October 30, 2022
This week Addie was sick most of the week and was finally able to go back to school on Friday. She did a bunch of school work one day and drew for over 2 hours straight on another, so all in all she did pretty well with that. It was Red Ribbon week (no drugs) and she was sad to miss PJ day and other special dress up days. Hinckley enjoyed crazy hair day and “retro day”. He wore a 50s outfit with a white shirt and jeans. He couldn’t find his regular jacket so last minute I suggested he wear his suit coat…which he did. He was called “Mr. President” most of the day at school and actually reveled in the attention from what I can tell. Greyson also enjoyed getting some crazy hair for one of the days. They are all overwhelmed with Halloween excitement.
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| Legacy Center Halloween Party |
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| Costumes ready, Anne, Pirate Zombie, and Grim Reaper |
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| Crazy Hair day |
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| Epic car track build |
As a family we went to the Lehi Rec Center Halloween party. It was very loud with lots of people, but the kids loved it. I went with Hinckley to the “Spook Alley” which he managed pretty well, and I enjoyed his holding my hand the whole time and for about 20 minutes after. I’m very glad I didn’t allow Addie and Greyson to go through with us on that. Phew. Addie was over the moon about all the costumes and chatted non-stop through the event. She and Greyson were excited about winning the little prizes and candies.
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| In their cat beds |
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| 2022 First Snow |
Kassie took Greyson swimming this week to the Rec Center and while he is more comfortable around the "big bucket" that has been his nemesis there for so long, he seems quite wary of it still. On Saturday Kassie and Addie met up with Abi and the Kay girls for some treats which sounded like a lot of fun. We enjoyed carving pumpkins when they got back! This year was the smoothest operation on that front than what we've had in a long while. Pretty exciting! We had some snow at the beginning of the week and everyone was nuts about that. Hard to believe we are entering November this week!
October 23, 2022
The kids finished up Fall Break on Monday and Kassie took them to Ninja Playground in Lehi. The boys were ecstatic and Addie wanted to go home early, though later she changed her mind about it. On Tuesday they were back in school and are now very deep into the Halloween spirit. Kassie was accepted to the UVU nursing program! It starts in January and though there are still many questions about how that would work we are moving forward with that as the plan for now. It is pretty exciting and a big accomplishment!
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| Ninja Playground |
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| Draper Park climber |
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| Halloween display in Lehi |
On Wednesday I had a short work trip to Denver to meet my manager and another senior person on my team. It was really nice to meet people I work with in person and also go into one of the McKinsey offices. Friday night I took the kids camping at Utah Lake on the last warmish day/night for the foreseeable future. They had fun exploring, jumping on rocks, waving glow sticks, and eating dough boys. The next morning I achieved the remarkable feat of folding up the tent and getting it back into the tent bag on my first try. I do not exaggerate in saying that is one of my proudest moments in the last couple years haha. We got all packed up and out of the site just as it started to rain. Phew!
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| Sunset over Utah Lake with the campers |
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| Sunrise over the Wasatch mountains |
October 16, 2022
This week started off with Kassie surprising the kids on Monday with a trip to the Pumpkin patch. She checked them out of school in the early afternoon and they all had a great time there. Fall break started on Thursday and they have been busy making sugar cookies, attending birthday parties, a jump park, and friend movie night for Hinckley, and ... getting hair cuts. RIP Magical Mullet. After watching Tron Hinckley decided he would like to have hair like that of the main character, which thankfully is quite tame by our standards. He looks so grown up.
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| Fish Kiss |
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| Walking on campus with the famous fall-time sunlight |
Things are going well at work for me as I am getting used to being in my new role. I got to volunteer as a co-facilitator for two 3 hour training sessions this week where we did a workshop for young professionals across the Middle East and Africa about Design Thinking and Agile problem solving which was really cool. There are so many neat opportunities available in this job and I'm very grateful to be here.
October 9, 2022
This week Hinckley finished his tennis lessons and we went out to celebrate at IHOP together. That was a hit for everyone and we realized we haven't gone to a sit down restaurant in many years as a family. We also had family pictures near Utah Lake and another week of the "family class" with UVU which was good. Hinckley went to a friend's birthday party while the rest of us went to a Halloween party at the library which the 2 youngers enjoyed quite a bit. The weather has been absolutely perfect this whole week and I got a few games of Pickleball in during my lunch breaks throughout the week including with Kassie on Wednesday which was lots of fun. The colors are coming out everywhere and the sun is just right. It is perfect. We got our decorations out and everyone was as excited as they usually are on Christmas morning.
Addie celebrated the end of her soccer season with her team by having a pizza party. They played Red Rover, had "bridge" contents (make a bridge with your body, and other fun things. She seemed to really enjoy her soccer season and wants to do it again next year. She continues to draw and write lots of cute notes which she delivers in secret and end with "write back!"
Kassie had her UVU nursing program interview this week and has mixed feelings about it. Regardless it feels good to be done! She'll hear back by next week whether she got in or not.
I've been thinking a lot about Fowler's stages of faith, the concept of
Differentiation, and how it ties into some of the things I heard in conference and the reading from Isaiah this week. Lots of interesting things to consider, but what has me most interested is in how I can and am to apply it to how I approach my daily choices. I've been experimenting for the last month or so in giving myself a simple score for each day on things like "self-regulated myself today" and "was present today". That simple reflection has really helped me consider areas I need to repent in, or just adjust my environment and/or mindset too. I re-listened to Pres Nelson's talk about overcoming the world and what that means and saw a lot of great connections there too!
October 2, 2022
This week I was struck down with a stomach bug or food poisoning, a few other family members had hints of it as well including Addie throwing up in the middle of the night. Otherwise, the kids went to school, we enjoyed the general conference weekend and really loved the fall time weather.
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| Addie and the Snow Cheetahs - final game of the season |
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| Celebrating Addie's soccer season with Chick-Fil-A |
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| Preparing to go to Conference |
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| Conference with Logan and Sadie |
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| Seats with Williams and Kays |
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| Ready for conference rolls |
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| Conference bingo |
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| Conference rolls |
Addie had some friends over for a movie night late over on Friday night. It was quite the event! She had been drawing pictures and writing notes with excitement for a long time. Hinckley was happy by watching Star wars with me up in my office. And Greyson was okay with going to bed because he got some candy.
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| The eager count down visual |
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| Friend movie night |
Addie had her last soccer game of the season, and Hinckley has one more week of tennis. We hope you're all doing well!
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