Our stake asked each of us to visit the temple before the end of the year, including adults, youth, and children. I decided to take the kids one day during Thanksgiving break. The kids had a good time. We did a little scavenger hunt and walked around the temple and the grounds. Afterwards, we visited a huge park nearby and had a picnic lunch.
Some old friends that used to live in our ward visited Texas the weekend before Thanksgiving. The Torres family. Ashton and their oldest were besties when they lived here. Then, they have a kid that lines up within months of one of our kids so it is a perfect group of kids to get together.
They were coming down to College Station to visit family for a quick weekend so we found a way to meet them at the Renaissance Festival. That is as far south as they were going. It was about 2 hours away for us. I took the three oldest and made a long day trip out of it. It was our first time going to the renaissance festival. I'll admit; it wasn't a favorite and I doubt we'll go back. It was crazy expensive! We paid entrance fees/tickets. But then everything else cost money. EVERYTHING! It drove me nuts. Plus, when you go with another family, I felt like I had to pay for whatever the other family was doing. It was fun to see the Torres family though. I would have rather just met at a park and had a fun day outside. Oh well. We learned that we are not missing much by skipping the renaissance festival.
The kids had a good time trick or treating. They made it to the furthest distance from the house before deciding they were all done trick or treating. Of course.
Tanner's costume was the easiest: a soccer player. He just wore his soccer jersey from the season.
Ashton was a witch. Gemma was the cutest squirrel ever. And Lydia wore some fairy wings intermittently.
The day before Halloween was our ward's trunk or treat. My sister joined us as she was in town for Ashton's baptism. Gemma loved the bounce house.
Joseph took Ashton and Tanner to the Baylor vs. BYU game. They drove up Friday afternoon and came back late Saturday. Aside from a BYU loss, they had a great weekend cheering for the Cougars. They went to all the game day festivities and a Mammoth Museum place in Waco. Tanner cheered hard and made lots of Baylor fans around him chuckle with his passionate cheering. Joseph had several people tell him that they wished their own kids cheered for Baylor as loud and proud as Tanner does.
I knew Tanner would love soccer but I didn't think he would love it this much. That kid is something else on the field. He thrived in soccer. We were told from multiple coaches that he should be on the competitive team in Houston. Maybe... one day. Tanner is fast and makes lots of fast breaks towards the goal. He scored a ton for each game and loved passing it to his teammates when the coach made the rule that he couldn't score anymore. Tanner doesn't like the crowd of kids who huddle around the ball so he stays on the outside and waits for someone to kick it out. It was a joy to watch him learn new skills this season.
We went into the season thinking we'd just do fall soccer and skip spring. But that is definitely not the plan anymore. Tanner just loves it out there and has truly found his passion. He thrives in the team environment, which is so different for me. I despised working on group projects and left team sports pretty early on. Tanner has this innate sense of where his team is and what the possible options are for plays. It blows my mind how he can handle and balance it all.
Ashton was baptized on Saturday, October 30th. We waited until Joseph's parents could be in town for the baptism. My sister surprised me by deciding to come as well! We had a great (and busy) weekend with family visiting and Halloween.
Ashton sang a sweet solo at her baptism and did great as always. I didn't take a single picture that day! Thankfully, Joseph's mom took a couple and then someone else took some screenshots of the Zoom video.
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| Tanner said the closing prayer and it became a whole family production apparently. |
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| I made this quilt for Ashton. I should start Tanner's now if I have any hope of it being done in two years. |
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| Joseph's mom made the dress for her actual baptism and then she wore a pretty pink dress afterwards. |
Since Ashton ran and joined student council, she gets to participate in more activities. One was the high school's homecoming parade. Joseph worked late that day so it ended up being me, the 3 kids catching candy, and Ashton sitting on the float throwing candy. We walked away from the parade with 13 pounds of candy! It was an intense amount of candy and a great parade for the kids. I call it a win since none of the kids got hit by a car or truck or float as they ran around collecting candy. And now I don't have to buy any for Halloween to pass out.
Because of when we had to drop Ashton off for the preparation part and when the parade started, it didn't make sense to go back home. So we packed a picnic dinner and hung out in the grass.
How old are you? 8
What is your favorite color? Red and Pink
What is your favorite animal? Horses
What is your favorite book? Chapter books (very true; she'll read anything these days)
What is your favorite show? Wild Kratts
What do you like to eat? Strawberries
What is your favorite game? Monopoly Deal
What is your favorite thing to do? Drawing
Who is your best friend? Lyra (a friend from school)
What do you like to do with Daddy? Snuggle with him
What do you like to with Mommy? Read books
Where do you want to go on a vacation? Disney World (Ugh... we had a family over for dinner and they have just gotten back from Disney. Now Ashton dreams of going there.)
What do you want to be when you grow up? Vet (man, this has been her dream for a couple years now. She loves animals.)
What is your favorite song? I like to look for rainbows
What is the best time of day? Social studies time at school and science
Ashton is eight now! I still think about her as a little baby girl and how I dreamed about her 8th birthday.
On her actual birthday (Monday), school was cancelled due to Hurricane Nicholas. She had the next day off too. Ashton was pretty bummed we couldn't go out and do fun stuff around town. But I think she loved that she could open presents earlier in the day and have a chill day at home.
Her party was the weekend before her birthday, right before the hurricane came. We did a pool party at the local pool and had a blast. Most of her friends could make it and she enjoyed swimming with them all.
Ashton started second grade on Tuesday, August 17th. She couldn't wait to head back to school. She has the same teacher as last year, who we love. Our district also starts having students switch teachers halfway through the day in second grade. With only two dual immersion classes, she just has those two teachers. Both teachers have a classroom economy and Ashton enjoys earning money for special things like bringing a stuffed animal to school or taking your shoes off in the classroom.
Ashton continues to participate in the gifted and talented program at the school. This entails a couple hours with a specific teacher in a pull-out manner. She loves this time and the group she is with.
Ashton also ran for student council and made it. She had to give a little speech and everything. She's excited for the meetings.
Her favorite parts of school are science and math. Her Spanish is coming along well, I think. She doesn't speak it a ton at home but her reading is pretty good now in Spanish. And she doesn't have issues at school with it. Ashton also loves art and music class.
He was excited about his teacher, Mrs. Cuellar. Tanner is also in the Spanish immersion program. He tolerates it pretty well and rarely complains about the teacher talking in Spanish all day. He sings some songs and counts to thirty in Spanish at home. The teacher has a classroom economy and that motivates Tanner to do his homework sheet most nights. He is very proud that he has made it 28 days and no conduct marks (for poor behavior). I am proud too.
His favorite part of school is recess, lunch, and science. That doesn't surprise me. He is very tired most nights but he also napped until just this last spring so I wasn't too surprised either. Tanner tells me who is sick each day and all the happenings in the classroom. His job right now is messenger and takes anything to the main office. He takes this job very seriously based on what he tells me.
Overall, the start to school has gone well and we haven't had to quarantine yet, so I'd say that's a win!
A bunch of ladies from our old ward in Lake Jackson plan an annual girls trip. I didn't go on the last two because of nursing/pumping for Lydia and then something else the year before that. I was so happy to go again this year. Some of us are still in Texas, albeit in different cities. And then there are some that have moved out of state. It was amazing that we could find a weekend for all seven of us to come to Seattle. We voted on destination and Seattle won. It was my first time to the Pacific Northwest and it did not disappoint.
All our flights from various cities landed within 20 minutes of each other. We left bright and early Thursday and we capitalized on our time in the city. We spent that day seeing all the sights in Seattle. My favorite part was taking a ferry to an island and wandering around the island for a while. We found sand dollars, sea glass, wild blueberries, and lots of fun things.
On Friday, we went on an eight-mile hike in the mountains and hiked to a lake. It was beautiful. This hike made me appreciate the beauty of God' creation. The lake was stunning and we even saw some snow!
Saturday was another hike to an overlook of a lake. Much shorter at around 4 miles. But much more steep. We went kayaking on Lake Washington after this. I even got to try paddleboarding. After kayaking, we went to a fancy seafood place and then saw the locks/canal that the boats have to go through.
Sunday was church, visiting the temple grounds and a short picnic lunch at the beach. Then we all went back to the airport and flew home.
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| Saw Mt. Rainier from the airplane. Unfortunately, the national parks were a little too far to travel on this trip. |
Here was our lengthy summer bucket list.
Lemonade stand (this has been on their list for three summers now and I refuse to do it. Maybe next year.)
Grow flowers- we didn't do much in the garden this summer.
Make popsicles- I even bought the mold things for it and didn't do it.
Ice skating- the only place for this is downtown at a really busy mall (and expensive) so we didn't go
Otherwise, we did everything else. We were busy!
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| We fit in a trip to the Space Center with cousin Caleb. |
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| The caves |
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| Tie dying socks instead of shirts. Their tie-dye shirts from last year still fit. |
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| Fairy Trail park |
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| Olympic ring pizza |
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| We learned more about Japan and made sushi (candy kind), origami, cherry blossom paintings, etc. |
