Family Pictures 2013

My sister Holly did our family pictures last week, she has us for Christmas and wanted a picture of the family so she could give us a canvas print.  I think they turned out really nice, and all we did was walk around Lindon near our house, nowhere special. It was just a nice time of day and time of year to take them, and this is a nice area I live in. I think Holly does a nice job. I am very grateful.

Happy Anniversary

 Savanna and Fiora and Weston (but mostly Savanna) made this amazing poster for Jared and me on our anniversary. Jared and I have been married 14 years! He took me to Salt Lake to see an opera. Talk to me in person if you care to hear my opinion about that experience. My favorite part of going to the opera was coming home to a clean kitchen and a cute poster! The kids decided to make peanut butter bars, then clean the kitchen, clear the catch-all counter, fold the laundry, and clean the living room as a service to us on our special day. We felt very loved and we loved them.

Fiora has been struggling in math, and thought she was failing. She was saying things like "I'll never be good enough!" and was bringing home low scores on tests and assignments. So I questioned her teacher, and she said, "I absolutely do not believe Fiora is failing in math! She is getting an A in the regular curriculum. She is not keeping up with the accelerated program which is only for the kids who want to learn at a faster pace. Have her come talk to me so I can clear up the confusion." Fiora was very afraid to talk to her teacher, because she thought she was the slowest, and didn't know how to communicate to her teacher that she felt slow and the only one taking home lots of homework because she couldn't finish it fast enough at school, and wanted me to come with her. But I could sense that her teacher wanted to talk to only Fiora, so I encouraged her to face it. She very bravely went early to class and talked to her teacher, who helped her understand the system and gave her some extra opportunities to learn at her pace. She felt much better after, and I was very proud of Fiora! Coincidentally she got her scholastic book order that day, as if it was a reward for her courage.

Weston had pass-offs at gymnastics Saturday. I couldn't get any good shots of his events but I got some warm ups. He is in the back row in the blue shorts and white shirt. He has improved a lot in the past two months. He qualified for team 5! Way to go Weston.

 

 Getting ready for our family pictures Saturday. Final results forthcoming...

We celebrated my mom's 56th birthday on Sunday. She is trying very hard to keep her anti-inflametory diet so we didn't do a birthday cake. But we put fruit in a cup and put candles in that. We had soup and salad bar too. Gabe came in after the birthday song with an accordion. Pretty fun.We love our mother/grandmother!

Fall Break Trip To ...All over

Jared and I have been planning to go down to Moab for Fall Break for a while now. The trip itinerary expanded over the weeks to include some other adventures, trying to find things the kids would like and we would like and would be doable in 3 days.You can skip to the pictures if you want to just scan the travel log.
Thursday we planned to go to Park City to ride horses in the Uintas (don't ask me why this service isn't offered somewhere more locally, as there are many horses around here and beautiful trails in Provo Canyon). The weather wasn't really cooperating for us, but the ranch horse dude assured us that we could ride in the rain and it wouldn't be a big deal if it was just sprinkling, so we drove to Park City. Our horse ride was bumped back from 9:00 to 12:30 because the guide couldn't be there in the morning, so we stopped at the outlets to do some christmas shopping. Savanna liked this a lot, Fiora was pretty patient with it, Weston didn't like it. I felt like it was fruitful, but we lost track of time and so we had 30 minutes to drive 45 minutes West of PC to the horse ranch. This was stressful because the weather was getting increasingly worse, and we couldn't find the turn off and went about 5 miles too far west, so we were 15 minutes late and it was not only raining when we got there, but hailing too. We saddled up anyway, and the kids thought it was totally awesome, and the ride through the yellow aspens was beautiful, but we only got to ride for 30 minutes and it rained on us the last half, and Jared was somewhat disappointed with the experience considering how far out of the way we went to make it happen. I enjoyed it myself. And 30 minutes on a horse was about right for my inexperienced horse-riding legs.
We then made our way to moab where a hotel with a pool was waiting for us. We had to go clear over to Duschene to connect to the highway that took us to Moab, and we missed the turn off so we were halfway to Vernal before we knew it, and added another excess 15 miles to our trip. The kids watched 3 movies in the car that day. By the time we were at Price we were all very hungry and stopped to eat at Wingers, and wouldn't you know it they were slammed and we waited an hour to get our food. This kids were so antsy. We made it eventually, and the kids swam at 9:00 PM in 45 degree weather at the hotel pool. They were determined and they are tough!  I just got my jammies on and crawled into bed. We attempted to have all three kids sleep in one queen size bed like we used to when they were little, and it didn't work so well. By the morning the covers were pretty much off the bed, and we all found out just how loud Weston's teeth grinding is that night, but poor Fiora sleeping right by him was woken up 10 times and would hit his arm and say "Stop grinding your teeth!" and we all wished we had remembered to pack ear plugs.
The next day we were up early ready to explore the beautiful lanscape around Moab, and the weather was PERFECT. We rented two jeeps and my parents and Rachel and Joseph joined us to ride around the red rock countryside. We LOVED it, my parents especially were so happy, even though many of the trails were bumpy and it was slow going, it was totally worth it to see the caverns and the vistas at Hurrah pass, and the gemini bridges and long canyon. We rode from 9:00 to 4:30 with a short stop for lunch. Rachel sprained her ankle 2 weeks ago, and was such a trooper on her crutches trying to hike around the red rocks. Our kids started fighting the first hour, so we decided to scramble them up, Weston rode with Joseph and my parents for a few hours, then Savanna rode with them the last half. Saved us lots of bickering time. Jared was tempted to try some 4-wheeling shenanigans with the jeep, we went pretty fast over some bumps that jolted us so hard the cooler top came off and our food went everywhere. He sure had fun though.
My parents drove home that evening, but we stayed another night, enjoying a chinese food dinner at the same place we ate 2 1/2 years ago when we came. Then swimming at the pool with the twisty slide again. Jared let them get hot chocolate from the hotel lobby to warm them up. The hotel didn't provide breakfast, but it provided juice coffee and hot chocolate.  It was slightly warmer this time and we hd them get  out and shower in shifts, and we got a fold out bed for weston and we all slept better that night.
We got up and returned the jeep at 8:00 AM and got back in the car and drove north east to San Rafel Swells where goblin valley is located. We also took a ranger guided tour to the caverns behind the goblin valley, and it was awesome, steep climb up and steep climb down into the cave, and we saw a repeller come down the cave while we were in there. We roamed around the goblins after lunch and played in the sand, and about 1:00 we headed home. Jared thinks we drove about 700 miles all over Utah in those 3 days and he drove every mile of it, so nice of him. Needless to say, there was some tension in the car the last 30 minutes or so, when we are all stuck together in a car/jeep like that for that many miles, patience can be tested. But overall it was a really nice family trip!

 

 

 

 

The above photos were from Jared's camera, the below pictures are from my phone. So they chornologically start over from the morning of the jeep ride. Yes we took a lot of pictures, but it was just so fun. My mom was so excited, I loved seeing my parents so happy.