Corey's September Photos

Sunday is a good day for me to take Corey's phone and get the pictures of our life that he's taken. He's got a whole 'nother side of the family story that I wish could be blogged, but he's not doing it, and it's hard enough for me to keep up with the pictures I take and version I'm aware of. So, I'll try to get them when I can, but to future historians, just know that he probably had more picture than I do. Here are a few from this past month - He usually takes the kids out for their birthday to buy a toy. Here is the toy Sophi got when she went with Corey to the store a few days after her 7th birthday.

This is a toy that I would not have purchased, even if she asked me. If I knew she wanted it I probably would have tried to convince her reasons why it would not be good and why I doubt she'll even really use it, it will just sit on a shelf taking up space. Oh well for me, good things kids have dads.

Corey had turned Sophi's violin lessons over to Melodie. Here they are practicing at home on Sept 14th.

Corey still picks Sophia up from school and takes her to the lesson, but Melodie hurries and meets them there after school gets out and goes into the lesson with her and takes notes. Then Mel drops Sophi off at Corey's parents house and then Mel goes to her flute lesson at the U of U at 3:30. It's a tight schedule and, like I said, seems like a bit much to take on, but we're doing it. (Thursdays are busy!) On Thursdays Ethan also has his saxophone lesson in Orem at 4:30 for an hour, so Mel, Eth, and Hyrum leave school and go to the violin lesson, where Mel keeps a car and Corey, Ethan, and Hyrum leave back to Corey's parents, then Corey stays there to work and Hyrum does yard work for Corey's parents, and Ethan takes a car and comes home to get his sax stuff, then he leaves for his lesson. Ethan then goes straight to Special Needs Mutual - something Melodie did her junior year, though I don't think I ever blogged anything about it. It's a church calling to be a "buddy" to an adult with special needs.... they get together at 7 for 90 minutes and do an activity. Melodie goes to her flute lesson from 3:30 - 4:30, then she heads back to pick up Corey, Hyrum, and Sophia at Grandma Wride's house. Sometimes she has an extra chamber rehearsal or something, so Corey, H and S stay longer at his parents' house. Kinda crazy busy, but that's what our Thursday after school schedules look like right now!

And a picture of what our evening family scripture study looks like on many nights - everyone sitting at the landing at the top of the stairs. This from September 17th.

Corey was sharing some video on the tablet. Videos usually help everyone focus and listen.

They usually don't all have their heads up - often there are people laying with their heads down, I do wish we did better at this and it was more reverent/worshipful, but we try.

Lagoon!

So, last weekend, we went up to Farmington to pick up some Lagoon tickets with our Get Out Pass. The Get Out Pass stuff is good until next summer, since we got just got it in July and it's good for a year. However, when I picked up the Lagoon tickets, they printed them up for this season only, which means we only had a few weeks to use them before Lagoon closes at the end of October. Next weekend won't work cause of General Conference and other conflicts... UEA weekend could work, but I worry if we wait that long then it will be really cold or something and we'll miss our chance. So, we had been invited to something at 4 today (baptism for a friend's little girl), and this past Sunday Corey said we could make it, but  then we talked and decided we needed to say no and make our family time and activity the priority for us. So we did, it felt liberating, and today was the day we made for ourselves for a family outing! Lagoon is open from 11 to 11 right now on Saturday, so Corey headed up with most of the kids (Mel had GMS and Ethan stayed home for work, plus he was still sleeping when we left) while I took Daniel and waited for Abi to finish her soccer game, and then we headed up too. When we got there, Life 360 helped us almost locate each other. But then Daniel saw the merry go round. Looks fun and good for a toddler, and there wasn't a line, so we got on. For some reason we put Daniel on a pig.

Daniel seemed to sense that something momentous was about to take place!

He was making a really cute expression, I caught a second of it on video, cute boy.

Little D was not ready for the ride to be over.

Luckily, there was still no line. We got off and ran right around to go through the entrance again for take 2.

Daniel rode the "bullseye" this time. He liked the bullseye horsey!

Around again, then our turn was done again, he was sad again, so we got back in line again. (I think we came on a pretty good day). He making his cute face again.

I texted Corey "We're on the merry go round". They came and joined us - let's do it again!!

Corey helped Owen get on a horse.

Natalie on a pretty pony -

Lily on a zebra, how appropriate, it's been her favorite animal for years.

Abi chose a swan this time

Corey found a nice swan to sit in too, haha. Taking a quick second to do a bit of double duty answering work emails.

Daniel, you ready to ride again?!!? Yeah, let's go! Yee-haw!

Oh no, the merry go round stopped again. Daniel is sad again. Sorry buddy, what is this, 5 times we've gone on it? Let's go to a different ride.

Now that I was around to take the toddlers, Corey took off with the older kids to do a few more adventurous rides. I took the little kids and we bought fries.

Then we waited in line for a long time to go on the train ride. It was a long wait, but the kids were excited when we finally got on the train.

We took the caboose. Are you guys excited?!?!

We had just missed the last train ride, so we were right in front. I let the kids entertain themselves by making silly faces and seeing themselves with my phone.

You guys are pretty funny!

Natalie hamming it up while we continue to wait for passengers to board.

The train ride was fun. I would have gone on it again if the line wasn't long. But it was long, so we called it good and went to find where the other kids were. Corey was buying them lunch. We got there and ordered some ice cream.

I didn't know how much Corey had bought for them, but found out afterwards that it was a lot... and now he was gone with Abi and Lily. Wes was too stuffed to help finish it off... I told Hyrum the Dole Whip was made of pineapple and the ingredients looked like it was vegan to me, come on, help me out.

Hyrum and Owen did as much as they could, then Wes took Owen and Daniel over for a ride.

Daniel hadn't gotten his hand stamped. I thought 2 and under are free in the park. Turns out they are free to enter, but not to ride anything (except the merry go round) unless they have tickets. Boo

But the ride attendant was nice and let Daniel on for one ride.

I came back to find Natalie still working on her ice cream and she was now a complete mess, nice.

I helped her finish off the ice cream. Corey and kids were still off having fun, I took little kids on the boat ride. Long wait for that one too, but they liked it. Wes and Hyrum hung around to help me out.

And the boats are moving! Owen is feeling like a real sailor!

Round and round the little ride they went, quite content.

Ay Calipso - Ding ding -

After that I had had about as much fun as I wanted and was ready to be done. So were Hyrum, Wes, and Lily. I headed home with those three and Daniel, and Corey stayed for another hour at the park with Owen and the rest of the girls. It was a fun day at Lagoon and I'm glad we went and made it a priority to spend time together. We stopped by Costco on the way home to get some groceries and some dinner. I saw this big honkin' jar of Nutella and thought of Joseph and his Guatemala krepes.

I'm glad Nutella is an international food. It keeps the world together, a little piece of home that we've been able to find everywhere we've lived - Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile and now with Joseph in Guatemala, go Nutella!

Neighborhood Swim and Sick Pet

Yesterday the kids actually got our our guinea pig and were playing with her. Poor Vanilla, she'd probably rather be left alone, but at the same time I feel bad that she's alone all day almost everyday since Carmel escaped and got lost in July... so anyway, I was glad to see the pet being loved and getting fresh air outside. The kids made a maze for her and a friend's guinea pig, Wiggy, and had them going through it.

Today I was in the shed and saw Vanilla, and she didn't look very well to me. Her eyes were not bright, she felt skinny, I don't think the kids are taking care of her like they should. I told Mel to check on her and said that I thought she looked ill. Mel looked at her and agreed, and said we should take her to the vet. I said I couldn't right now cause the kids and I were going swimming, but hooray, you can drive. You are welcome to take her to the vet, but you will also have to help pay for it. So we left and she took Vanilla to the animal doctor. Swimming was fun - a few shots of the kids.

All the girls took turns watching Owen and Daniel in the pool. 

Sophi taking a turn watching Daniel...

Even Natalie helped out - she and Daniel swam around holding hands - 

I thought that was so cute....

She's already such a good little mother!

Some jump shots off the diving board - look at leaping Lily!

Sophi did a salute as she jumped in -

Owen held tight to the side of the pool for most of the time.

Cute little eyes!

I think he was looking at his reflection off the wet cement...

So swimming was fun. I stayed out of the water.

Daniel done swimming. He was scared of these shark toys in the water but then warmed up to them and claimed ownership of them for the rest of our time there.

Our nice neighbor grilled up some hot dogs and brought out some grapes, that was nice.

Daniel looks like he might need help chewing his hot dog...

The pool fun started at 11, but we didn't get there until noon cause I had the kids clean their rooms first. Since we were an hour later getting there, when other people left at 1:00 my kiddos were still going strong. One other family came late and so we stayed and swam a little more.

We stayed until 2:30. It was a good way to spend the afternoon of a day off of school.

And Mel got home around 4:30 - $117 bucks and 3.5 hours later and she was from the vet and all the kids were attending to Vanilla. I reminded them that that we don't have a good track record with sick guinea pigs... like we'll notice that they're sick and then within 24 hours they're gone. But maybe things will be different this time. The vet place wasn't busy but she did have a long wait, and she came home with some special food to help her. She looks better, I hope she makes it through the weekend, she's been a sweet little pig.