Letter to Elder Call

Hey Elder Call,

We love reading your emails. This email from you was especially cool to see all the hard work and faith and trusting that miracles would happen tied to righteous goal-setting. Faith indeed precedes the miracle! 😉

Here is a quick update on our family:

Aubrie is enjoying BYU as a freshman and seems to be getting everything she can out of her experience. She is heading to Hawaii to visit two of her best friends from high school who are at BYU-Hawaii. Lucky duck! She is also in the process of putting in her mission papers to be submitted in the next month or two.

Robbie is a junior, going on dates, exercising a lot, and gearing up for his junior year of baseball. He has good friends and hangs with them a ton. The football team is “recruiting” him to play next year at QB. He’s thinking about it. He is also doing a class internship at a motorcycle shop, which is right up his alley. Robbie is officially taller than me which is sad for me.

Hallie is a freshman and playing lots of volleyball and loves her dog, Sandi. She is doing well in school and has good friends. She is getting very tall (almost as tall as Aubrie) so volleyball is a great fit for her, as a result. Hallie is always a willing partner to watch an episode of “The Chosen” with me which has been an awesome supplement to studying the New Testament for “Come Follow Me” this year.

Blake gave his first talk in church this past Sunday about how receiving the Aaronic Priesthood is impacting his life and did an awesome job. Cool little story… as Blake was preparing for his talk, he said a prayer to know which scripture it would be best to share and he ended up landing on Mosiah 2:17. Turns out that he ended up speaking along with the two Full-Time Missionaries in our area who both gave talks centered around that same verse. It was amazing to see how the Lord guided his talk to align so well with the rest of the program. He was called as Deacon’s quorum president and is enjoying young mens and going to the temple. He is playing basketball right now and we are just starting practices for baseball season to start up. He never gets sick of playing sports and finds a good balance with piano and other activities, which I love about him. He turns 12 next month.

Clara plays soccer and is also really into ballet (she was in “The Nutcracker” again this past year). She is often the peacemaker of our home and seems to always be happy and is always reading and learning. She has also turned into quite the sports fan. She is so fun to watch any sports game with. She seems to just soak up all of the rules and every detail of what is going on. She turns 9 years old next month.

Luke is four years old and wants to do everything he sees his older siblings do, but is still very much his own personality. He is keeping Amber and I feeling young and also feeling old all at the same time.

Amber is in the young women’s presidency and is constantly busy. Being a mom is literally a full-time job with an average workday of around 17 hours, it seems. Just like your mom, Amber is full of goodness and is always involved in helping others. Kind of a fun recent development, Amber has started working part-time remotely with your mom to get Sydney’s business going. Amber seems to be really enjoying it so far. We always learn so much interacting with your parents. You already know this, but they are truly amazing people!

Me — I’ve been the stake young men’s president for the last year and a half and I really enjoy it. We recently put together a training for the Bishoprics around helping the young men’s programs in their wards and it made us realize as a presidency how full their plates are trying to be the bishop and run the young men’s program at the same time. Make sure you are doing everything you can to help lighten the burdens of the bishops you serve with! I recently changed to a new job, doing a lot of the same work I was doing for my previous company. McDonald’s is my main account that I work with which is kind of fun, and sometimes really challenging. I work 100% remote and rent an office just a few miles from our house. It has been a big change but I’m learning a lot.

Amber and I feel both feel like someday we may move back east but haven’t felt the right “push” from the Lord quite yet. 

Our family prays for you every day. Keep doing great things and stay humble!

Love,

Uncle Ryan and Family

 We have been encouraging the kids to write in their journals the last few weeks since we have all fallen off the bandwagon a bit....some are more willing than others.  Aubrie is the #1 journaler in life.  We need her here to keep us all straight. 

The super busy months are almost here and I feel like my mind is trying to plan and flush things out as much as possible so there aren't balls being dropped left and right :)

I gave Ryan a gift for Christmas that was 6 months of fun/planned dates (1 a month) that are out of our ordinary.  This month was country dancing class which is this coming Wednesday and I actually can't wait for it.  Next month we are going to see Titanic at the Hale Center Theater. 

This coming weekend is BLake (And THomas and James) soccer tournament in St. George.  We are staying at Crosbys again.  We get to go to church with them too which is always good!  We will leave on Friday and they play Saturday and then Monday.   We have several things we want to do when we are down there from our Get Out Passes that we all got for Christmas.  There is ninja course, the dinosaur museum and the Fiesta Fun Center

Ryan and I’s Switzerland journal for the blog book

We never posted about our Europe sibs trip. July 19-August 3 2022. 

There are many pictures in our chatbooks. I’ll add some here too. Ryan also made two 15 minute videos about the trip which took him probably 15 hours today with gathering, sifting, tracking down pictures and music from our trip playlist. It’ll always be such a treasure to have. As we traveled we spent a few minutes every day to journal it on our phones. I’m glad to have the details. 

Switzerland 

Day 1: slept a few different periods on the way to Zurich which helped when we got here. 

As soon as we got to carls we looked around and then went on a long walk partway around the lake they live on. (Big lake) also we went on a e-bike ride to the town square. I loved the fountain with running drinkable water, the little shops in the square and the Swiss brown chalet apartment house right on the  square. 

I took a shower and a melatonin and slept well. 

Day 2: We woke up earlier than expected but couldn’t get ourselves to go back to sleep or wake up either. Rode bikes around Carl‘s house for the morning until we left to go to Zürich. Carl had to visit the consulate office and left us to walk around the city of Zürich which was amazing. We went into a church and felt like we were in an episode of Angels and Demons. Within drove about 90 minutes to the Swiss temple and did a session together. We met lots of new people in the temple and love the international flavor of that experience. It was really need to talk with Carl in this Lester room about his experience on his mission serving in that area. We then went and got some swimming Floaties at a store and then grabbed some late lunch at another kebab place. Within floated the Eire river near Berne. Jumped off a swinging rope and had lots of good laughs including some fun singing of by the rivers of Babylon in a tunnel. We then watch the sunset overburn and had an amazing walk through the city. We love seeing all of the shops and unique things like Argentine dance lessons in a basement studio, eating gelato, and taking in an awesome city. We then drove home late and everyone was starving when we got home and raided Carl’s kitchen for food.

Day 3: slept well again and got up packed an overnight bag and had some cereal. Headed to Interlakken after stopping at their tiny grocery store. About 1.5 hour drive listening to Simon and Garfunkel. 

Day 4: we went to carls church. And drove 6 hours. Stopped in Basalla for dinner. So authentic. Non touristy.  Ended at our Airbnb which is literally like 200 steps up from the coast. And in the most authentic Italian Casa. 

Day 5:  Cinque Terre,  lemon slushies, amazing walk, man pushing water up the stairs, harvesting Olive’s with nets, jumping into the Mediterranean Sea so sweaty and swimming around and cliff jumping etc. scared to jump off the first time. Had to count to 3 and just jump. 

Day 6: Florence : duomo, ufizzi, around on scooters again, ate dinner at New bridge and had gelato 4 times. Conversation with Ryan while we got tickets. Left to drive to Rome and arrives st our Airbnb (we only stayed the second of 2 days that we booked because we wanted to do Florence.) amazing Airbnb with

Huge ceilings, loft above our room where boys slept, huge angel painting over the bed and brick floors. 

Day 7:

Day 8:  several hours touring the colloseum and Roman forum and then the palatine hill gardens and view. (Used Rick Steves podcasts). Found our amazing airBNB with  Frederico last minute. Original beams on the ceiling and down a little deadend with cafes and fountains all around it. Great location. We all did our laundry and hung it up all over the kitchen to dry. Frederick made an appointment for us after chatting at his favorite restaurant (Il Chianti) where his friend runs it. We rented scooters with a 24 unlimited use so we hopped off and on then all night just exploring everywhere. We went to the pantheon, the piazza de navono y popolo, the Spanish steps, St Peters Basilica and in and out of all the streets and areas. The weather was amazing after sunset and magical. The street performers and the gelato (best yet). We got home around 12:30 and jumped in bed. 

Day 9: Anna syd and I scootered over to the Vaticanni. We got tickets to the museum and went to a grocery store to get breakfast and eat in someone doorway waiting to get into the museum. We used the Rick Steves podcast again for the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel both of which were incredible. So ornate and the mosaics and statues and tapestries and chariots and breastplates from 500 BC. In the Sistine chapel we went through the podcast explaining the map of the ceiling (spine of the Genesis stories, 12 prophets (Ezekiel, Isaiah, etc) and then triangles of Christ’s ancestors. And the middle focal point is Christ reaching out to spark life to Adam.  On our way out we sent a postcard from the Vatican to each of our families to get a postcard from the smallest country in the world.  We hurried over to the Rome temple. The unique dichotomy of the Vatican and the LDS Rome temple. So cool. And the missionaries there showed us the statues of the 12 apostles that are exact replicas from the church in Copenhagen which is the only other place they exist. It’s the same church that had the original of the Christus statue that President Kimball that is the closest to what Christ actually looks like and is replicated in Salt Lake Temple. But the missionary said the Christus statue in the Rome temple is an exact replica because they used a 3-D printer.‘s

We all got to sing Abide with Me around the piano while a senior missionary played. sweet experience. 

And now on our way to catch the ferry to Croatia in Bari, Italy. We were pretty nervous about whether the ferry would actually work out but we got the car onto the ferry and made it to the top deck just in time to watch the sunset. Most of us called our families to catch up and give them a view of the sunset from the boat. We decided to do a sit down dinner at the restaurant on the boat and had the funniest time with the waiter who did not speak any English and simply would say to us “eat” When we would ask him questions about the menu. Ultimately, several of us just pointed to watch some people were eating next to us and said we would like that. At one point, and asked for some catch-up for the french fries and he literally brought out a small packet of ketchup on a plate. He was pretty fed up with us by the end of our dinner. Some of us then went to the front of the boat to look at stars and we saw several shooting stars. We then went to sleep in our very small cabins.

Day 10:

We woke up just in time to be at the front of the boat as we came into the final Harbour of Dubrovnik in Croatia. Dubrovnik. It was a magical place. We rented mopeds and headed over to old town. We parked them and walked inside and decided after a few minutes walking around that we wanted to hire a skipper and take a boat out to some islands to go into the sea caves and snorkel. Once we had that set up we ended up walking around for another hour and a half all over old town and exploring all the tiny alleyways and beautiful foliage everywhere. Jeff decided to stay back to keep exploring because he couldn’t get his knee wet. The rest of us got on the boat and spent the next two hours at blue cave and green cave. We did a little cliff jumping and exploring the sea caves. Our favorite was at the green cave where we went to three different caves and you were duck under rocks in order to pop in to different caves and traverse the whole length of the tiny island through caves and channels. It was so much fun. And the r water was so clear and colorful. Our skipper was a younger guy that knew his history and loves to adventure. The lady who set it up for us told him to skip the Alcohol so he brought a cooler full of juices and soda for us :-)

When we got back Jeff was waiting at the dock and as we were coming in we had seen some people over by the fort sunbathing and some of them are playing basketball and soccer so we headed over there. A few of us watched them playing jucco (soccer volleyball) and the rest of us played pig. Quite a few around us were really getting into it and cheering for good shots or when someone didn’t make it. It was actually really fun. Whenever you missed a shot you had to be careful the basketball didn’t fly into the ocean.  After pig ryan Jeff and Carl had a friend from Lithuania that came over abs wanted to play 2 on 2.  I feel like all of us love making new friends and everywhere we went we did. Either with those we were renting from or on a train or even sometimes a waiter. We had a whole crew of friendlies and sometimes we even got pictures of our new friends. After we finished exploring old town we left to go explore I Dubrovnik for about three or four hours on the vespers. We literally went everywhere I think. Up and down up and down trying to get good views and find new areas. It was so incredible! One of Ryan and is favorite parts of the trip. And it was so easy to jump on abs off to see things or explore narrow areas. We even got up close to watch some bungee jumping. That night we found a perfect spot to eat dinner at a restaurant overlooking the water and a great view of the sunset. Little did we know it was fine dining and we Wayover paid for subpar food. Still, the setting was pretty awesome. We panicked that we were going to have to cross into the Bosnia border and as we got closer, we realized that Google was navigating us around the border onto a peninsula where we then accessed a bridge that was so perfectly lit and new, it seemed almost unreal. We later found out that this bridge had been opened three days before we got there for the exact purpose of helping tourists and other Croatian people to avoid having to go through the Bosnian border. We continued our drive up to Zadar and arrived at the AirBnB that we were going to stay at around one in the morning. When we arrived, the owner of was shocked to see that there were seven of us. Somehow there was a miscommunication and she thought there was only four of us. She was very nice (well, she did not have a choice after Jeff and Carl greeted her with a hug) and allowed us to pull together cushions from the pool furniture and all seven of us stayed in a very small studio apartment.

Day 11:  After a group stretching session near the pool and pulling together enough Kuna to pay the owner for our brief night stay, we jumped in the car and grabbed some breakfast at a nearby grocery store. We then hit the road. All of us were pretty tired and took turns sleeping in the car except Carl who continued his marathon master driving at the wheel. We were planning to go to Lake bled in Slovenia but ended up switching plans to go to the Postonja Cave. It is one of the biggest caves in the world and we caught the last train tour at 6 PM. The cave was like nothing any of us had ever seen. There were so many stalactites and stalagmites. We actually got kind of a private tour from one of the guys that worked there who was basically turning off lights in the cave as we finished up the tour. We were getting pretty hungry but Carl pushed for us to go drive further up the road and to see a famous castle near there that is built into the rock of a mountain. It was really incredible. After that, we found this really cool restaurant with a patio and we were so hungry that we ordered double burgers. The waitress looked at us with a weird face and we told her that she did not understand how hungry we were. She then brought out the burgers and they were bigger than anything any of us had ever seen. None of us were able to finish more than half of one of the burgers. They were so huge! We then kept driving and got to a hostel at Lake Bled that we had booked and when we got there she said there was no room. Jeff especially was pretty annoyed and wasn’t afraid to tell her Especially since we had driven an extra 30 minutes to get there at one in the morning. there were definitely some shady folks at this hostile so maybe it turned out for the better that we did not stay there. We then booked a hotel in Klagenfurt, Austria Finally got to sleep around two in the morning.

Day 12:  Sunday church in Klagenfurt.

We are attending sacrament meeting in Klagenfurt, Austria. We are using Google Translate to piece together the gist of what is being said. I loved the first speaker’s talk about music, especially given we are about to visit Salzburg later today (Mozart’s birthplace) and that the one thing that we could all connect on during a German sacrament meeting…was singing the hymns. Music helps unify all of us with each other and with Heaven and I am so grateful to mom and dad for teaching us to love the hymns and music generally. The FSY pamphlet says, “Learn and sing the hymns. Hymns can lift your spirit, move you to righteous action, and help you withstand the temptations of the adversary.” So true!!

At the very end of her talk, she asked the congregation to join in singing the chorus of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and everyone in the congregation joined in. It was so cool and impactful for me. Where else in the world (other than German-speaking countries) can the speaker start singing that chorus and EVERYONE joined in singing each word in German.

Translation of what was sung:

“All men become brothers,

Under the sway of thy gentle wings. 

Whoever has created

An abiding friendship,

Or has won

A true and loving wife,

All who can call at least one soul theirs,

Join our song of praise;”

https://www.liveabout.com/beethovens-ode-to-joy-lyrics-history-724410

More from the FSY pamphlet:

“Music can enrich your life. It can edify and inspire you and help you draw closer to Heavenly Father. Music has a profound effect on your mind, spirit, and behavior.”

I felt the Spiritof the above statement so strongly today.

After church we drove over to Salzburg and spent the next few hours doing Rick Steves walking tour of Salzburg and touring the Salzburg cathedral right in the main town square 

Kept driving up to Munich and saw river surfing, walked the main drag that used to be old town but was renovated after WWII because about 90% of it was shelled out 

Day 13:

Swiss national day. Listened to gun salute, choir singing and alphorns. And

Then scootered all over Zürich for about 2 hours. Last part of it was along the river and through the Chinese gardens ending at a restaurant right on the water with the best fish and chips. So yum!

When we got home we helped Carl clean the house for a couple hours since he has a walk through for moving out pretty soon and it’s just him still in Switzerland. Then we made our favorite meal of the trip. Raclette. And watched knights tale on his projector in the living room sitting around on camp chairs because they’ve already sold their couches and moved pretty much everything. 

Day 14: Ryan and I took curt to the airport first thing in the morning so we get out of the car to go and try and find his ancestors home that was up north of the airport about 25 minutes.

Carl took Anna Jeff and syd to the airport and Ryan and I fell asleep for a few hours. After we all woke up we headed up to Stoos and took a gondola and 2 ski lifts to have the best view of Lake Lucerne and all the surrounding towns. We actually wanted to do a rim to rim hike but we were at a time because the last gondola left at five.

We had fondue when we got home just the three of us. Then Carl and Ryan had to go back to Zürich to deliver a desk and I ended up going around the lake on the paddleboard for about an hour by myself which was very relaxing and peaceful. And then I went to a bike ride and showered and started packing. 

Day 15: got up and got an a 10 mile bike ride halfway around the lake with Ryan before we had to head out to the airport. 

 Some updates:

Ryan:  Took a remote only job with Harri.  It is based in NYC.  It has been a similar type role, but very different company culture that has been a little hard for Ryan.  Starting with having meetings often at 7:00 in the morning,  so he is gone for the whole morning routine, which he's o wbeen here for, for so many years, its hard to change that. It's often our "family time".  Baseball just started up again a few weeks ago so coaching will pick up a lot.  They are still at the warehouse once a week.  We had the whole team over for a party last week for team bonding and they played lots of games over at the church and then watched Top Ten highlights for baseball, ate and played ping pong here.  Good boys and I am glad for Ryan to get to coach.  he loves it mostly. The admin part of a super league team is alot of time though.

Amber: I had a great idea for some new years resolutions to do a different challenge ever month this year. for January I proposed a no spend challenge for 7 days.  So we didn't spend a penny for a week and it was much more challenging than either Ryan or I expected and we learned that we spend alot of money and it was so good to be more resourceful than normal with everything (including having the kids count out pennies for an hours probably and then going and buying gas--the attendant at the gas station I think was like what are you guys doing???  It made me so much more aware of our spending and felt so good to accomplish it. 

Aubrie: Applied to work at Brighton Girls Camp for the summer (9 weeks) and I think it will be so much fun for her.  You live up at the camp Sunday night-Friday afternoon.  No cell phone allowed and she will either be a camp counselor for the girls or do craft counselor or first aid.  Its just all outdoors, rope courses and lots of women her age to hang with all summer.  It sounds awesome.  She will find out next week if she gets the job.  She also will be going to babysit for Gillespies in Philly for 10 days in May (they are flying her out there) which is a huge blessing for her to earn that extra money instead of sitting around waiting for work to start. She started her mission papers a few weeks ago and will submit them in April/May. She is putting her availability for end of summer.  She babysat the Pratts youngest two this past weekend so that she could earn some money to go to Hawaii to visit Gia and Nevie.  She flies out in two weeks and will be there a full week which is so fun!  THey have a whole list of things they want to do while she's there. 

Robbie: Halfway done with his lifeguard training at the Cottonwood Rec center (along with Elliot).  They can start working Feb 13th and actually make some money. They get a free family pass to the rec center with their job which is awesome for all of us too.  And they get a gym membership to work out (which Robbie has been begging us for a year now--we did have a summer rec pass last summer and he went ever day I think all summer).  HE has been training all winter with Elite Academy for baseball.  He feels pretty good with his hitting right now and pitching.  We will see in a few weeks they have their first game.  Junior year is a big year.  He works out every night here at home and has gotten pretty strong this last year.  He is as social as he can possibly be.   He was asked to help with SNAP (Special needs program that is combined with several stakes) and he has a buddy that he helps with every Thursday night at their activities. Crystal Dangerfield reached out again to see if Robbie wants to go to FLorida to go to prom with Haylie and they will fly him out there.  I think he might go. She is pretty fun and she loves shooting guns, being outdoors and fishing and RObbie would have a ton of fun at their house. 

Hallie:  Volleyball started before christmas and they have played in one tournament and did ok.  They play again this coming weekend.  One of the assistant coaches puller her aside this past week and told her she has a great swing and can hit really hard. (She mostly plays outside hitter).  I think it really boosted her confidence. She just has to work on timing with her approach.  I love love watching volleyball.  She does a pretty good job of taking care of SAndie.  There have been several moments I have heard about her reaching out to kids at school that were feeling kind of lonely and left out and bringing the to lunch with her and her friends and it makes me SO grateful.  It says so much about her heart.  One really exciting thing that happened to her, she entered a random drawing at Sweet Salt, a boutique clothing store at their grand opening and found out she won the $500 drawing.  They actually called her and she thought it was a scam and didn't call them back for a week until they called again and she asked me about it.  We were both so excited! She and I went and shopped there for her for about 2 hours last week after school and she had so much fun just trying on the whole store and choosing things that she would never normally have the money to spend on.  She bought 10 things that night and her and Aubrie went back this past weekend to get some more things. 

Blake: Blake is on a role to play every sport he possibly can all at once.  He is trying to get us to sign him up for junior high boys volleyball at his school which starts in 2 weeks.  He is still playing basketball with Kevin's bantam team (which is one practice a week and one or two games a week). and he has improved a ton this year.  He is a hustler which makes up for not playing basketball on a super league team like some of his other teammates. Basketball ends in a few weeks.  He is going to baseball once a week too. He has been skiing a lot this winter since Henry, Kormac, James and Thomas all are skiing so they go regularly and take the shuttle up.  He received the Aaronic priesthood soon after New years which was a neat day with Randy and Karen and Brother Powell being there with us too.  He has passed the sacrament since then and was called to be the deacons quorum president and Clark Weedman is his counselor. We all went down to Provo to take Aubrie home after Christmas and all went to the Provo temple together for Blake's first experience doing baptisms.  SUCH A highlight day!  He joined Robbie (And sometimes Hallie) in their Tuesday Temple mornings with Hansens and other youth for 5 AM sessions at Jordan RIver (it kind of blows my mind that they go every week).  Hansens take anyone that goes to breakfast on the way home.  last week I sent breakfast burritos with them to share. 

Clara: She danced as a Bon BOn in Mountain west's nutcracker this year and loved it as much as last year. At this point in her life, she can't seem to get enough of dancing.  She is in her last year dancing with Mimi and Me dance academy and will audition for placement in a new studio in the next few months.  She wants to stick with ballet instead of starting up with jazz as well.  I love that she loves ballet so much. She went to the zoo with one of her best friends Lola on Friday and she just loved going and getting to see all the animals and ride on the carosaul so many times. She saw a snake shedding its skin and they watched for a long time. She is a kind kind soul.  Lola's mom texted me after and said Clara had thanked her many times for all the things during the playdate and that she was just so impressed with her kind heart.  I loved getting that text. 

Lucas: Has finished half a year of preschool with Ms. Lorie.  Jacob goes as well.  THey are best buddies when they are not fighting.  Mostly they get along and play most days.  He also plays with Andrew Simon that is in our neighborhood/ward.  He is the cutest kid too.  Lucas can write and knows the sound/name of all his letters and is getting better and better at reading 3 letter words.  He does Upstart preschool for 15 minutes a day which is helping alot too.  We started reading BOB books together every once in awhile.  He loves anytime anyone will play baskeball, soccer or anything with him. 

 Well Ryan and I have always made fun of "dog people"--which isnt necessarily those that have dogs, just those that treat their dogs like part of the family.  So I hesitate to share about Sandie in our blogposts;), but she really has been a cute dog andwe've all spent a lot of time taking care of her and training her so we probaly should mention that we own a puppy now. 

She is technically Hallie's puppy.  Once we decided to let Hallie get a puppy from Chad and Erika's litter, we called her upstairs one night once everyone was in bed and facetimed Erika and said "ok Hallie, choose one".  She did NOT believe us.  Watching her face was so sweet and sad too.  It was kind of like a "please dont joke around with me about something like this, I have wanted a dog for so many years....are you serious???"  She just couldn't even talk and then she started crying.  She ran down and got all the other kids out of bed to tell them too before we could stop her and everyone was freaking out.  We had to wait like 6-7 weeks but one weekend Ryan, Hallie and Clara went down to AZ via car to pick up Sandie from their house and spent the weekend. 

We had several sleepless nights when she first came home because she was so sad to be without littermates I think and was getting used to our house and family.  She is super good-natured. Which we are all grateful for.  She learns things pretty quickly and has a good temperment with everyone.  

Her and Lucas play together alot when the other kids are at school.  They play hide n seek around the island and wrestle a lot (Luke has gotten several scratches;)) We go on walks pretty much every morning the three of us (lucas, sandie and I).  She runs to the door when anyone gets home, especially Clara, Blake and Hallie.  She has a best friend already--its the puppy next door that is the same age.  Milly is her name (Kyle's puppy). They play in the backyard almost every day together at least once for an hour or two.  One afternoon I heard a scratching at our front door and I opened it and Milly was sitting there wanting to play with Sandie.  And now shes a regular visitor to our house.  I actually almost ran over Milly backing out of our garage beause she had escaped her house and was trying to get into our garage to Sandie.  I actually am so glad they can get their puppy energy out together every day.  It's super helpful.  Except for Sandie gets soooo dirty. always. 

Jordans come for Halloween and BYU game

 It's just such a treat to have the Jordans at our house.  The kids get along so well.  Our younger kids didnt have school on Thursday and Friday and the older had off Friday too.  Jordans came thursday night and went down to Jeff's sister Laura for 2 nights.  

Thursday was such a nice slow day.  We accidentally missed Clara's ballet because we were having such a chill day.  The kids did lots of Halloween crafting and playing outside.  Mariam and Joe sent out a flyer for all the grandkids inviting everyone to participate in a pumpkin carving contest with cash prizes for 1, 2, and 3rd place. 

The kids got really into it at family pumpkin carving and continued on the next day.  They all turned out amazing! 

Friday we did jobs as fast as we could and packed all the warm things/jackets to head to Provo to meet Jordans at teh BYU store.  Which was just a fun circus. The candy counter, picking BYU gear, Aubrie getting some supplies (that mom would buy for her;)) etc.  Then we went to the Cannon center and ate there.  I don't think its Amazing but the kids love the all you can eat. 

We walked over to the football game and alot of the kids sat close to the field by sneaking down there.  We all cheered our hearts out.  BYU football games are just so fun!  The football is fun to watch but also its just lots of entertainment with Cosmo, all the timeout and halftime shows, etc.  The kids haven't gotten tired of having season tickets yet. 

This past week Jordans came into town because they had tickets to the BYU game from their neighbors the Gunthers.  They had Friday off and so did we so they came down on Thursday and we met up with them for a "BYU Day" on Friday. Everyone ate lunch at the Cannon Center and we met up with Aubrie as well. The Jordans all bought new BYU gear which was pretty fun. 

The next day we met