November and December 2018 catch up

November!  I love the tree outside the playroom window in November.  So happy.  Yellow is my favorite color.  Especially the yellow of fall leaves with sunshine on them.

The kids don't play in the play room as much as they used to...we tried to turn it into a play/homework room, but the kids just do homework in the kitchen mostly.  We'll have to figure out how much longer to keep it a playroom I guess...kids grow up too fast.

I love to go for runs up to the radio tower above tunnel springs.  It isn't a long run, but it is steep and kicks my butt.  Pretty views of the canyon and the city are a good reward.

Dax likes to play junior jazz basketball.  I am very bad at getting pictures of him.  Here he is trying to get a rebound, he is #45, which is Donovan Mitchell's number, so he was pretty excited to get to rock that jersey.

Somewhere in there we had Thanksgiving.  No photographic evidence.  I am thankful for lots of stuff though!  The kids were doing good at school.  Arden had junior high all figured out before long, and was doing great and getting good grades.  She was still going strong with gymnastics.  She scored out of Level 5 while Preston and me were in Alaska back in September, and was practicing for Level 6 meets in the spring.  Dax is playing basketball and loving 5th grade, mostly because of his awesome (and super cute) teacher, Mrs. Brady.  I think Dax may have had a crush on her, probably along with every other boy in his class.  Cora is still loving soccer and joining every club and activity she can do at school, including Book Battles, STEM club, the choir (above), etc. etc.  Preston is always there for us, working hard and bringing home the lion's share of the bacon and putting up with all of our craziness.  I am a very lucky girl.

I tried to get the kids to pose for pictures for the annual Christmas card.  They are good at smiling, and look at what an attractive bunch they are.  I ended up getting too overwhelmed with all of the stuff I had to do around the holidays, and I unfortunately never got any cards put together or sent out.  I still like the pictures, though I do remember that Arden was being teenager-y about getting them taken.  Cant tell from this one:

 In November, we are still excited about snow.   Weee!

 More blurry basketball pictures!  I should hire someone to do it for me or something.

Cora was in the choir at Orchard.  He is on the front row right in the gap with the grey shirt.

We had the annual Haun Christmas party, and Santa brought these weird antennas for the kids in addition to their regular presents.  For some reason the kids thought they were awesome and wore them around all day.  Here is Dax, asking for Minecraft stuff because Minecraft has taken over the #1 position his heart from Pokemon.  Dax spends all waking hours thinking about Minecraft, playing Minecraft, or watching other people play Minecraft on YouTube.

Here is Cora. She still wants stuffed animals and stuff:

 And Arden!  She is getting a little big for Santa's lap, but she will do it for the presents!  She mostly wanted clothes and stuff.

 Here are all of the great-grandkids who were at the party.  Some are big!

 Preston went and helped Cora with her candy trains at school.  He is so nice!

Before we knew it, it was Christmas!  We got cute jammies (except for Preston, he doesn't do the cute jammies thing)

Cora got a giant unicorn from Daxton for Christmas!  She is big enough for two girls to ride.  Arden mostly got clothes and stuff, and a Polaroid camera.  Dax got a lot of Minecraft legos and stuff.

I did a very bad job of taking pictures on Christmas, that is about it.  I missed going to my Grandma Wilson's house!  We had fun visiting my mom and Preston's mom, but for some reason this is the only picture I have and it isn't very good.

 We headed up to the cabin on Boxing Day as usual.  The kids looked so cute under this sign at Cody's that I had to take a picture.

The kids had such a fun time at the escape room in October, they wanted to do another one at Christmas.  They had a special Christmas-themed room that was fun to do, and we escaped again!  Good job us again!

We had our usual fun celebration on New Year's Eve, complete with count down, sparkling cider, and confetti-shooting things.  I was too busy celebrating to take pictures, apparently (mostly I was trying to stop the kids from shooting confetti inside the cabin).  We partied out on the deck, and we were planning to sweep everything up in the morning.  When I woke up, I noticed that oops, it was windy last night, and how our snow has sprinkles.

2018 had its ups and downs for sure, but we were excited for a new start. Bring on 2019!

September and October 2018 catch-up post

I love autumn!  I ran up the trail at the Loveland Lane trail head and took this picture:

In September, Preston and me took a slightly-delayed 20th anniversary trip to Juneau, Alaska.  I used to go there once a year for work and always wanted to go back for fun, so now I did.  Here are some pictures!

 We saw a couple of bears! 

 We went on lots of hikes.  Near the Mendenhall glacier we went on a hike that has this amazing pool that perfectly reflects the trees and the sky, and it was such a perfect reflection it was confusing my brain into thinking it was a deep hole and I would fall into the sky.

I was surprised at how far the glacier had receded since I went there before I had kids.  The waterfall behind me used to be under the ice!  Stupid global warming.  Pretty waterfall though.

 We went whale watching and actually saw lots of whale tails and spouts.  Its really hard to take a good picture of them, but it was really fun! 

 Here we are in front of a whale breaching!  Just kidding, it is a sculpture.  Still cool.

 We took another hike to a different glacier whose name I can't remember. 

 It was a fun trip.  We stayed at Grandma's feather bed, which had yummy breakfast every morning, but didn't have as fluffy of feather beds as they used to do.  Still fun.  We drove all around Juneau from one end of the roads to the other.  It was a fun trip, but soon it was back to homework and soccer.  Go Cora!

We went to the cabin for UEA.  We tried an escape room at Bear Lake Escape.  We did the Clue room, and we escaped (with the help of a few hints).  Good job, us!

While at the lake in the fall I can't resist runs up the canyon!  Hooray for yellow leaves!

 We also went on a horseback ride, which is always fun.  We went through the Beaver Creek Lodge and had a great time. 

 Have I ever mentioned that I kind of like fall leaves?  I do. 

 Pretty leaves, pretty girls.

We went and got our pumpkins at the pumpkin patch.  Dax felt like picking a small one this year.  I was okay with that since they sell those suckers by the pound.

Me and Val ran the Haunted Half.  Val accomplished her goal of breaking the 2:00 mark.  I was super proud of my 1:40.  There were two guys running in front of me in full-inflatable costumes, and I was determined to pass those guys before the end.  I did it. 

While the kids are at school, I am back to work in the office four days a week.  Here is the view from my window that faces East.  Pretty colors!

 Here is my window that faces south.  It it just a parking lot, but pretty trees anyway. 

 Then, it was Halloween!  Here are our pumpkins.  They are a cat face (Cora), a witch holding a pumpkin, a scary face (Arden), a small happy face (Dax), and a skeleton.

Here are the kids, all ready for trick-or-treating!  Cora is a witch.  Dax is a Minecraft guy, and Arden is a giraffe.  This was the first year the kids all went trick-or-treating with their friends and Preston and I both got to stay home and relax.  I didn't hate it. 

I'm sure that lots of other stuff happened, but this is the only stuff I took pictures of, so this is what you get.  Happy Halloween 2018!

July and August 2018 catchup post

This post is full of some of my favorite things about summer 2018!  

First, we always go up to the golf course for fireworks on the 3rd of July.  There are food trucks, skydivers, music, etc.  Last year someone (probably grandma and grandpa) brought a bunch of light sticks, and Cora and Dax used them in unconventional ways:

The next day we went to the Riverdale parade, and this was the absolute highlight.  Arden has had a celebrity crush on Tom Holland, the actor who plays Spiderman, so when I saw Spiderman in the parade, I loudly shouted to him that he had a fan, and he ran right over and swept her up...Adorable!  And Humiliating (according to Arden).  I call it a win-win. 

One of my favorite things in the summer is my little raspberry patch.  I think raspberries taste like summer.  I wish I had this IRL right this very moment:

 The only thing better than the bowl of raspberries is this:

We did our annual camping trip up, this time up by Bountiful Peak.  Olive came with us.

 Beautiful sunsets, no cell phone reception.

 Almost worth the lack of sleep (I ended up sleeping in the car to avoid the snoring). 

Another favorite thing from the summer is going for trail runs with Olive.  Here is a picture of us on the Mueller Park trail on our way up to the flats.  My favorite part of this trail is everything above Elephant Rock because it is so nice and cool and quiet and there is nobody up there but me.

 Raspberry Days!  We love the rodeo!  Here we are ready to take in some good old cattle ropin' and bull ridin'!  Yeeeehawww.

 We also like to go to the raspberry days carnival.  There was the most fun game where there is a big arm thing that would spin around the circle, and kids would stand on platforms and when it came to them they were supposed to jump over it.  The thing would start slow, then go fast, then change directions, etc.  It. Was. Hilarious! 

 We went to an outside movie at the park.  It was the Sandlot, one of our all-time faves.  "You're killin' me Smalls."  Love it.

We went to the latest Juanito Bandito production, which is always funny.  I laughed so hard during this show that Dax asked me to be quiet. 

We had my company party at the zoo this year.  Dax has a thing for red pandas, and got his face painted like a red panda and wanted his picture taken with the red panda at the zoo and then he rode the red panda on the merry-go-round.

Another thing I like about summer is that soccer starts back up!  Here was a picture of Cora playing with a pretty sunset in the background.  This was one of the last games she played at the Forza Farm, which is apparently going to be a road soon.  The field house will be there still, but I already miss the farm. 

One hard thing about summer is the afternoon thunderstorms.  Actually, I love thunderstorms, but we have someone at our house who doesn't love lightning and thunder.  Poor doggie.

I ran the Mt. Nebo half marathon for the first time.  It was super fun and it was super fast.  I loves running down a canyon, any time of year.

Unfortunately, like all good things, summer must come to an end.  The week before school started, Arden went to go and try her locker out, and go find her classes.  They have such weird lockers at the junior high, you have to use the combination lock as a kind of a doorknob, and Arden couldn't get the hang of it.  It was seriously stressing her OUT!  We went back for three days in a row and by the end of the third day she was a lot more comfortable.

 Soon, the actual day was here!  Arden rode the bus (she didn't want me to bring her) and she did great! 

 Cora was starting 4th grade.  Cutie patootie.

 Dax was starting 5th grade.  He's handsome, right?

And just like that, summer was over.  Always bittersweet.  I think the kids were ready, they were tired of the sight of each other, and needed to see other people.  I was ready for them to see other people.  None of us were that excited to get up early or for homework, but them's the breaks.  I will admit that I played "Freedom 90" from George Michael on the way home and sung the chorus at the top of my lungs.

Bring on Fall!