Fall was beautiful. We soaked up the football, the weather, the goodies. We got to go to Cedar City and St. George for fall break.
Exploring the lava tubes at Snow Canyon.
Rosie loved all the carved names and initials graffiti on the rocks. She called them, "spells".
We brought Cooper's friend Kali'i. He was a good peacemaker to have along and lots of fun.
Boston with his Young Men's group. He loves these guys.
Macy played some volleyball.
Boston finished football, a major accomplishment. He was out for a fhis wrist injury a few games midseason and didn't play as much as he'd hoped, but it was fun to watch. I'm glad he worked so hard and made so many friends right at the beginning of high school. Go Eagles!
Cooper and Macy took advantage of the glorious fall evenings and played lots of night games in the neighborhood with their friends, all close in age. What a fun group of kids. Also I love Luke's smile in this picture, being included at the firepit with the big kids.
Mark and the kids were teasing me here because Luke always wants the hideaway bed out of the couch during Conference, and I don't like the mess.
Leslie had a great fall break as well, welcoming her boyfriend Cole Childers home from Brazil. She flew out to Oregon for the weekend. Pardon all the kissy pictures, but there are more coming...
We've been laughing at the comment, "You're a legend Cole!"
My Nauvoo Sunstone pumpkin.
Macy had fun dressing up like a zombie and making a Thriller music video with her young women's group.
Luke was a pretty sullen trick or treater because he did NOT want to have to stay with us. He wanted to trick or treat by himself. He picked out the taco suit himself, though, and was pretty excited to be Sheriff Taco. We usually do a donuts on a string contest with our Donut Fry, but this was the first time trying it while laying down. I got the giggles.
Rosie and I visited this fun playground while the kids were at school one day.
Boston (finally) went on his first date. There has been some strong reluctance on his part due to not being able to drive his date until March, and due to most of the girls he knows being younger than sixteen (our family rule). Luckily, the girls saved the Day. He had a lot of fun.
Cooper's big day arrived after years of wishing, praying, hoping, and playing lots of ball. He made the 9th grade basketball team. Go Mustangs! We were extra nervous about it because his 9th grade combined two schools into one, so it was hard to know what the ball players from the other school were like--he'd only ever played with his previous school. I think he said around 50 guys tried out.
Mark is giving Cooper a hard time for not being available to play on the city league team with Boston that Mark coaches.
This girl has brothers.
Macy has been playing on a bantam basketball team as well. Also, Luke on city league. So, four ball players in the house at once. We get to as many games as we can.
And apparently no one supervises Rosie.
This was a nice family walk one Sunday afternoon before the weather got cold. Cooper has been in a photography class so I was helping him scout out photo opps. I took this one of the cute birdhouse.
Macy ends up being Cooper's photography model pretty often.
This is Mark's sweet Grandma Lucy. She passed before Leslie was born, but left our family an important legacy--what we fondly call, "A Grandma Lucy" portion of dessert (shown here). It means a little bit of everything. Example--you would tell the person dishing up the pie, "I'll take a Grandma Lucy."
Cooper and Luke did not opt for a Grandma Lucy. The two of them could not even finish this enormous peanut butter gooey butter cake sundae at Rockwell's.
I've liked having Leslie in Provo because I have to drive past the ice cream shop to get to or from her place.
My kids don't know how to play Fox and Geese. I made a demo wagon wheel in the deep snow. And then I was too cold to play, haha.
Earlier this year, after the company trip, we decided to take advantage of the low fares and small crowds and the and go to the beach--Hawaii--for the first time ever as a family. It was an epic Thanksgiving. Since we were already split into two rooms, we also invited Cole. Quite the vetting process we've got--he had to stay with the boys. (insert evil laugh here). We stayed in Laie, Oahu, right next to the Polynesian Cultural center. Waaaay better than crowded Honolulu.
How crazy are we?
"And oh what happened. First this, and then this."
I think it took three days for her teddy bear to dry out on top of the fan vent in our hotel room.
So fun to be morning people in Hawaii, and to step outside and have the air be warm in the dark. We watched the sunrise a couple of times. Goooorgeous.
Rosie loved playing in the sand. It was super nice that we could check out sand castle equipment and boogie boards from the hotel.
We decided the luau could be our Thanksgiving feast. It was a good call. We bought a Haupia pie for Thanksgiving Day and ate that in the hotel room.
Mark got called up to help with the warrior drums. He didn't have a chance of remaining quietly in the crowd--he brought too many kids along who were happy to loudly volunteer him. Cooper tried the spear juggling activity. I think he would have liked to practice this for awhile.
Snorkeling at Shark's Cove. The waves would crash over the reef a little, making things exciting. Boston really loved snorkeling. Cooper loved it until he got a sea urchin sliver.
Thanksgiving morning some of us toured the Buddhist temple grounds while Mark, Boston and Cooper went ziplining. It was fun taking pictures although Luke and Rosie were getting a little fed up with not being the center of attention. We got our ziplining turn after lunch.
Rosie liked the fish.
They were being tigers in the bamboo. Luke was bugged that I wouldn't let him go explore the "jungle" on his own.
Luke not touching the turtle.
It was such a long process to wash all the sand out of our hair and clothes that these two sillies decided to try to help each other. It did not speed things up.
This was such a good trip to take with teenagers, who are usually hard to impress. They played hard!
Macy was too light to make it all the way to the landing on the longest zipline, so our guide had to spiderman down the cable and rescue her.
MMMmmm. Shave ice. This was a small.
Rosie in the captain's chair on the Mighty Missouri at Pearl Harbor.
I was extra excited for Boston to get to tour Pearl Harbor and the Missouri. He loves WWII stuff.
It was pretty cool as a family to listen to a recording my relative Dennis Van De Riet sent me about his dad, my grandma's cousin, Preston Van De Riet being at Pearl Harbor on the St. Louis. He survived.
Rosie the Riveter!
They don't all need their own bedrooms. I could get into this triple decker bunk stuff.
Rosie enjoyed being carried up and down the ladder stairs on the ship.
Aloha! We need to go back there. Until then, shave ice out of our fresh snowfall.
Mark had a lovely business trip to San Antonio.
He and Macy were given some BYU tix. Macy actually watches way more sports than I ever did.
Remarkable joined the Spanish Fork chamber of commerce, so the chamber threw them a ribbon cutting party even though they've been in the office for about a year. It was cool since they didn't get to have any sort of open house because of covid. Mark, David and Dustin also got to be interviewed on the local cable channel, which our kids thought was pretty awesome.
I need to rummage through the other unused ornaments and see if I've got one of Cooper.
Leslie and Cole made the most of their long-distance relationship and had a formal dinner, virtually, for BYU's dance. I LOVE that Cole is rocking that suit. I think my boys need to borrow it.
Notice the pink cheeks here? Cooper is standing with his friend Kali'i's sister Sarah, who just completed her mission. While she was gone, if we were teasing Cooper and Kali'i about what girls they liked, Cooper would just deflect the question with, "I'm waiting for Sarah." Well, Mark might have let that slip, and he had Sarah's mom capture a video of when the two could finally "reunite". This video has been the source of much joy at our house.
He wishes he would have said, "Sorry, I'm outta your league."
Luke's class had a little Christmas play for the parents. Luke was SOOO embarrassed that I was taking his picture, etc., because he was the "only boy" narrator. He kept making faces the whole time and shaking his head no.
Cole's folks flew Leslie out to Oregon for a pre-Christmas visit.
After football ended, Boston got a job at Crumbl. It's been a great job--he says it's fun. They aren't open on Sundays and he can work a couple of shifts a week. Sometimes he brings us leftovers. Poor us.
Leslie was trying to compose a song but Rosie just wanted to have a jam session.
The fuzzy taco blanket was a big hit.
The highlight of Christmas for me was that my brothers Jake and Duke and their families could come for Christmas dinner. So fun to see everyone!! I guess we didn't get a picture with Duke's family.
Boston and Rosie had lots of time together over the break, partly because Cooper and Macy were very spoiled and got invited to go to St. George/Las Vegas with their Haynes cousins for a few days.
The Las Vegas hotel was a bust--their pool and hot tub were closed for "cool weather," so Jake got a refund and headed back to Rachel's Dad's house in St. George where they swam, ebiked, and played basketball.
Rosie, and the cookies, both unattended.
And back to lots and lots of basketball!
Cooper's team is undefeated so far. Last week his coach was out with covid, and the assistant coach didn't hardly play Cooper in the first game of the week--not usual. The second game of the week, I was worried that he might not get in again. Luckily, just before the end of third quarter the coach remembered. Cooper showed up on fire, and played the rest of the game. It was so fun to watch him rack up the stats. Here is a highlights video from that game that Cooper put together (after watching the videos about 8,000 times.) The first half of the vid is from that game.
Rosie was super pleased with the "Crumbl cookies" she made for Boston!
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