September 2016

Mostly September has been filled with school, work, and callings. Savanna likes 10th grade (high school) much better than jr high but still has a lot of work and a little drama to deal with. Fiora (8th grade) still doesn't get math and is having those awkward times of not knowing exactly where she fits in at school per the age, and sickness has made it difficult (detailed below). Weston 7th grade still has gymnastics 4  1/2 hours ever afternoon so he is trying to squeeze homework in the cracks of spare time he has, which honestly doesn't make an ideal situation and he is missing some assignments. Trying to let him figure it out, its tough to be an elite gymnast. Not a lot of picture taking. But some fun things interspersed in our busy lives.
August 31st was Young Women in Excellence, the girls sang a song and let balloons go to represent their light shining to all the world. I was invited as a parent, and also because I earned my YW in Excellence award again while having the calling as the Personal Progress advisor. They gave me a medallion and my girls gave me a bear hug.

My 95 year old Grandma Rappleye had a stroke! The left side of her body was affected and she spent a lot of time at the hospital and rehab regaining functioning, and then was moved to Stonehenge in AF where she still improves her muscles. She has been as sweet and loving as ever even though she tells us she "just wants to go home" often. We try to visit her whenever we can. The first picture is at UVRMC and the second is stonehenge, the third is in the mountains, you can see how much she has improved. My parents can take her on outings now!

 Labor Day we took a hike up the mountains at big springs. Sky had his neuter surgery Aug 31 so he had to wear this annoying cone for a week after while his incision healed. It looked so dumb, glad that's over. That was a fun hike despite Fiora's exercise induced asthma and Weston not wanting to be there, and Sav refusing to come. T'was the dog really made it an adventure, he threw up twice on the way there, then had a BM on the trail and Jared responsibly bagged it and threw it towards his truck bed, but missed and hit the windshield and the bag exploded, so Jared poop-bombed his truck. We were all laughing about those things, but he kept being a nuisance. There were so many people on the trail we couldn't let him off leash because he is so hyper and would bolt towards strangers, so he was constantly underfoot, and towards the end tripped Jared who's phone flew out of its case and crashed, cracking the screen. We didn't laugh about that, much.

Weston loves to play/wrestle with Sky

Fiora started her horse riding class every Friday at 2:30. She seems to be a natural and has picked it up fast. She is riding Diego in these pictures. She is so cute in her riding boots, looks like a true cowgirl. I got Fiora and Weston out to the temple one Saturday to give Weston some experience before going as a youth group for temple month, that was fun. Its amazing how well Fiora has done this month despite her sickness (see below).
Jared and I got to go to the temple with Aaron and Amy this month as well and do some of Amy's family names. The spirit was so strong it was a nice experience.

My nephew Dexin had a birthday party and Classic Skating, called the Fun Center now. That used to be the total hang out place when I was a kid, not too many kids there anymore. The kids liked trying to roller blade though, Weston wants blades for Christmas now. I even got to skate and realized how much fun I used to have, I did a lot of ice skating and roller skating in my day.

Poor Fiora, she started feeling sick the very beginning of September. She had a weird rash but it went away after a day so we thought she had some kind of allergy.  Yet she complained of a head ache and being super tired, and had a low fever, so she spent the whole Saturday in bed. Sunday she stayed home too and was tired but seemed to be getting better. Monday we went on that hike and she felt nauseous and low energy so I thought maybe we pushed her too hard to fast, but the whole week she had no energy and started complaining of a sore throat and head ache again. She wanted her neck rubbed every night and there were weird lumps in her neck. After a week and a half of this we finally took her to the doctor said those lumps were lymph nodes, a common symptom of Mono. The other symptoms also confirmed it. That gave her validation for her pain, but didn't make life any easier! She still had to battle fatigue and aches while trying to juggle school, dog walking, and horse riding. After another week of her misery I asked Jared to give her a blessing, I know mono lasts for a long time but priesthood power could maybe move it along faster? She still felt bad the next day but that week steadily improved. This past week she has finally felt 100%! YAY.

Back to he silly self

 Weston saved his money for months to buy this high end spider man suit. He looks awesome in it, and he can do all sorts of par kour gymnastic-like tricks so he looks like the real deal. Anyone want to hire him out for a birthday party? Now he wants to go to comi-con and I'm not sure I can do that. At least he has a sweet halloween costume. My brother in law Grant Searcy had a birthday Sep 21st so we celebrated his birthday here with clam chowder and games. So fun! We missed our siblings that couldn't make it, especially Kynsie and Rachel now in Idaho going to college. Such a cute family Karli Sue and Grant have made!

My dad really likes our dog. He and Sky play whenever he comes over, and Sky loves it. Sky is still that teenager type dog with a ton of energy (I am looking forward to when he calms down a little to be honest). My dad likes his playfulness so much he climbed into his kennel with him. Sky was going nuts!  Or maybe my dad is nuts. LOL