Kristen's Halloween

Kristen came up with the idea of going as characters from the Wizard of Oz with her friend group.  She really wanted to be Dorothy.  However, when she proposed the idea, one of the other friends jumped in with, "I want to be Dorothy."  Kristen was gracious enough to let the other girl be Dorothy and decided to be the Cowardly Lion instead.  (The costume she used was so much easier too).

Kristen and Maggie (Tin Man) headed out earlier for Trick or Treating since the other girls weren't ready until 7 pm.

Amy Being Sick

Amy was sick most of last week.  As much as she tried to ward off getting sick, it finally grabbed hold and stuck.  She was sick for most of the week and lamented how "unfun" it was to be sick on one's own.  So glad she is finally feeling better.

Misha's Halloween Costume

Misha and friends dressed up in the style of Grease.  Misha was one of the Pink Ladies and her friend, Sam, was Danny.

Brain Project

Misha had an extra credit project for her AP Psych class to bake and decorate a cake to look like a brain and then label all of the parts.  She even made her cake from scratch.

The finished product

Sassy Lashes

Amy ordered some business cards to hand out for her new lash extension business.  Pretty fancy.

Misha's AP Art

Misha is working to build her AP Art Portfolio.  This is a recent painting she created from a picture I took in Paris along the Seine.

Pancake Shapes

Kristen filled up a ketchup squirt bottle with pancake batter and was pretty thrilled with the outcome of her Halloween-shaped pancakes.

College FHE Halloween Party

So, Amy and her roommates dressed up one more time for their FHE Halloween Party.  Amy said she went for the food.  Hey, I'm all for any opportunity to get out of making a meal.

I am so glad that she has roommates that she can have fun with.

Making the Most of our Saturday

Chris and I were invited to a sealing at the Ft. Collins temple on Saturday.  We tried to maximize our time since the whole day was busy.  We dropped off the jet ski for a tune up in Ft. Collins, bought rolls and pies for the Ward Halloween Party at Costco, found a cute dress for Kristen at Target, checked out the Deseret Book affiliate store, and attended the temple.

Kristen came with us and we dropped her off in the baptistry while Chris and I attended the sealing of Nathan and Sarah Schmitz.  Nathan's mom is my good friend.  We serve together in the Relief Society Presidency.

We had to pick up the jet ski before heading home.  Not too much downtime since we then had to be to the church by 4 pm to set up for the ward party.  Here's hoping for a quieter Saturday next weekend.

I forgot to include Misha.  She took the ACT test and had to be in Longmont before 8 am on Saturday morning.  Fingers crossed for a great score!

Ward Party

Somehow, being in charge of the ward party became my responsibility on Friday evening.  It was on Saturday evening.  Fortunately, there were a lot of people and kids who were awesome at helping with the set up, games, fire pit, and food.  The gym was full of people--some in costumes--and an over abundance of food.

I asked friends to take some pictures for me.  I thought the young men's "whack-a-mole" game was ingenious.  You really have to click on the picture below to enlarge it and see the expressions on the boys' faces.  Priceless.

Chris and his friends in the Elder's Quorum were more than happy to hang out around the fire pits all evening.

Amy Halloween Costume

Amy and two of her roommates created some awesome costumes for a Halloween party.  They were the Aliens from Toy Story.

"You saved our lives.  We are eternally grateful."

Escape Room Success

Chris and I along with our friends David and Jamie had so much fun trying to escape from the "Lost City" escape room.  The name "Lost City" didn't really have much to do with the room we were in since we were trying to escape from a hi-jacked submarine, but managed to figure out the clues (with only a little help) and unlock the door with nine minutes to spare.

It was nice working together.  The guys figured some stuff out that I never would have and Jamie and I were both successful with other clues.

One of these people is a whole lot shorter than the others!

Fire Me Please and a New Job

If you remember from an earlier post, Chris' company was in the process of being bought out by another larger company.  Chris had zero desire to work for the new company and requested to be put on the "do not retain" list, otherwise known as "the fire list".  Being on the list would give him a severance package and was optimal.  Since he had already been planning to leave CA, it just seemed as though the timing couldn't have been better.

A couple of weeks ago, Chris was joking with a friend of his who works in Human Resources, "Well, at least I am still on the 'fire list'".  After checking, his friend, Guy, replied, "Uh Chris, you're not anymore."  That meant that someone wanted to keep him at Broadcom.  CRAP!!!  It took about a week of much stress, higher ups asking questions and suggesting that a mistake had been made, and finally receiving the text from Guy that we had been hoping and praying for:  "You're FIRED!!"

Chris has never been so happy to be fired (not that it has ever happened before).  Whew.  We have a few more days until the sale is final, so fingers crossed no more changes will be made to the fire list. 

Lexi Photo Shoot

My friend Jamie asked if I would take some senior photos of her daughter since an early snow storm cancelled their photo shoot with another photographer and that photographer didn't have any openings before the school yearbook submission deadline.  I was fairly nervous to take the pictures, but hoped they would turn out well.  It was overcast and the sun was setting fast so we didn't light for as long as I would have liked.

Lexi John

Selective Eating

Why is it that I can eat chicken or beef, but if you tell me that I am eating a rabbit or lamb...I just can't do it?

Last Fire Pit of the Season

We had some lovely weather compared to the snow and freezing temperatures of last weekend.  This weekend was beautiful, sunny, and warm.  It was the perfect time to have a Sunday evening fire pit with friends and the sunset was pretty awesome as well.

The little kids loved it and were pretty sad when parents said it was time to go home.

Amy and the Haunted Maze

I couldn't sleep the other night since I had dozed at 9:00 pm when I was so tired.  I ended up reading a book until midnight and talking to Amy while she was hanging out with her roommates at a haunted maze. 

She was a little traumatized by the scary bunny clown chainsaw guy that chased her the whole time.  This bunny was a nice "scary" bunny.  The other bunny was in a full on bunny suit.  The things some do for fun.

Outdoor Electricity

Chris and I decided to add electrical lines to the bollards in the front yard since the solar lights weren't all that effective.  Our friend Spencer Jesse has been doing the work for us and created a system that will allow for electric lights on the bollards (pillars), electricity for a future garage, and uplighting on the house and trees in the front yard.

We had to dig up some of the landscaping to run the lines, but once put back together, it should look pretty great.

Tulips

I LOVE tulips in the Spring.  I do NOT love planting tulips in the Fall.  My friend, Loni, gave me a bag of tulips last month and then I was all ambitious and bought a huge bag of bulbs from Costco--90 bulbs to be exact.

I decided to plant the bulbs around the island in the middle of our driveway.  In order to plant, I first had to pull all of the mulch back, cut through the weed fabric, and then dig 120 holes.  Ughghgh.  My poor hand is sporting a blister today, but like Chris said, "Just think of how beautiful it will look in the Spring."

Unpicking Seams

When I was learning to sew as a young girl, my mom was pretty insistent on doing it right.  If a seam wasn't quite right, she encouraged me to take the time to pick out the seam and redo it.  Unpicking was my least favorite thing about sewing.  Perhaps that is why she is the awesome seamstress today.  I can sew, but I don't have a passion for it.

So, when I began to teach my girls some sewing and they took some classes from friends, unpicking seams quickly became their least favorite thing to do.  I always tried to encourage them to take pride in their work and to do it right; I'm pretty sure I have had that conversation with all three of my girls.

I was fixing some curtains for my bedroom and had to hem them.  I was just eyeballing things and when I went to hang the curtains, they were just a little too long.  The words, "Do it right," ran through my head, and though I didn't want to, I unpicked seams from the two curtains I had just hemmed.

I took a picture and sent it Kristen so that she could see that even I had to unpick seams at times to make it look the best it could.

Chris' Birthday

He had another birthday!  We are always excited to celebrate Christopher.  He is such a blessing to our family and we are grateful for all that he does to bring happiness and laughter to our home.  Last year when Chris and I were in Australia, we saw an epitaph on a bench written by a family about their father:  "He made us laugh."

Christopher you make us laugh all of the time, and we love you for it.

Amy joined us via Facetime to sing "Happy Birthday".  I think she was just mouthing the words.

A new helmet from his dad.  Gotta protect that head!

Fall Break in Utah - 5

We stayed at a hotel in Layton closer to Julie and Patrick Ransom on Sunday evening so that we could visit with them on Monday before our flight later in the afternoon.  Chris, remembering that there was an airplane museum close by that he had not visited, determined that we would spend the morning at Hill Aerospace Museum.  Amy was most thrilled by the F-16s blasting overhead.

Some of my peeps were more thrilled with the museum than others.

Misha was craving "tots" and said we should go to Taco Time for lunch.  We found one between the museum and Julie's house.

Those long arms are good for protecting tots!

We enjoyed time with Patrick and Julie and baby Kelsey.  Her birth was similar to Amy's and ended in an emergency c-section.  Such a tiny little thing...and cute!  My girls and I and Chris enjoyed loving on her.

We headed to the airport around 4 while Amy hung out with Julie and Patrick for a bit before driving back to Idaho.  So good to see my girl.

We all had pre-check and going through security was pretty slick.

As we boarded our Southwest plane, Chris made a bee-line for the lavatory and ended up talking with the flight attendant, asking the tail number of the plane.  This flight attendant had flown with Larry Kline many time over the years and remembered Chris from Larry's final flight.  Jacci had to come up to say hi to all of us and took some pictures, which she then sent to Larry.

Once we were at altitude, an announcement was made, "Would Chris Kline please push his call button? Just want you to know that your suitcase came open, but your batman underwear was put back in the outside pocket!"  It was a joke, but then they announced that it was his birthday and the entire plane sang "Happy Birthday".  The flight attendants made him a pretzel crown and had a good laugh.  We can thank Larry Kline for inspiring the flight attendants and letting them know about the birthday.  Chris loved it.

Fall Break in Utah - 4

Misha didn't spray the waffle pan enough at breakfast and had quite a waffle fail. 

Kristen, on the other hand, created a masterpiece.

We were missing stake conference at home but were fortunate that Chris got the link for us to watch while in Utah.  We didn't want to miss the calling of our new Stake President.  We were pretty sure it was going to be Jarom John.  The meeting really was awesome with the visiting General Authorities and Jarom is the new Stake President.

While we watched conference, Amy applied lashes to Misha's eyes.  Amy enthusiastically yet carefully went with my suggestion of making the lashes long.  Misha was a little, um, surprised by the look.

Chris offered to help with the application process.

All of my girls are sporting lash extensions now and look lovely.

We had a late check-out and left the hotel around 1:45 to drive up to see Susan and Carson and family.  A visit after a quick detour up Provo Canyon to see the Fall colors (while it was snowing lightly and the sun was shining).

We stayed at King's until 4:30 before heading back to Lehi for my dad's 80th and my mom's 77th birthday celebrations.  It was nice to visit with family, eat together, enjoy some pumpkin pie, and listen to my parents share memories.

Wade had his hair braided by Melissa.

My niece (Susan's daughter) announced baby #3.