trying to break the record for the most number of zombies together in one place!)  It really created a stark contrast between the spirit we felt at Time Out for women and the freakiness of the outside world! :/  

But I sure love these girls and was so glad we were able to get together!  Hopefully we'll do it again before another 15 years passes, and I really hope Becca will be able to join us next time.  It wasn't quite right without her...  Just for fun, here's a blurry picture of us as sophomores, in our oh-so-cute Creamery shirts! :)

I'd say the years have been good to us. ;)  

More of Fall

Once again, I've fallen behind with the blog.  And now it's Christmas and things are only going to get crazier, so I'd better do a little bit of catching up.  We've had a very busy last couple of months and I won't get to cover everything, but here are some pics of a few things, at least...

Matthew and Bryan both finished up their soccer seasons and did a great job.  Matt's an aggressive little player and doesn't let many people get in his way when he has the ball!  Don't let this sweet face fool you!

His coach, Steve, was a guy I knew at BYU who lives here in Lehi now.  He'll be Matt's coach in the spring as well, which we're looking forward to already!

Go, Matty, go!

Bryan worked hard all season and loved playing with his teammates and his coach, Les.  They didn't win their last games, which was a bummer, but they're accustomed to playing together now and should be a really strong team in the spring.  They start indoor soccer in January, which will be great practice as well.  Here are the kids waiting for one of Bryan's practices to end.  It's great that Owen's old enough now to play with the kids on the playgrounds.  He loves it!

I love Matt's big smile here. :)

David's really in to guns these days, and a few weeks ago we finally all went out as a family to do some shooting.  The kids all really enjoyed it and the boys especially have great aim.  Ari thought it was pretty cool to just get to pull the trigger.

Our target was the little red mark you can vaguely see in the picture.  

On a more quieter note, Bryan and I have also been into family history lately.  We've mostly spent time looking at information and pictures and reading stories of the ancestors in our family tree, but we hope to find some people to add sometime soon!  Our ward did a family history fireside a few weeks ago and Bryan came with me and I thought it was so cute to see him sitting with his buddies, all looking at their family trees on their ipads.  Such good kids!

Bryan really made us proud by earning the academic award for his class for the first term of school.  (Each teacher picks one student for an academic award and one for citizenship.)  I love that I never have to get on his case about his school work.  He's so diligent about completing everything and doing his best, and he seems to enjoy being challenged to excel.  And he loves being at Odyssey!  I think we've got lots of good school years ahead with our smart, hard-working boy.

Here he is with his AWESOME teacher, Mrs. Daley!  Isn't she cute?  Bryan loves her. :)  Both Bryan and Matt lucked out with really fun teachers this year, so we couldn't be happier.

Halloween - costumes, costumes, and more costumes!

It seems like Halloween gets bigger and more elaborate every year!  With all the parties and trick-or-treating it gets so crazy and I was anxious to have it all over with, but I will admit that seeing the kids dress up makes it so much fun!  Ari has three different new princess dresses (recent warehouse sale) and she had opportunities to wear each one for different things!  First, she got to dress up for her dance class and she chose to be Belle!

She was acting silly and wouldn't pose for me, but I did get some great natural smile pics for a change! :)

For her preschool party the day before Halloween she chose to be Cinderella!

Posing with our little prince.

 The night before Halloween we finally carved our pumpkins, which neither David nor I really enjoy doing.  But the boys love it so it's a tradition we'll carry on!  Although I was able to convince Ari to draw on hers instead. ;)

 I tried to get him to cut off the teeth but he insisted on keeping them!

The day of Halloween, the boys had to dress up for school as a character from a classical book.  I'd bought them costumes they'd wanted for trick-or-treating and I didn't want to spend extra money on costumes for school, so we found some easy options.  Matthew dressed up as Shane the cowboy, and Bryan was Ponyboy (a greaser) from The Outsiders.

 Hahaha. :)  Looking so cool, Bry!

 Matty always makes the cutest cowboys!

I'm the room mom for Bryan's class so I had the responsibility of planning their Halloween party!  It was pretty stressful, but everything turned out okay, and Bryan said on a scale of 1-10 the party was a 10!  Success!  Here he is with his buddies, Tate and Kayson, doing the mummy game.

 

After school, we decided to go trick-or-treating at the outlets here in Lehi.  I figured they'd have good candy without the crowds, and I was right!  We were in and out in an hour and the kids got lots of treats!  Before we left, we took some more costume pics.  Here's Ari in her final princess costume, Sleeping Beauty.

 Silly faces.

 Little Owen was Nemo!  Isn't this the cutest costume ever?!  It was a great find!

Come back, Nemo!  Come back! :)

 Matthew wanted to be Lebron James from the Miama Heat, so here's our little Lebron. :)

 And Bryan chose to be Cristiano Ronaldo, the star player of Real Madrid.

 Oh yeah!  (Flipado!!)

Now, bring on the candy!

At the outlets.  There really were hardly any other kids!  It was great!

We made it home just in time to eat a quick dinner and start trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.  This was a big year because we decided to let the boys go with their friends on their own!  I drew a map of where they were allowed to go and gave them strict instructions to stay out of the streets and say thank you when they got candy, and thankfully we live in a great neighborhood where I could trust that they'd be safe!  Here they are with their little gang of friends.  (That's Breken in the Minecraft costume.)  They were so excited!

Ari got to go around with her friend, Addi, who lives next door. We went around our loop and then called it a night as it started to get dark and extra chilly!

I love this picture of them waiting at the door.  Addi's showing off her witch finger! :)

It was a great Halloween, but I'm VERY glad it's over!!