Thanksgiving

We met Cori's family in St. George for the Thanksgiving break. It is getting easier to travel with our crew. The older three just need a few books and electronics and do great without much help from us. Keeping the baby happy is still an adventure! But we had an easy uneventful trip over.

We all look forward to these visits. But Grace, Grant, and Eden (and Jeffery soon enough, surely) lay awake at night with excitement anticipating our time with family. Once we get there, it is days of non-stop play dates with their favorite friends. We love that they love their cousins so much. 

The whole beautiful group. 34 strong and counting.

We had a particularly nasty flu bug sweep through the camps. Grace and Eden were struggling with it on family picture day. I didn't even ask Eden to leave her blankie.

Ray has been busy organizing family names for temple work. He had work that needed to be done so he could be sealed to his parents (both deceased). It was really special to participate in this. Over the course of the week, we got to do baptisms, confirmations, initiatories, endowments, and sealings.

We had our Thanksgiving feast at the park down the road from Grandma Sandy and Papa Ray's condo. This was a perfect venue for our group. The food was great. The kids played and played. Cleanup was pretty quick.

And then it was time to head home. We said our tearful good-byes and drove to Vegas where we flew out the next morning.

(movie time in the basement)

Other Fall Goings On

I took the kids up the road to a nature preserve to take some pictures. Cori was away and doing it by myself nearly killed me. The older three were so so good about the whole thing. Jeffers gave me about 4.5 minutes at the beginning of the shoot. He sat still, but every time I asked him to smile he gave me the kissy lips pictured above. Once we hit the five minute mark, he had had enough. We tried multiple places, poses, you name it. There was another photographer setting up for a shoot who saw me and my crew and took pity. She had a barrel full of apples and gave one to Jeffery which kept him still. She stood behind me and did the ridiculous things that all good photographers do to get kids' attention. It was with her help that I got the picture we ended up using on our Christmas card. 98% of the rest of the pictures I took that afternoon ended up like this:

and this:

and this:

Grandpa Randy extended one of his work trips and spent a few days with us. We loved having him stay with us and he is a lot of fun to explore with. We met Cori down by work one day for lunch at an Argentine restaurant (Both Cori and Randy served their missions in Argentina). Then, Randy and I took Eden and Jeffers downtown to the Discovery Green. We explored the park and played and then made a perfectly timed exit wherein we beat traffic and made it home before the school bus.

At home, the kids took advantage of every opportunity to wrestle Grandpa to the floor. We also played a lot of Left Center Right. And we went out one night for some bonafide Texas BBQ.

One blessed night, I came into the kitchen and discovered this scene of parental bliss.

Before we departed on our Thanksgiving adventures, we met some friends downtown for Zoolights. It was a drizzly night. I spent nearly two hours in traffic getting there (I am still a newbie driving downtown and went all the wrong ways) and JJ threw up his dinner before we got there. But we still had a great night with our friends and the animals.

Cori spent several weekends building some amazing horseshoe pits for the backyard. Grace was a faithful helper and spent happy hours with him in the garage.

We had just enough room for the pits on the west side of the pool. Cori was sure to install them at the official regulation length. The kids throw from the halfway mark. 

Gracie's hair above was for a crazy hair spirit day. Pictured below is the cloud of hair that resulted when we pulled all the rubber bands out. Grace was wishing we had waited to free her hair till the next day so she could 'fro it at school. I just smiled and told her to get into the shower.

Grace and I attended the world-wide women's meeting for the Church at our stake center. We got to help put together humanitarian aid kits before enjoying some dinner and sitting with friends for the broadcast. I love sharing these events with Grace. She is one of my favorite people.

Eden has developed into a regular chip off the old block. True to form, as set by her older siblings, Eden loves to spend time coloring, writing, cutting, and creating. We always have a flurry of projects in the works on her days home from preschool.

Fall Sports

Grace had the best season of volleyball yet. She participated in a volleyball camp with the program director over the summer. This was great as the leagues here have some different standards than she was used to in the Pheonix league she played in. For example, the girls her age are only allowed over-hand serves here. She really improved her serves over the course of the season (still have a lot of work to do, especially with the pressure of a game) and she is getting more confident on the court. Another thing that is different here is all the cheering that goes on during the game. And I don't mean the cheers coming from the attending fans. The girls have all kinds of cheers they do during the game. I think this was Grace's favorite part of volleyball. Her team didn't go very far in the tournament at the end of season. No matter! She was a happy camper.

Meanwhile, Grant was busy on the soccer field. Rain or shine, hot or cold, this guy is so happy if he is out playing with some ball or other. He was on a team with a bunch of boys who hadn't played before, which gave him an opportunity to be a little bit of a leader here and there. The good old Texas weather kept us guessing every practice and every game. We only cleared the field for thunder and lightning.