Zoo

blackberry picker

Ada the yearbook photographer

the runners from the triple crown race

Saturday, we took the day and went to the zoo with my parents, Janelle and Silvia.  We skipped Ada's soccer game and Sam made it to half of his.  But we needed to use our passes at least one last time before they expire.  Financially, I don't think we'll be buying any new passes anywhere for another year or so.  We're running a day late and a dollar short.  We did a first though.... I decided to pay to let the kids feed an animal.  We fed the giraffe.  I loved watching them giggle when the giraffe grabbed the lettuce from them.  So cute.

This guy's doing yoga.

My parents paid for the kids to go on the carousel.  I think Seth especially liked it.

These three are Evelyn's pictures..... I love them.

The sand cat had babies.... 

Everywhere we explored had these sculptures made from plastics and garbage.  They were all sea animals.  This was a whale's ribcage made from plastic bottles.  

On Sunday, we drove up to Salt Lake City so that Silvia could see three more of our missionary friends before going back to Ecuador.  I love Temple Square, it's so beautiful.  There were hardly any people there too.  

Silvia, me, Ada, Karen, Cristina, Mia, Christian, Frederico

Sam, Seth, Evelyn, Cristina's mom, Karen's kids

Silvia and Karen lived together in Guayaquil.  Karen and I were companions in Santa Elena.  She was my favorite companion.  Now she teaches biology at the Salt Lake extension of BYU.  Our kids are the same age and all love soccer, so I think we're going to have to play soccer next time.

Spur of the moment, we decided to tour the Conference Center because Silvia's leaving before conference.  It was so pretty on the roof while the sun set. 

Amazing Jeremy took all our pictures.  But he was there too.  He's so patient with all my get togethers.  He even enjoys them sometimes, but half the time he's stuck with a bunch of Spanish speakers.  He is doing an amazing job and learning what they're saying and getting his point across when he needs them to know something.  Maybe Jer will be a Spanish speaker too.

this one's an Ada picture

Two of our missionary friends are currently rehearing for the Christmas concert so they couldn't be there during our time on temple square, but they were there just as we finished touring the conference center.  Ben and Mayra Clawson.  Ben was one of the office elders and Mayra lived with both Silvia and I at different times, as well as being Karen's trainer.

See, he's marvelous.

The kids' old PE teacher drove up from St George for the kid's race.  I loved this one of her and Evelyn.  

Silvia and the kids feeding the giraffe.

Awwww my heart

I let the kids sit in the back of the train.  I told them that if any of them stood up at all during the ride that we would never ride the train again.  Evelyn immediately stood up.  Ummmm do I have a snarky one?  She did do something super cute the other day though.  She's been practicing what little Spanish she knows with Silvia.  She asked me how to say, "Let's go."  I told her that it was, "Vamos or Vamanos." For the life of her, she couldn't say either.  She ended up with, "Vanamos" and now every time it's time to go, Silvia and I say, "Vanamos."

While we were at the zoo, we ran into our cousin.  Well, it's my 2nd cousin, but because of Bear Lake it feels like closer.  Ashley was there with her girls while her son was at work.  I'm glad that her dad is recovering from his stroke.  They almost lost him.  He's such a sweet man with a smile that would make anyone happy.  He is German, grew up in Canada, raised his family in Utah, traveled the world doing the gold paint work in temples as they were built or remodeled.  He is was one of the main caretakers for the Bear Lake cabin until this year.  Good man.

My neighbor Alina was there too with her daughter.  She's a nanny, so she usually has 7 kids when she does things like going to the zoo.  This time she only had 1 and almost didn't know what to do with herself.  

Sam's Race

So Sam decided last minute to participate in the Triple Crown Race at BYU.  They race kids of all different grades together from different schools.  So Sam raced the 5th grade boys from all the elementary schools that participated.  He was so excited.  He was especially excited that his PE teacher from last year drove up from St George to watch the kids run.  He really likes Coach Gurney.  Sam just started running again about a month ago, so his legs and feet were sore, but he got 13th place in the 5th grade boys and 2nd for our school.  Not super fast, but a 10 minute mile is faster than me for sure. Jer runs about an 9 1/2 minute mile and Sam is about half his height.

The rest of this week

Jer is working to get the furnace and water heaters vented correctly so that our new roof won't leak.  And while he had the roof cut open we had a hail/rainstorm that was amazing.  Luckily Jer was able to keep most of it out.  

Tuesday, my sister, Janelle invited us to have Thai food at her house for her birthday.  It was fun to hang out.

Sam's Tuesday soccer game went well, a little sunny, so Seth and I hid under the umbrella during the game.  Sam made his first goal of the season, it was awesome.

Ada's soccer game Thursday game was awesome. Thursday was great for her in general.  She got the part in the Aladdin play that she tried out for the week before (shopkeeper - which she wanted because it was a speaking part but not a main part), and was approached by a recruiting coach.  All in a positive day for her.  While she was playing at her game, the coach from the competitive team asked me if I was number 11's mom.  He said that she was a great player.  She's always been a very solid player but I never thought "star player".  He said that he'd talked to the ref and he'd told him to watch her during the game because he'd been impressed with her in previous games.  And he said that he was impressed and wanted her to try out for his team.  We had always said we weren't going to do competition because of the money and time involved, but I told Ada that I'd let her decide.  She was going to try out and then decide if she qualified.  A day later I got a text saying that they cancelled her tryout (I'm guessing they found plan A and Ada was plan B).  It's a relief to me timewise, but I am super proud of her.  And yes, as a player she's always where she needs to be and has a nice strong kick.  She's a great goalie, even if she doesn't believe it, and is a good mid fielder as long as it isn't too hot to be running around a ton.  Either way, it was a great compliment to her to be approached.  It surprised her, but I think that's a great surprise to be had!

Mutual was a YW's glow in the dark dance.  It was fun.  Ada had on pokemon socks and the eyes glowed in the dark.  I thought it was hilarious.  I spent most of my time hiding the glow in the dark bouncy balls that kept hitting people in the face when they got thrown and calming down our autistic Laurel that has a fear of balloons popping.  I'd distract her and she'd be fine for a while until someone would go by hitting a balloon around.  Then I'd distract her again.  It's good for her to learn to cope, but the learning curve is not always fun.

On Friday we went to Holtz The Planets.  It was fun to go to the symphony again.  Silvia loved it, especially when the played the Star Wars theme.  She thought that was great.  Friday morning I helped fill in for a friend of mine with her home daycare.  She has pneumonia.  I had 6 kids under the age of 5, plus mine.  I've filled in for her before, but usually it's a bit of a mix of big kids and little.... this time all little.  They were good, they ate what I made for lunch, they all cooperated at diaper times except one.  Monday, I filled in again.  This time with 8 kids.  It went well, but my kids don't appreciate having to pick up the house after they all leave.  What they don't know is that the $200-$300 she'll pay me will be part of their Christmas.  Maybe they'd be happier about it if they did know?  My kids are very cute with the little ones when they get home from school though.  Ada went and "cooked" with one, Seth played with the preschoolers, Evelyn and Sam kicked balls around with a couple of the little boys.  It was cute.

Sunday, the kids played with legos...

Sunday, Karsen came to visit with Silvia.  She was our mission nurse and these two were companions for a long time in Guayaquil.  Karsen said that Silvia was her favorite companion.  And go figure.... now neither of them can eat gluten and have problems with anxiety.  Maybe they just understood each others struggles really well.  It was nice to visit and send Silvia off to meet Karsen's family.  She also had one of the missionaries that baptized her come yesterday.  Silvia had seen on facebook that he worked at a dentist office 10 minutes from here.  We tried to stop by and surprise him, but apparently they don't work on Fridays.  So she contacted him and he came to take her for the afternoon to meet his family and catch up.  I think that meeting people again after you finish your mission is a huge joy.

Silvia also gave me a rather kind compliment.  She said that when she's at home, she gets stressed out and gets angry especially with her son for not doing things perfectly or keeping things clean.  She said that watching me care for kids that are not mine and then treat my own kids with as much love and care as the ones that I was being paid to watch, she realized that she needed to be kinder to her son and let him be a child and make mistakes and still be loved.  She struggles from anxiety.  As she told me about her relationship with her father and the bad things that came from that, I can understand why she gets so wound up.  I also hope that she does see more clearly that her relationship with her son doesn't have to be a reaction to the relationship she had with her father.  I told her that that's why I like travelling and visiting.  I learn from each and every person something that can help me learn and be better myself.  That's one of the more valuable results from going places.

I love driving this thing.  I wouldn't mind this kind of job as a daily thing as long as I could drive a John Deere!  It's a nice mower.

These are from last week, but I went and did the lawn with Seth on Tuesday while everyone was at school and work.  It was a little cold, so Seth cuddled up in my big jacket and watched a movie on my phone.  When he was done he helped me mow.... he sat on my lap and helped me steer.  It reminded me of my dad and grandpa putting us up on the tractor growing up.  Especially my brother McKay.  Seth had the biggest blast and is now asking me to let him help me again next time.

I stole these from Judy.  Playing in the pool one last time before it gets shut up for the winter.

Utah State Fair

My kids did some summer reading programs this year.  They got free books, pizza and passes to the Utah State Fair (including a ride a drink).  So we took Family Night and our Ecuadorian guest and headed out to the fair.  I really like showing the little kids the animals.... that's the sad part about them getting older... but they had a blast and asked if we could come back again.  I told them to keep reading to get free passes.  We saw part of the Knights of Mayhem show too.  We usually like watching the jousting, this time it was full contact jousting and just made my tailbone and hips ache to watch.  We saw two jousts, and 3 of the 4 people were unseated and 1 was unable to keep going.

Ada and I think they put the angel wings upside down, but if they hadn't have done it, no-one would be able to reach them for pictures except the very tall.

40th birthday party

Ada found Thanos' gauntlet at the Disney Store when we were taking Sylvia shopping for her son.  Funny girl.

The soccer games are so hot right now, we ended up sitting in the tree....  Both Sam and Ada won their games this time.  Sam has physically gotten to the point where he can run and kick again.  Now he just needs to do some conditioning to be back to normal.  It makes me happy to see him back to himself again.

My sister, Janelle is turning 40.  This sweet and caring lady has a lot to show for her 40 years. Me being one of them ;)  My mom, dad and sister threw her a party at the park near their house.  We ate lots, talked to all the Ellis/Wilcox family members that came.  Saw friends.  Kids played their heads off.  It was fun.

Lia