Nooooooovember

 Howdy Ho!

Ava was Aani's first real person haircut a few weeks ago. It took about 3 hours, probably because the instructors had to approve of every little thing, but Ava's hair was only about 1/4" shorter. I took a nap in the car while this was happening. No room in the salon for spectators! 

Addie at IKEA tonight. More on that below. 

Ava's birthday is tomorrow (Sunday), so she and her friends decided they wanted to go to IKEA. They ate meatballs, got matching stuffed bears, chose a room for everyone, and Aani led the way. She then took them to Swig, where she works now, so that they could get a soda. Aani handled this like a champ for us! Thanks, Aan Aan! Nils, Addie, and I shopped for a new dresser for Addie, and got a cute chair for the great room. 

Aani painted this pumpkin for Halloween and it's been too cute to get rid of. I think the time has come, though, so I had to get a picture of it. 

Just a girl and her pickles. 

Just a dog with a fresh new cut, who is now freezing to death all the time. The kids wrap her up.

A little deacon knocked a piece of bread out of the tray onto the floor, and then picked it up and put it back in the tray. I managed to grab it before he could move on, so it lived on the bench until we could find a trash can. Who knew we could have so many adventures during Sacrament Meeting? 

Addie started EMT school! Long story. She likes it and is actually feeling like she could do this for work. The medical coding thing did not excite her, unfortunately. We're excited to see where this leads! First day of school pic. 

Aani gave Anders a fresh mullet. 

Sad before pic. 

Addie signing up for EMT school. :) 

Nils also freezing, hence the hood, and drinking Guarana.

Aani and I had a little date to Build a Bear. Clearly the coolest kids. 

This week, we had Nils' brother and family here for a few days. It was fun. The day after they left, we hosted my family for Thanksgiving, so it's been a real busy week. I managed to hurt my back somehow, I honestly have no clue, but on Thanksgiving morning, I woke up at 5:00 in pain bad enough that I was crying like a little baby and wondering how in the world I was going to get anything done.  

Nils helped with the last minute shopping, some heavy lifting of the turkey in and out of the oven, and we were able to do Thanksgiving. I didn't take one picture, which is a tragedy. We had cute table decorations, and lots of people here. By the end of the night, my back was feeling a little better. Thanks, ibuprofen and Tylenol! What a crazy day. 

We're launching our first course next Saturday! Fingers crossed! December is also shaping up to be a bit nuts with all of the church things, work things, holidays, oh my. Why life gotta be so crazy? 

Our Wild and Crazy October Adventures

Oh hey! Let's just get some business taken care of before we get to the most picture-heavy part of this post, shall we? 

Big news! After a real roller coaster of events, Aani was offered a spot in the cosmetology program at MTECH at night. The night class is 5 hours a night instead of 8 hours in the day, so it will take longer to complete, but we decided to accept the spot for her so she could get rolling. Otherwise we'd have to wait until January to see if she got a spot. Ugh. She started last week, and is enjoying it so far. We just miss her every night. She also has no classes at the high school except seminary, so that's pretty weird! She said there are two types in her class: Basic white girl, and Emo girl. She likes everyone. :) 

Ava had her first band concert of the year last night. She likes band and playing the clarinet. 

She also finished out her tennis season for fall. Her coach this season was really great. He offered private lessons, which we took advantage of, and Ava improved a whole lot. In fact, she qualified for the state tournament (by winning in region and sectionals)! She wasn't able to play in the state tournament because we were going out of town the night before it was held, but it was still so fun to see how well she did this season. 

Nils and Scott ran the St. George 1/2 marathon and did great! 

         

We took a trip to Orlando for our 1 Million Subscriber Celebration! Universal Orlando/Harry Potter world has been on Nils' wish list for a long time, so we thought we'd go for it, and do Disney while we were at it. We'd never been to either place, so it was a little intimidating. I did a lot of research and tried to understand the WDW ecosystem as best I could before we went. We're Disneyland people, ya know, and they're different in lots of ways. 

ALSO. Hurricane Milton was posing a big threat the week we were supposed to be leaving, so we were pretty uncertain if this trip would even happen. Every couple of hours we would look at our flight status, and it remained "on time" and didn't change ever, even though they closed the Orlando airport for 2 days. The hurricane rolled in on Wednesday night, and by Friday, everything was operating again, so we hopped on our on-time flight and everything was great. We even flew on Spirit for the first time, sort of expecting the worst, but it was actually totally fine.     

Photo Dump:     

2 Days at Universal: 

First time butter beer drinkers. That froth is something special. 

The girls met Gary. 

And Patrick.

We met Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona, and that was really fun. Donkey was talking real-time to everyone and it was very entertaining.

I was fortunate to capture this precious moment as we waiting in line for the Hagrid ride. We were all pretty wiped out- jet lag, getting up super early to get to the park at opening, walking miles and miles and miles. Pooped. When they saw me taking a picture, they stopped this instantly. 

3 Days at Disney: 

We did Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, and Epcot. 

These pictures from the Spaceship Earth ride cracked me right up. 
                                                

Aani in China

Anders looking special at the hotel. 

All the ride pics. We did single rider whenever possible, hence the many strangers. 

Aani in Italy

Aani in Japan

Best picture opp from the pinnacle of Tiana's Bayou Adventure. Hello! 

Oops, a straggler Universal pic.

We had a lot of fun. We didn't love love Universal. The Harry Potter stuff is fun, and they have some good roller coasters, but they have so many virtual reality rides that just make you wanna puke. It was still a good time and a learning experience! 

WDW was fun, we liked it. The parks are so far away from each other, so that's very different from Dland. We rode all the rides we wanted to and managed to not spend too much time in line. We liked the food and treats. We felt like a lot of the rides were 3/4 as good as Disneyland. It could just be our prejudice, but we've heard the same from others as well. Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, etc. are all a little different between the two coasts. Our last park was Epcot, and we had a fun day there doing the things, visiting the different "countries", trying the food, looking at the shops, and then riding the cool rides in the park. Oh yes, I'm just going to say it. The Tron ride in Magic Kingdom is way over hyped. All of our kids love Tron and we were all way excited to do that ride. It needs to be twice as long! If you're going to go to the trouble of building a cool ride, do it right, we said! That's our rant. 

Alright, I think that's about it from this month. Other than the fact that we switched accountants and it's been a bigger deal than we expected. 

Welp, see ya. 

September '24 Adventures

Wasn't it just March? Q4 is upon us, and I can hardly believe it. 

First of all, a Facebook memory: This might make my heart hurt a little. 

The most perfectly roasted marshmallow of all time? Perhaps. 

Nils, Anders and I went to to Dallas for VidSummit. It was pretty good times. Anders did well, considering he knew no one and is totally new to the world of YouTubers. 

Also, here's a cheat sheet for you for when you launch your next product! 

We had to go to Buc-ee's while in Texas. It's large, in charge, and quite an impressive institution. 

We're not a typical family in many ways, including the fact that we never watch sports and really don't care about sports at all. We went to dinner at a sports bar type of place, and these two men-folk were quite engaged with the football game on the TV. It was a new and exciting thing I've never witnessed before with them.

Aani has this little habit of leaving her stuff all over the place. I was cleaning off the kitchen bar and put all of her things by her head so she would maybe remember to put them away.  

Found our family photo wardrobe. Should be a real treasure of a photoshoot.

I looked out the window and saw a box of cereal on the rock wall. I went out to investigate....

and saw that it was being used as target practice for the air soft gun Nils got that day. We have a mouse, vole, and pigeon problem here, and this man has had enough.

Just Pip doin' her thang. 

Sister Runia from the General YW presidency came to speak to the women and YW in our stake. Ava went to talk with her and got a hug. She was so, so nice! She gave an amazing talk that was full of humor and great messages. 

York, Luly, Rubi, Saada, and Parker came to visit this last week. On Saturday, we went to high tea at the Grand America Hotel with them, Nana, and Holland. It was so fancy and fun! 

Addie and Aani and some friends went to the Hozier concert. They had been looking forward to it for months and had lots of fun. 

Just Pip looking over some court documents. She's always in trouble with the law. 

 Now the pictures from Nils' phone! 

A li'l temple trip with Y&L

Parker getting ready for target practice. 

Should we be concerned? 

Nils and I drove down to the Provo temple site a few weeks ago- it's totally empty. So crazy. 

Nils was Lehi at a primary activity. He got hassled by the Sr. primary kids. "Hi Nils. Nice Apple Watch."

Thanks for reading! Wishing you an October to remember!