Holly's First Car and Puppy!

Holly got her license, bought a cute Mini Cooper, and got a puppy, she is so excited, and I am so happy for her! 

This is Beaux!  What a cutie!

 

Fall Sports

I love fall sports!  It is so much fun to watch our kids use their talents and do something they love.  Alyssa is playing on the Westlake volleyball team, Reyn is playing on the Orem High School volleyball team and Q is playing Westlake youth tackle football for the first time.   

Alyssa is making a comeback
from her sprained ankle.

Reyn is playing varsity as a freshman!

Q has had some great tackles

has a really cool team...

and some great runs!

Back to School

First Day of 11th grade at Valley High

Alyssa refused the first day pic.
First day of 11th grade at Westlake High.

She drove herself to school, hooray!

Q first day of 4th grade
at Harbor Point Elementary 

Reyn and Tiago wouldn't send me a picture,  stinkers.  Tiago is starting 11th grade at Timpanogos High School and Reyn is in 9th grade at Oak Canyon Junior High.  Ayzha is still attending Centralia College. 6 kids at 6 different schools.  Good luck to all of you, Have the best year yet!

The Haul

The girls spent 8 hours school clothes shopping, they sent me pics of what they got.  It was a fun fashion show, lots of laughs.

Hoop Camp Portland

Ben and Tiago had the opportunity to drive up and participate at Hoop Camp in Portland.  They got to visit pinball heaven and Voodoo Donuts while they were there.  As usual, they had a blast, and got to enjoy all the feels of serving with our friends with special needs.

Grandma, grandpa, Alison, Ayzha and Randy
showed up to help out too.

Garbage Can Cleaning Fundraiser

For some reason, the YW budget this year is almost non-existent.  So, in order to be able to reserve a campsite for our girl's camp next year, we needed to do a fundraiser, and we needed to get it done quickly.  A friend offered up the idea that she had done several times in her ward, cleaning garbage cans. She said it was quick and easy, so we went with that.

It turned out not to be that quick or easy, it was hard, smelly, gross work, but we did it, 106 cans in all.  I was so proud of all the young women and leaders that came out to help!  

Backstreet Boys Concert

It was fun to take some of our kids the the Backstreet Boys concert with us.  The weather was perfect and we had the best time.  Hopefully this made up for his crappy birthday!

45!

The day we drove home was Ben's 45th birthday.  It was most likely the worst birthday of his life.  We left early in the morning.  After about 5 hours of driving, Alyssa started having another seizure in the car.  She was saying that she couldn't breathe, so Ben drove about 100 mph to the nearest ER about an hour away.  The Dr. immediately administered Versed and was able to stop her convulsions pretty quickly, then did a bunch of tests.  Her O2, blood sugar, temperature, EKG, brain scan, and blood work all came back normal.  So, the etiology remains a mystery.  Once she was feeling a bit better, we got back on the road.  The ER visit added 3 hours to our already long drive.  We ended up getting home after midnight, at which time we finally opened Ben's birthday presents.  We were all grumpy from the long, tiring day, so it wasn't very joyous.  He got some cool stuff though, tickets to see the Backstreet Boys, a pickle ball set, an xbox controller, a 3D printer, a rubber Docky, a Halo poster and some other stuff.  Luckily we enjoyed his birthday cake the night before under happier circumstances.

Washington Day 5

Ben's friend Alison invited us to her cabin on the Puget Sound for the afternoon.  We dug for gooey ducks, had some good food and went out on their boat.  On the way home we made a stop at the Nike Clearance store and bought some fun stuff.  Later that night, things got a little scary.  Alyssa went into a seizure.  Since she had never had one before, I didn't really know what to do.  She felt hot though, so I gave her some acetaminophen.  We also put a cold rag on her forehead, and ice pack on her back.  It took longer than 2 hours for the seizure to stop.  After she came out of  it, she was still having some twitches, but was coherent and walking, so we tried to get some sleep.  I slept in her room, in case it happened again, but I was pretty worried, so I didn't sleep much.  

Mt. Rainier off in the distance.

Alison and Sam, Ben's buddies from high school

Washington Day 4 (part 2)

There's never a dull moment at grandma and grandpa's house.  They've got so many fun things to do!  There are zip lines, quads, motorcycles, frisbee golf, roof ball, pickle ball, games, movies, slip'n slide and more.  They've made it grandkid heaven!