October 4, 2026
This last week was a full one and was quite eventful. Monday Desi cut his chin open again at daycare, I accidentally drugged addie with the "drowsy" allergy medicine instead of the other one so she needed to come home early from school and slept for 5 hours, and Greyson was sick in the morning but good enough for me to take him to school before lunch time. Tuesday, I had a wonderful hike with Hinckley in which we summitted Mt Nebo in less than 5 hours. It was a stunning day and the colors were out and we had just perfect weather. Thursday Addie and I got to go to a Daddy/Daughter dance our elders quorum put on at the church and it was amazing! We had a lot of fun dancing and grooving to the tunes and enjoyed the treats as well. Friday Hinckley had a swim meet in Provo and beat all his times by at least 2 seconds, and also got a state qualifying time - not bad for the first meet of the season! It was my last week with McKinsey and that went well. I'm grateful to have worked with such a good group of people.
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| On our way up Nebo |
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| The Nebo Peak |
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| Skeleton house |
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| Goofy Daddy daughter |
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| Normal Daddy Daughter |
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| Desi eats veggies with Grandma |
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| Halloween custom dress rehearsal |
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| Granny Pants game from Grandma |
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| Conference time |
Desi is overwhelmed with interest in all the emerging Halloween decorations. We've been going on regular adventures to various homes throughout the neighborhood and he can't seem to get enough. He is convinced they are all "nice guys" but a few of the decorations have scared him a bit. He loves the ghosties in our house and is very excited about everything. He got a dino costume this week and has enjoyed roaming about in that roaring at people. When Naomi came to care for Kassie's Grandma who had a stroke and has been on Abi's floor at the hospital - Desi was very excited to show her everything. We got to visit the hospital in between conference sessions on Sunday, and also snagged family photos as Thanksgiving point on Saturday evening. Phew!
September 27, 2026
Desmond is getting excited for Halloween. Our neighbors put up some decorations and so now he has to go check on those every moment he thinks of them. I got out our skeleton from storage and he was very excited about that. He put the skeleton to bed on the workbench in the garage (including a hug), then was eager to go wake him up the next morning and get him sitting up. He has also started belting out Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" at random intervals...not sure where he learned that. He and I had a fun time this week during some of my time off going walking on the Jungle Trail in Draper, walking/biking around the neighborhood looking for Halloween decorations, and on Saturday going swimming at the Lehi Rec Center with Greyson and a friend. Last Sunday he fell asleep on my shoulder and slept the entire Sacrament meeting. It was a huge blessing and something he hasn't done since he was mere months old.
Greyson has continued working on a new horror book series of his own creation. He seems to really enjoy coming up with the characters and plot and drawing scary pictures to accompany them. He continues to love basketball and has been navigating some friendships at school around that. He dreads school and just wants to come home and play outside with his friends all day. He has an uncanny ability to find anything in the house with sugar in it - all the way down to the breath mints in the car. Kassie found a matching pair of skeleton PJs for him and Desi and they were both pretty excited about that. Desmond wouldn't go to sleep one night until Greyson had read to him, put him in bed, and given him a hug.
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| Getting paid for artwork with Donuts |
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| Skeleton boys |
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| Bunny meets skeleton |
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| Halloween house |
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| Ghostie crafts |
Addie had her final soccer game of the season this week. Despite not feeling too well she got in there and had some big plays and she was excited that Grandpa was there to see it. She's grown in some important ways during this season, as she really hasn't liked her coach who yells a lot and isn't very constructive with feedback. She says she wants to play again, as long as it isn't that same coach. She's been really struggling with school lately as her class is extremely loud and unruly (going on the 3rd year this has been a major problem for her). She gets really overwhelmed and scared which makes it hard to learn or build skills. She has been enjoying being on the student council and got to do morning announcements this week which was exciting. She and her friend Brook have been playing "Pirates" a bunch, including sword fights using brooms. She and Greyson have the Primary Program today, it is Addie's last one! Hard to believe.
Hinckley finished up his first term as an 8th grader and seems to be doing ok. He doesn't say very much about anything, so we look for other indicators to try and piece together what is happening in his life. He and I went out and got some material for a business he wants to start - spraying address numbers on people's curbs. Because he is very young for his grade, many of his friends are turning 14 and getting jobs (baggers at Maceys, etc.) and he feels like he's falling behind. Utah hustle culture isn't my favorite. He's been eager to mow our lawn and find ways to increase his pay by cutting extra bushes, or whatever we might offer. He had another volunteer shift at the Space Center which was "mid".
Kassie had some friends over this week to do Halloween crafts and that seemed to go well. She has put in her notice at work and the first week of October will be her last week working at the practice. They had to cut hours for everyone, and it just didn't make sense to keep doing that given the childcare costs and so forth. She's got a few ideas of what's next. I have one more week before I transition to my new job and plan on using some more days off to do additional errands and maybe a hike on Nebo with Hinckley. We are loving the fall time in the air, the beautiful colors all around, and better sleeps that come with the earlier darkness and chill.
September 21, 2026
This week I got to spend a day with Desi and we went to the Curiosity Farms area of Thanksgiving Point to see the farm animals. He loved seeing all the different animals and making their noises. We rode the little train twice and he also got to ride a pony! It was a really fun time and he was very cute. He continues singing a lot, and will often break into song in response to a question. For example, "Desi do you want to go to the park?" "YES SIR YES SIR THREE BAGS FULL!"
Greyson started making his own books again this week, beginning a new series of horror stories that involve lots of death and ghosts. He insists his "thing" is basketball again, though he still likes riding his scooter and bike around the neighborhood with his friends. Addie is getting close to finishing her soccer season and we had some good discussions this week about field position. She loves defense the most with middle field as a close follow up, she just feels more comfortable defending a goal rather than attacking one - I can relate.
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| Soccer girl |
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| Fire pit with scary stories - Payson Lakes |
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| Carving wood at Payson Lakes |
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| Payson Lakes |
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| Yes sir yes sir, three bags full |
Hinckley had some fun time with friends this week watching a movie and playing football one day. He continues to grow so fast it's hard to keep track of all the clothes he needs.
We all went up to Payson Lakes on Saturday morning (decided not to stay there the very rainy Friday night) and walked around the lake before Mom, Dad, and Kassie with Desi headed home. I stayed with the three older kids and we had such a wonderful and relaxing time. We set up camp, carved our own marshmallow sticks, played spike ball and threw a football by the water, skipped rocks, told scary stories, and more. It was absolutely beautiful up there. It got very cold at night, and everyone learned that I wasn't kidding when I gave them the packing list with lots of warm clothes, hopefully next time we are all more prepared. It's truly remarkable what happens to a kid (or anyone for that matter) when you get out of the busy routine stresses of regular life. We all agreed we want to do more trips like this in the future.
September 13, 2026
This week started with Labor Day, and we braved going to Olive Garden for the first time with our kids. That was a suggestion from Hinckley, and everybody seemed to really enjoy it. Hooray for breadsticks!
Greyson had a lot of time with friends this week and some struggles. He and I had a fun date going rock climbing at the indoor gym. I can't believe it's been over a year and a half since we last did that, and he's improved a lot. He loved it! Desi really got going on the balance bike this week, going on increasingly longer adventures until he finally began to go around the whole block as I tried to chase him and figure out where he'd gone. He just loves biking around on his balance bike and is eager to go out anytime he sees a sibling go out.
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| Momentum date |
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| Painting girls |
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| Stuffing Bears |
All of our kids had a really fun Friday night sleepover at Nana and Grandpa's, enjoying a fun movie and some night games in the backyard. Kassie and I went to a really fun adult prom and dinner with some friends in our neighborhood. On Saturday, we did a service project stuffing bears for refugees and learned all about the importance of starting with the ears first.
The other news this week is I've accepted a job offer outside of my current company. At a small technology company that does fraud prevention and identity theft prevention called SentiLink, I'll be their first learning and development hire and get to develop out their strategy and build lots of things that will be more tangible than my current work. It's fully remote andI'm excited about it. I start on October 5th.
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| Ready for the big date |
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| At the dance |
September 6, 2026
The week clipped by without too much from the routine of school, sport practice, meals, laundry, and learning to get along. Hinckley and I had a fun time hiking Timp with Abi and her boys on Saturday. We got pretty sunburned but had some amazing views and great weather. It was a great trip! On Friday I took Addie to see
Coyote vs Acme which was hilarious. Greyson continued to spend time with friends and perfect his backflip drop on the swings (not a full flip off the swing itself thankfully haha). Desmond is talking more and more, copying everything he can and being very cute. He did better this week with going to preschool/daycare - he seems to be warming up to it.
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| At the saddle |
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| The top! (freezing cold) |
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| Mountain boys descending |
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| Bike baby at the Cooke Family Park |
I've been interviewing with another company and finished an 8th and final interview with the CEO on Wednesday, they said they'd get back to me sometime this coming week. We had book group this week and we read my book
Dark Matter (it may not be suitable for all on this thread...) and I made a special eclair cake in which I added food coloring and various mixins such as oreos, whoppers, pretzels, and Reese's Pieces. It was a lot of fun!
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| Dark Matter Eclair cake (mid build) |
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