Lia's First Cross Country Meet

For years, Lia has looked up to several of her older cousins who have been runners and participated in their schools' cross country and track programs.  As a result, Lia has always expressed an interest in competing in these sports once she was old enough.  At the end of her 5th grade year, Lia finally was able to participate in her elementary school's track program that ran April through June of that year.  However, during her second week of practices, Lia's coach asked the kids do the long jump for the first time.  With little to no coaching on how to properly land in the sand pit, Lia landed wrong and sprained her ankle.  This began a two-year process of healing that was very frustrating and disheartening at times.  Although it was a disappointment to have her 6th grade year of track cancelled due to the pandemic, it also was a relief to us as her ankle still was bothering her.  After multiple doctor's appointments (including two with a children's orthopedic doctor), two sets of x-rays, and hundreds of hours in physical therapy, her ankle finally healed last spring in time for her to participate in her school's, 4-week, intramural track program that was held the last month of school.  Lia and I were both so relieved that her ankle did not bother her the entire time.  And although Lia didn't know anyone when she showed up for the first day of practice, she luckily met one girl, named Abby, who became her friend throughout this shortened season.

Fast forward to this fall, Lia was planning on participating in the cross country season with one of her few friends from church who also attends the same junior high.  We were very disappointed to find out a few weeks before school that her friend has changed her mind and decided not to participate.  Although Lia was hesitant to turn out for this sport without her, I insisted that she give it a try since I knew that it would help her to meet people and become more involved in a school where she barely knew anyone.  The first day of practice, Lia was so nervous and totally did not want to go.  She kept on begging me to let her quit, but I refused to give in.  I hoped and prayed that she would meet some friends and grow to love this sport.  Luckily, when she showed up on the first day of practice on Sept 7th, she found the same friend, Abby, who she had gotten to know during the track season last spring.  And within a matter of days, she quickly became friends with a lovely group of other 8th grade girls--even providing two new friends to eat lunch with in the cafeteria on a daily basis.  A month later, I am so relieved to report that Lia leaves happily for school every morning and never complains about staying after school for two extra hours to practice with her cross country team.  She has run her heart out, running several miles a week and has gone from not being able to run the 2-mile course without stopping to being one of the fastest runners on her team.  

With all of this progress that she has made over the past month, Lia was still unbelievably nervous about competing in her first meet today.  She was so afraid that she would be the last girl to finish and that it would be an awful experience.  She had a total melt down at breakfast with me this morning.  After giving her several words of encouragement and saying a prayer with her, I sent her out the door this morning with a prayer in my heart that this first meet would be a positive experience for her.  After watching the rain fall all day long, I woke Emmett up early from his nap and drove to the junior high downtown where this meet was being held.  As luck would have it, the rain miraculously stopped right after we arrived.  Ron was able to slip away early from work and met us in the school parking lot right as we pulled up.  Emmett, Ron, and me then walked out to the track where we found Lia warming up with the rest of the girls on her team.  After saying a brief 'hello' to her, Lia and her team soon lined up on the track with the other team to begin the 2-mile course around the campus.  After the bell went off, we had so much fun cheering her on every time she ran by us (which was a few different times).  We were so pleased that Lia came in 4th place out of her team and in 9th place (out of 26 girls).  She ran the two miles in 15 minutes and 52 seconds with was a PR for her.  Lia was so relieved and pleased with her progress.  It was so nice to see her gain some confidence and have some success by pushing herself to do something difficult and out of her comfort zone!  Afterwards, we were able to meet a few of these new friends that she met at school and congratulate Lia before saying goodbye and heading home.  One cross country meet down and five more to go!  I can't wait to watch her run in several more races!  

Lia lining up with the rest of the runners at the starting line.

And they're off!  Lia and the rest of the pack taking off after the bell was rung.

Lia running with the pack.

Lia running right past us at the beginning of the race.

Lia running her past us during her second loop of the race.

A close-up of our girl as she ran right past us a second time.

Lia crossing the finish line at the end of the race.

Our proud runner giving me a smile after the race was complete!

Lia talking with a few of her friends (Jacqueline, Heather, and Erica) after the race was over.  It seriously just warmed my heart to see her laughing and talking with her friends afterwards.

Cold Mouth

Both Logan and Ella have done a wonderful job playing with Emmett all of these many months that we have been home together during the pandemic.  Although they are both now going to school full-time in person, Logan and Ella find time most mornings before leaving to play with Emmett.  Often times, these games revolve around pillow piles and their favorite blankets that they all sleep with each night.  This past weekend, Logan and Emmett were playing in their room.  At one point, Logan laid Emmett down on his bed and began to put his blankets on top of Emmett.  This must have reminded Emmett how he usually cuddles his blankets in his own crib with his ya-ya.  As a result, Emmett asked Logan if he could get one of his pacifiers and his blankets.  Since we have a pretty strict rule in this house that all pacifiers stay inside the crib after our babies turn one, Emmett sometimes tries to think of creative ways to get one to suck on outside of his designated nap and night time.  After Logan told him that he could have his blanket but not his ya-ya, Emmett sadly replied, "But my mouth is cold" as if a pacifier is like the blanket to a mouth!  Oh that boy!  How funny and persuasive he can be!

Ella's 1st Soccer Game!

It is no secret that Ella is our most athletic, coordinated, aggressive, and fearless child of our older three.  It is just the way that she came wired and we had nothing to do with it.  As a result, she has always been the most willing to try new things at an age when her older silbings were still very timid and sometimes unwilling.  Although Ella has been involved in ballet, tap, gymnastics, and swim lessons over the years, we have never put her in a team sport until now.  After expressing an interest in playing soccer with two of her friends, I enrolled Ella last Spring to play in a rec soccer program this fall.  In addition, we added piano to the schedule (also par Ella's request) and kept her in gymnastics, but pulled her out of ballet until her soccer season is over.  Needless to say, Ella is very busy right now and keeping me very busy driving her to and from her activities in the afternoons and evenings.  

With all of that said, I have been wondering how Ella would do playing soccer.  Due to the qualities that I already mentioned that she was born with, I had a hunch that she might take to the game of soccer like a duck to water.  Although she missed her first game due to rolling her ankle pretty badly on our neighbor's trampoline, Ella was able to return to soccer after taking a week off and was able to play in her team's second game of the season today.  We had to drive all the way out to University Place and enjoyed watching her from the sidelines on a very sunny morning.  And as I expected, Ella was AMAZING!  Although she is playing with other girls who have participated in soccer for one or two years already, she simply dominated the field.  She played so aggressively and was all over the ball.  When she was on offense, anywhere the ball went, she was at the front of the pack chasing it down and kicking it. Whenever the ball rolled out of bounds, she was the first one to run out and pick it up.  And whenever the ball came to her when she played defense, she would quickly quick it back out to the other side.  She even scored a goal and seriously made seven other attempts--some of which were so close!  I have never in my mother career watched a child of mine play like this and, I must admit, it was really fun to root her on!  At one point, her coach was standing next to me and said in utter disbelief, "She is so fast!" and "She is totally fearless!"  This comes as a total compliment since her coach is a former college athlete and currently a high school P.E. teacher and has coached his two children in their own sports for years!  So, he clearly has seen his fair share of child athletes.  Anyways, it just was amazing to watch Ella play her first game and to cheer her on from the sidelines.  I am already wondering if ballet and gymnastics are not going to be her thing (but she can do all THREE splits perfectly) and if we need to put her in soccer year round.  Oh dear, we've just never had this "problem" before...

Here are some of the many pictures I took during Ella's game of her running her heart out and chasing after the ball.  Her face was so flushed and pink at the end from all of her running that Ella thought she had gotten a sunburn!  What a cute, little athlete she is!

 

It's Fair Time Again!

It's that time of year when the kids go back to school, the leaves begin to change colors, and the Washington State Fair takes over our town for several weeks! Since going to this fair is not my favorite thing to do, I opted out many years ago and have happily let Ron take the older kids for a morning or afternoon while I have stayed behind with a napping baby or toddler.  After being able to do this for several years, Ron informed me that he would not be taking the kids this year on the one Saturday that we were available to go (after back-to-back camping trips and my trip to Utah the first three weekends in September).  After thinking it over for a few days, I realized that I just needed to suck it up and decided to take all four kids by myself on Friday evening after everyone got home from school.  After leaving our house around 4:30, I was so pleased to find a free parking spot less than two blocks away from the fair (it helps to be a local who knows where to look)!  The five of us headed into the fairgrounds by 5 p.m. and ended up spending a really fun and enjoyable 3.5 hours there.  Lia was a huge help pushing Emmett around in the stroller most of the evening and the four kids really had a great time riding rides, looking at animals, and eating fair food with me.  Emmett was totally agreeable and pleasant and was just as easy to manage as the older three kiddos.  I was pleasantly surprised by how fun the entire evening turned out and laughed when we pulled up for dinner at our house at 8:30 p.m. (after picking up Dominoes pizza on the way home) after Ron had already fallen asleep in bed! Just call us fair party animals!

First stop after entering the fairgrounds and purchasing our ride tickets was OF COURSE the giant, yellow slide that we all love to go on!  However, since the ride cost 9 whoppin' tickets and I had four kids with me for the first time ever, I asked Lia to take Emmett down on her lap instead of going myself.  Logan was the first one to come down!

Ella was the second one down!  Normally a total daredevil, Ella was not happy with how scary and fast this slide was which was a a total shock to me.

Lia came down last with a happy Emmett who was grinning from ear to ear.  He immediately finished and asked to go again.

Since I had already spent $45 dollars on ride tickets, the kids were only allowed to do one more ride before we used all of them up (the downside of bringing four kids to the fair).  We chose to ride the carousel since we knew Emmett would love it so much.  Here is Ella ready to go!

Logan and Lia side by side.

Cute Emmy waiting to go.  He had so much fun on this ride that I really felt bad that we weren't going on any more.  But since rides are so overpriced and Sillyville is my least favorite area of the fairgrounds, it was not a touch decision to call it quits after our second ride and move on to the next activity of the night.

We then wandered over to the free, face painting area that we have loved and enjoyed for so many years.  Thanks to Covid, they were only offering "arm painting" which we thought was just as cool as face painting.  Here is Ella getting a horse painted on her arm.

Logan chose a cool looking dragon for his arm.

Emmett, of course, had to have a choo choo to get painted on his arm.

And although Lia is no longer twelve years old, we basically lied to get her in one last year as there is no way she will pass as a 12-year old next year!

All four kids proudly showing off their "arm art."

We then walked over to another one of our favorite areas of the fair--the free and fabulous Farm at Sillyville with the tractor tracks.  Here is Ella posing with a giant-sized pear!

The kids were given an old-school, metal lunch box and asked to travel to different buildings on the farm to gather farm-grown produce to take to a "store" at the end before receiving a treat.  It was a neat way to teach children the process of how food goes from the farms to shore shelves.  Here are all of the kids picking apples off of a tree.

Emmett turning in his eggs after collecting them from a hen house.

Ella pretending to walk out of the hen house on the ramp.

Emmett driving a miniature sized, combine harvester in the wheat building.

The kids playing on the tractors after finishing with the farm-to-store, food experience.

Lia was kind enough to help Emmett go around the race course on his pedal tractor.

Ella stopping for a picture under the water fountain tunnel.

We also stretched the truth a bit and said that Logan was still 8-years old so that he could cruise around on a tractor one more time.  After seeing how hard it was for him to pedal his tractor with his long legs, we realized why the age limit only goes up to 8 years.

After visiting the Farm at Sillyville, we pushed Emmett through several barns so that he could enjoy seeing some of the animals like the sheep, goats, cows, horses, chickens and ducks, bunnies, and pigs.  He was fascinated by all of them.  Here are the three younger kids and me posing in front of a life size statue of a draft horse in the barn full of these huge animals!

Ella pretending to walk the horse away.

The stunning sunset that appeared before we left the fair.

After enjoying the rides and the animals, we each got an ice cream treat and shared a giant, elephant ear scone before heading on home.  No fair experience is complete without some delicious ice cream!

A Wedding Weekend in Utah

After I graduated from BYU in 2000, I had several reasons to return to Utah during the six years that I lived in Southern California before moving to Washington in 2007.  At that point, I only returned back to Utah one time for the wedding of a family friend two years later and then I never had another reason to go back.  All of my friends from Utah had gotten married and I since I do not have close family living there, I simply stopped travelling to Utah on a regular basis.  Fast forward several years and it had suddenly been eleven years since I have visited this state that I grew to know and love as a college student.  Although my best friend from high school, Sarah, moved back there ten years ago and bought an amazing house up in the mountains a stone's throw away from the Sundance Ski Resort, I had never visited her there and seen her home.  So, I was thrilled to finally have an excuse to go back when my nephew got engaged to be married in April 2020.  But thanks to the pandemic and almost everything being shut down in March 2020, Spencer's wedding went from a giant celebration with every single member of our family attending to a tiny, 10-person wedding on the grounds of Salt Lake City capitol building.  It was such a disappointment and just one more thing to add to the long list of plans that were cancelled during the spring of 2020.

Fast forward 1.5 years, Spencer and Hannah finally were able to get sealed in the Oquirrh Mountain temple just Southwest of Salt Lake City.  After waiting many months, they finally were allowed to have a temple marriage and reception big enough to invite everyone who wanted to attend.  After hearing the good news in July, Ron and I decided that it would be best for just me to fly down to Utah since he and the kids would have only started school two weeks earlier.  As sad as it was to leave them all behind, I was secretly excited to have another girls' weekend with Sarah and to get a 48-hour break from all of the chaos and demands in my life that come with being a mother of four children.

I flew out on Friday morning and arrived in Salt Lake City 2.5 hours later than planned (after being stuck on my plane on the tarmac at SeaTac) at 4 in the afternoon.  After finding Sarah outside the airport, we drove back to her house to spend the evening there.  I was able to see her husband, David, who I grew up with and meet her three boys who I haven't seen in years.  I was so blown away by her amazing home and its incredible location that I immediately started making plans to return with my kids for Spring Break.  It is seriously like staying in a fancy and huge VRBO home in the mountains for free!  After eating a delicious dinner of Sarah's homemade, chicken curry, I stayed up late talking to her and David.  After sleeping in on Saturday, Sarah and David treated me to breakfast at the fabulous, Foundry Grill at the Sundance Resort.  I then borrowed their car and drove North to spend the rest of the day! I visited an old BYU roommate who I haven't seen in over 20 years and who lives less than five minutes from the Oquirrh Mountain temple.  I then rushed off to the temple to attend Spencer's and Hannah's sealing at 2:30.  It was so wonderful to be able to see this sweet couple sealed and to hear the wonderful words of the sealer who is a dear friend of my parents.  After their sealing and some pictures outside the temple in the crazy wind, I raced off to meet my good friend, Emily, who I have known since my HB days for dinner at an Indian restaurant less than five minutes from the reception.  After talking and laughing nonstop with her for two hours, I drove back to the church where the wedding reception was held and enjoyed talking to one of my cousins and his wife who I haven't seen in years in addition to spending some more time with my family.  After a very long day, I drove up the dark and winding Provo and Sundance canyons and arrived back at Sarah's house at 10:30 that night.

After sleeping in again on Sunday morning and eating Sarah's delicious, buttermilk pancakes for breakfast, I decided to cancel on my last "engagement" that I had arranged with a friend in Spanish Fork and just spent a wonderful and relaxing morning up in Sundance with Sarah.  She took me on a beautiful drive of the Alpine Loop above their home and then treated me to lunch before I packed up and headed out at 3 pm. to catch my 5:45 flight.  It was such a wonderful and fun weekend and I am so grateful that I was able to be a part of Spencer's long-awaited and special day and to spend more time with Sarah in her beautiful home in Sundance.  I can't wait to return with my gaggle of kids in tow this spring!

The beautiful, rustic house I pulled up to with Sarah on Friday afternoon.

Sarah and I waiting outside the restaurant at Sundance on Saturday morning.

Enjoying a delicious breakfast with Sarah and David.

Standing on the bridge next to the ski lifts at Sundance after breakfast.

Spencer and Hannah triumphantly walking out of the temple after their sealing on Saturday afternoon!

Hannah, Spencer, and the beautiful Oquirrh Mountain temple.

My brother, Brent, and his darling family.

My mom and me with Brent's family.

Sitting next to the flowers while the wedding couple finished taking pictures.

Enjoying Indian food with Emily after the wedding.

Posing with the bridal couple at their outdoor reception that evening.

Posing at the top of Sarah's street on Sunday morning!  This incredible view is literally up the road from her house and is of the backside of Mount Timpanogos.

One of the several stunning views we stopped to look at on Sunday morning during our drive on the Alpine Loop.

The stunning "white forest" of Alpine trees we drove through.

Sarah and I stopped for a photo on the side of the road and were photo bombed by the dog who belonged to the man who took our picture.

One last picture of Sarah and me back at her home before heading to the airport!