Van Gogh immersive exhibit

Ada's my artist and when I heard about the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit on her birthday I bought tickets and asked her permission after.  I was really hoping she'd like it and I think she did.  The first little walk on the way in felt like it wasn't going to live up to our expectations, but then we spent almost an hour in the last room experiencing all of his paintings.  Even Seth loved it.

photo credit: Ada

photo credit: Seth

photo credit: Seth

photo credit: Ada 

photo credit: Sam

 

Birthday cousins

 

Sharon and Brad invited us up to celebrate Vivien's birthday yesterday at their new home.  Their house turned out beautifully and the bday party was so fun.  Ada loved getting time to spend with Aubrey, Devin and Rae.  They are her favorite people ever. Most of my family have either been vaccinated or had Covid, so it doesn't make it hard to get together.  I love having time with family and friends.

This week

A friend of mine, Ramona, passed away this week.  She's been battling stomach cancer for more than a year now.  She only left because her daughter laid down next to her and held her.  She told her that everything was going to be okay and it was okay to leave.  She passed peacefully in the arms of her daughter.  I love this woman.  She's always thinking of others outside herself.  I'm also glad that in the last year, she was able to reconnect with several family and friends that had come to live in the US.  When they heard the diagnosis, they were flying in from Kansas and driving in from Las Vegas to visit this kind woman. Love you mamita.

Evelyn loves to cuddle grandma.  She's getting big enough that it's getting harder to though.

About two weeks ago, I set up some quilts in my front yard and neighbors and friends would come by and help tie them.  We're donating them for the refugees that have been coming in to Utah from Afghanistan.

My YW finally let me teach them how to fence. I LOVED it.  Jer was amazing and helped me out since I'm still not fast on my feet.  Seth kept begging everyone to fence him and that was fun.

These two.... I love how much they love each other.

Just one more game of the soccer season.  Ada's worked hard this year.  She's not only the only girl on her team, she's also the youngest and she can still keep up with those boys.  She joined the team at 13 and the rest of the team is 15-16. They don't have any subs, so she plays hard for the whole game. I'm hoping to recruit another girl or two to her team before spring season, but we'll see.  

Sam has a big team and is for the first time, the oldest on the team.  He's loving finally feeling like he's back in the groove after taking a year and a half off.  I'm looking forward to next year when both him and Ada can play on the same team.

Jer's doing a good job coaching Seth's team, unfortunately I don't really have pictures because him and Ada play at the same time on opposite sides of the fields.  Jer's coaching so I go and cheer for Ada.

Yesterday's games were wet and even started getting a little light hail.  Luckily we came prepared with umbrella's, coats and plastic bags to sit on.

 

Jr High Choir and Band

This week we had two concerts.  Sam is in band and is learning to play the flute.  He's so frustrated that he's not perfect at it yet since they've only been playing for about 6 weeks.  During the band concert, not only did he sit in first chair's spot but he also volunteered to play a solo.  He played it beautifully for me at home, and was really airy at the concert.  I think he got nervous.  It's a good step though.  I can now play in front of most anyone without nerves, but I had to go through the first few years being nervous first.

Ada is in the intermediate choir.  She sounds beautiful and is a second soprano.  That's what I always wanted to sing, but I have an alto voice.  That makes it very fun to listen to her.  At this point Ada has no nerves and just enjoys being up there with her friends.  Her Young Women's leader was so sweet.  She had 4 of her girls in the concert, so she came and brought them all flowers.

 

Fall at home

We decided to go on a pre-conference drive over the Nebo loop.  It was so pretty.  I didn't realize that there were free range cows up there.  Mostly they were on the side of the road, but we definitely had to be more careful. Conference after was spectacular.  There were several talks that I want to go over again when kids are around, and some that I want to go over with the kids.  My Uncle spoke in conference for the first time.  That was fun to have the kids see if they can pick out the speaker that looks most like Grandpa. He did a modified version of his Grace talk and it was beautiful.  My cousin's husband posted a video of their young daughter telling grandpa hi as he talked. It was so cute.

As part of our drive, I was trying to help Ada learn about different angles of lighting.... here are a couple that she tried out.

This one, of course, I had to take.  She needs some fall leaf photos.

This one is down Provo Canyon.  Jer is training for his half marathon.