October, November, December!

 Wow. I didn't realize how fat behind I really was with posting. Life just got.....crazy! I'll give a quick summary of the remainder of 2019--and it was a DOOZY!

October:

It started off with a trip to Utah to visit Katie, David, and Linus during our Harvest Break. It's always fun to visit them! We walked around downtown, finally got to the observation deck of the Church Office Building, visited Brigham Young's grave, the zoo, Family History Center, and Anson Call's grave. Here are some pictures of that trip.

The rest of the month was straw mazes, trunk-or-treats, and all the craziness Halloween brings!  we had the worst time finding pumpkins this year because of the early frost. We were lucky to find two that Amelia and Cooper could carve:

We also tried a local autumn attraction nearby. It was fun, but we all agreed it was better suited for younger kids. 

Amelia found a house her size! :-)

It's only fitting a "Flynn" Rider to climb Rapunzel's hair!

November:

We had the Call Thanksgiving in Blackfoot. We're still trying to find the new normal after Dad passing. He was missed greatly. 

It's always so much fun to get together with family. The cousins love to run around and play with each other!

December:

SO. MUCH. HAPPENED. It was an AMAZING month! It started with the Nutcracker. Amelia had a solo as the Jester Doll as well as dancing in two other dances. Cooper was Fritz, the main character's brother. He loved it because he was supposed to be a mischievous boy.They both were SO GOOD. I was so proud of them and the work they put in before the perfomance! Here's some pictures:

Here is a video of Amelia's solo during a dress rehearsal. She makes the hopping on pointe look so easy!

All of Cooper's videos are so long. I'll try to post one.  He concentrated SO HARD to get the steps right.

After the Nutcracker came the Christmas concerts. First up, Cooper's choir concert. He was so excited to be in the "lower voiced" part. He loves choir, and received an invitation to be in the select choir next year!

After Cooper's choir concert came Amelia's orchestra concert. She's a sophomore now, so she's required to have a floor-length black gown. We scored this one at Downeast of all places and had it hemmed. It's so cute! She did an amazing job and I'm constantly shocked at how good our high school orchestra is!

The the BIGGEST surprise of December came on the 11th, when I was teaching. Nate Eaton, from East Idaho news walks into my classroom with my principal and tells me someone has nominated me to receive help from the "Secret Santa." I didn't know what he was talking about, but he handed me a small box and told me to open it. Inside was a check for $1,000! I couldn't believe it! My class was going crazy and I didn't know what to say. Then Nate told me he had something else for me--and HANDED ME KEYS TO A NEW CAR!! I was dumbfounded. I'll attach the link to the newscast (yes, I was on the news) so you can see my surprise. 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1017843508573110

I went out and there with a bright red bow was a 2019 Hyundai Tucson. I was so humbled someone thought of me and took the time to nominate me. What a crazy blessing! I drove home and surprised Amelia and Cooper:

  

        

 

  

Everything seems like a letdown after the new car, but we still had the Call Christmas and our own Christmas! December was definitely memorable this year. It was so much fun to have Jojo's dad Gary and Ron and Cathy at our Christmas this year! 

Finally, we had our own Christmas. I can't believe how blessed we've been this year! I've never thought we'd get a new car, or that I'd be juggling two cars and almost two drivers!

Here's some pictures from Christmas:

Cooper was quite happy with his gifts:

                                                            

I surprised Amelia with a painting of pointe shoes and a violin done by her great uncle Jim. It turned out beautiful!

                                        

So after a very fast recap of the last three months, you can see why I slacked on posting! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

All of August and half of September!

Uh, wow. Where did I lose 6 weeks? I blame school. It starts, then all the lessons and activities start, and our days are just busy, fun, and happy. Here's what happened the last few weeks: 

We finally got up to Ashton to try Five 11 Main. It was delicious, but pricey. It gave Amelia more driving time:

We registered Cooper for junior high (7th) and Amelia for high school (10th). After taking a few hours to find their classes and lockers, we went out to lunch:

                Amelia helped Coop find all his classes at the junior high.

Amelia refused to let me take a picture in the school, where all her friends and cute upperclassmen were. So here she is in the parking lot. 😂 You can see "Madison High School" waaaaaay in the back.

As always, we have our back-to-school dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe. This was literally the last day of summer we had.

First day of school!

As if school beginning wasn't enough, we had an overnight ward youth conference three days after school began in SLC. It was so much fun, but soooooo hot!

Shortly after the youth conference, we had the Eastern Idaho State Fair. 

Since then, we've had our Homecoming spirit week, a fun etiquette dinner for YW/YM, a baseball slip-n-slide game, Cooper beginning ballroom, and settling into school and homework. 

Up next is all the fun autumn activities, Halloween, and Nutcracker practices begin. Cooper will be playing Fritz this year, and Amelia has a solo along with dancing in the Spanish and Arabian dance. She's understudying for the Snowflake dance again. Last year, she ended up dancing in it! 

I'll try to be better about posting. We have so much going on with school, church, and home responsibilities and activities sometimes get overwhelmed with keeping up. 😊

July is Finished!

The rest of July was spent hanging out with friends, babysitting cousins, and practice drives with Amelia. I'm getting less and less terrified each time I get in the car with her. 😆 She's great with highway and rural drives. The turning and parking is what we're working on the most. 

We are down to the last few weeks of summer, and it seems to be going by so fast! This week we'll be hitting the stores for back-to-school shopping, registration for HIGH SCHOOL AND JUNIOR HIGH, haircuts, organizing, and squeezing out the last few drops of summer. Whew. Time just seems to be speeding up more and more!

Summer Baseball and Swimming

We've managed to pack A LOT into this week! We hung out with family, toured a potato cellar (more interesting than you'd think) and plant and caught a Chukars game that had us up by 3 runs and hopeful until the 8th inning when it went south. 😢 

The next day I went boating with some of the youth, then Friday we met friends at Rexburg Rapids for some fun. 

Today we went to a matinee movie and then nursed our painful sunburns from yesterday the rest of the day. Here's some pictures:

We were standing on 21 feet of potatoes!

At our yearly Chukars game:

We spent 5 1/2 hours at the pool....and got sunburned in the last 1/2 hour. 

Next up: babysitting cousins, Amelia's last two drives, and final summer activities before (gulp!) school picks up again. 😎

Girls' Camp, Rodeo, and the 4th of July!

Amelia and I survived Girls Camp 2019! I had no idea how little sleep anyone gets during camp. 😊 It was SO MUCH fun, and I'm glad I could experience it on a ward level with Amelia. It was fun to go canoeing with her and sit around a campfire at night. Cooper had fun at home with Nana and was spoiled rotten. It was wonderful to be back together as a family at the end of the week, though. Here's some pictures from camp:

We also went to our yearly rodeo. I. Love. Rodeos. So. Much. Here's a few pictures:

We took a few days to recover then Cooper had his final track meet, Amelia is continuing to work through her drives (she has 12 and she's on the 8th), and then hit the 4th of July festivities! Summer is flying by!

Cooper likes hurdles and sprinting the most:

We set off fireworks with family on the night of the 4th. Amelia practiced her ballet moves. She'll have a solo for the Nutcracker this year, and she's thrilled. Cooper will be playing Fritz, the younger brother of Clara. He's as excited as I'm worried. 😅

Cooper tried his hand at fireworks. The funniest part of the video is the way Joey and Jojo scattered.

As always, the parade on the 4th is always fun! 

Amelia is loved by her cousins! She always gets mobbed at family get togethers. Cooper, however, is Linus' favorite. He calls him "Booker" and does EVERYTHING he sees Cooper do. :-)

That's it for now! We continue to have a busy week of summer ballet, day camps, hanging out with friends, and sleeping in. Next up is a baseball game and swimming at Rexburg Rapids!

Summer is Flying By!

June 19?! Really? We've had such a frantic start to summer I can't believe it's already late June. Amelia finishes up her driver's ed classroom time this week. She needs to complete 12 drives before she receives her permit. She has her 3rd one tomorrow! After she completes her drives, it's 6 months of driving with me (or someone over 18 in the car) then she'll take the written and driving test. When she passes, she's a licensed driver!  Her classes are at 5:45am this week, so we'll ALL be happy when she's finished. 

A few other things we've been doing:

Cooper has been running track and liking it a lot! His first track meet went well--he didn't trip over the hurdles and he didn't come in last. We'll call it a win. 😆

We also went to IJump with friends and had lunch at Pizza Pie Cafe:

Lastly, we went to a circus for the first time. We saw a quick-change artist, a guy shot out of a cannon, horse tricks, elephants, tigers, and more! Amelia even rode on an elephant! It was so much fun and I'm grateful we were able to go!

Next up:

Amelia and I have girls' camp, the 4th of July, and Cooper has more track meets!