Mountains

The leaves in the mountains this year are spectacular.  We went a week too late for the reds and a week to early for the yellows, but we got to drive up the mountains.  That was fun.  It was a good day.

Three in flip flops....

 

Opposition

I'm seeing something good in Sam.  He used to have that fiery "just good at everything" spark.  Then came his splitting his foot open, his allergy treatments not working, Cushing's syndrome and then his broken foot last year.  He was disappointed and upset with himself for not being "good" at soccer anymore... but this season I've seen a mature determination in him.  I would take that quality over just being good at soccer any day.  If you watch his face.... he's determined that he's going to do his best.  He's even determined that he's not going to listen to nay sayers.  Coaches that yell at the ref during games... and his own teammate that yells instructions at him the whole game instead of letting the coach do his job.  I'm proud of this new determined Sam and hope that's a quality that we can encourage. 

Just to give an idea of who he's playing with.... The team is 12-18 year olds.  There are 4-5 teens his age and one that's 12... then there's this guy in the red that looks like he's the father of 3 and works out in his spare time.  It's an interesting dynamic.

I love his tongue in this picture.

This was Seth's game.  I try to get one game of the season where I bring my real camera... I haven't made it yet for Seth's.  Next week I'll take the camera instead of a phone.

 

A long post

I try not to post a really long post.  They're harder for me to do and to search, but I'm being lazy this week.  

This week, my Ecuadorian friend, Pablo, passed away.  I wish I could have introduced my kids to him once.  Maybe I'll still be able to visit his wife. My favorite thing about teaching him the gospel was that he was the epitome of humility and obedience.  We taught him about the Book of Mormon sitting on the floor of his carpentry shop.  The smell of wood shavings.  When we taught about tithing, we learned from the Bishop that he paid his tithing without being a member yet. When I came back to visit a year later, he was in the bishopric and all of his adult children and many of his previous congregation had joined the ward. He's a good man. 

We got to go to Howl's Moving Castle for family night last week.

I was trying to show Ada my hair.  She's always combing through or fluffing my hair. I actually wore it down and wanted to show her proof.

Ada doesn't like orange skittles, but she knows I do.  So for General Conference, she seperated all the skittles so she could have some and I could have the others.

This was our low key, at home conference.  We did the first 4 sessions at home, then the Brashers invited us to eat lunch with them at Grandma and Grandpa Robertson's house before they drove home.  It was fun to see them, even for an hour.  The 5 of them left and we stayed for the last session on conference.  It was a nice conference.  We didn't have anywhere to go, all the kids easily listened to the speakers.  There was a little pent up energy at the end, but they did great.

Evelyn always builds a tent during conference. She's getting too big for this one though.  I realized just today that she's grown a lot lately.  I wonder how tall she's going to get and who's going to finish growing first.... Sam or Evelyn?  I think Ada's mostly done.  She's stayed still for about 6 months.

Seth's Primary went to Wilderson farms.  He had so much fun but I don't think he liked the ferris wheel.  He told me about it with a little trepidation.  (This is Seth's friend, Gabe).

Then the school had a Fall Festival.  I wasn't able to go, but Seth had fun with Jack. Jer said that it was fun, but honestly it was too many people for the activities that they'd provided.

After conference, Grandpa invited Seth to help him put together a Winnie the Pooh puzzle. They were so cute just giggling over there.

 

Remembering Journey Rose

My Mom's cousin, Melanie, invited us to celebrate the life of their daughter, Journey.  She's been fighting cancer for several years and passed away a couple months ago. We love our cousins and my kids played with Journey when they were tiny. It was good to see our Ellis/Wilson cousins again. I really only see them on facebook now. 

Panda Express because it was Journey's favorite.

Eli, Sam and Seth hung out together for a bit.

 

Dahlia show

My sister, Janelle, has a pass to Thanksgiving Point and invited me to join her and my parents to the Dahlia Days.  They were so pretty and it was so fun to be with them.