Thanksgiving Week in Vista, CA

Since the Elementary kids had the whole week off school, we left on Tuesday and drove to Phoenix where we stayed with our adopted Grandparents, the Carters, on our way to CA.  I'm so bummed I didn't take any pictures of our stay with the Carters, but it was so much fun to visit with them for a bit on that trip.  We love and miss them so much!

We spent the rest of the week at Natalie and Brian's 3 bedroom house, which was packed with 11 extra people that week!  Besides our 8 were my brother Reed, sister Melanie & her boyfriend Jake.  (Can't imagine what Jake might think of our craziness, but he was a good sport to sleep on the couch all week!)  It was loud and fun and we ate delicious food (Brian fried a turkey for Thanksgiving), played games, enjoyed the twins, sang loudly, went to the beach, celebrated Hayden's b-day, and took a hike in the Torrey Pines State Park.  It went way too fast!  Thanks for all the fun memories, guys!  It was so fun to be together!

Day-after-Thanksgiving Beach Day!

As soon as we took this picture of the sandcastle made by Arthur and Sydney, Bennett immediately started the demolition of said sandcastle.  He's a professional "Un-doer."

Uncle Reed and Bennett

Sean and Hayden racing 

A Hike at Torrey Pines State Park

November Catch-up

Okay, wow, I just came off a cRaZy 7 days, that I will write about soon, but first let me catch up on November!  

Daphne sang in her school's choir concert and had a solo where she was singing a descant on top of the rest of the choir singing something else.  She prepared it all on her own and did so well she got a standing ovation.  (She's in the middle of the top row with the stripes, and cardigan).

I also got a turn to sing.  I was asked to sing with a group called the New Mexico Bach Chorale, and we sang Bach's Magnificat and a motet for double choir.  It was hard music and I loved getting a chance to sing with such a talented group of musicians.  The bummer is that the performance was up in Las Vegas, NM so it was a a bit of a drive.

We celebrated 2 birthdays:  

Dallin--13 and Hayden--7

Dallin's we celebrated here at home and the day after he had a bunch of friends over for games and treats.  Can't believe we officially have a teenager in our family.  

Hayden lucked out and had his birthday in CA during our stay with Natalie and Brian which means he got to have aunts and uncles and cousins, and even my friend Windy and her husband Brian there to celebrate his birthday.  Aunt Natalie spoiled him with this gigantic gum ball machine and made him a beautiful birthday cake.  (I made a cake too but it wasn't worthy of a picture.)

 Also in November, we hosted our annual holiday neighborhood open house, which we did the weekend before Thanksgiving and had everyone bring pie to share.  I think it was our best attended so far.  Must have been the pies.  Every year as I'm preparing for it, I get grumpy and stressed out and annoyed that I go to all this work, but then afterwards, I'm glad I did it.  It's good to know our neighbors and have them in our home.  Even if only 5 out of 22 families come.

Dallin and I worked at the Roadrunner Foodbank a couple of times to help Dallin earn hours for his Citizenship in the Community merit badge.  Still need one more  time to get the last 2 of 8 hours.

November was also full of rehearsals and preparation for our Stake's annual "A Child is Born" concert.

I was so tired in the month of November, (I even fell asleep during a morning visiting teaching appointment!) that I thought something might be wrong with my thyroid or that I was anemic or something.  So I went in to visit my Dr. and got some blood work done to check for any abnormalities that might be causing my severe fatigue.  But I got the blood work back and it was all normal.  So I'm just tired because I don't get enough rest, I guess.   I was hoping I could just take some extra iron or something and feel a difference.  But nope!  Just need a few more hours in each day that I could devote to sleeping.

The best part of November was our visit to Natalie and Brian's for Thanksgiving.   I took a lot of pictures of that, so I'll do a separate post for that.

Beautiful October

These are in no particular order.  Just wanted to highlight a few of the other things we did this month that should be documented for posterity.

Elementary School Costume Parade:

A Gorgeous Day at the Park:

The Middle School's First Annual Fall Carnival--sponsored by the Show Choirs. 

They performed Thriller, Time Warp, and This is Halloween, among others 

Halloween Decor

General Conference

I looked out the window between sessions to see Dallin reading his scriptures, and Bennett hanging out with his big brother, drinking his "bah-bah"

Hayden Lost his Two Front Teeth

Caramel Apples with our friends the Esplins

Sarah's delicious homemade caramel!

Daphne got her ears pierced 

as a reward for finishing the Book of Mormon on her own for the first time.

I made this Halloween Table Runner

Deep Love

I got to go up to Utah for 24 hours to see my sister Melanie perform in a rock opera called "Deep Love"  My parents and my brother Reed also came for it, and we had such a great time being together for a day!

Melanie was fabulous!  When she slid up the octave to a high E, the audience went crazy! And then, she did it AGAIN!

Way to go, you rock star, you!

We stayed with Grandpa Packard and his new wife, Marsha.  (They are celebrating their first anniversary soon!) Fun to visit with them.

A lovely fall walk in Utah before dashing up to SLC to catch my flight home.

Lavaland

I've been looking for ways my kids can offer service, and a friend of mine organizes a birthday party once a month for homeless children at Lavaland Elementary.  So we prepared craft kits for each of the children as our service.  I loved it!  Since my kids attend one of the few schools that get out so late each day, we didn't get to actually attend the birthday party and see the kids make the craft, but I heard they loved it and were so proud of themselves when they were finished.  I'm hoping at the end of the school year to just pull my kids out early for the last birthday party so they can meet the kids they've been making craft kits for.