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!

Oh My, August

 I was about to hit the sack, and realized it's the last day of the month! 

Another busy one, but we've been able to stick around home this month, which has been really needed and nice. 

Nils had a birthday! We had a few friends over for dinner and s'mores the night before his birthday (Saturday), and it was delightful. Roasting marshmallows is magical. Roasting marshmallows with fun friends is even more magical! 

His birthday was on a Sunday, and he had to bishop all day, but he did manage to get in his weird combination of favorite snacky foods. 

Young Men's camp happened, and they did all sorts of things. I think that's Nils rappelling; I recognize his clothes. :) 

Aani and Ava found a praying mantis after church last Sunday and played with it for a really long time. 

Nils and I fulfilled a years long wish of mine on Monday: riding the ski lift at Sundance up to the very top and eating nachos at the restaurant up there. It was great fun. Perfect day date. I love nachos. I love Nils. I love riding ski lifts up the mountain in the summer. 

This morning, we floated the Provo River for a Young Women activity. We had all kinds of adventures. No one was injured too badly, let's just say that. 

Bishop and Stake Presidency member riding in the bed of the truck with the cover on to go fetch the other cars at the top of the river. It's a long story. 

Look what arrived! We did a live stream and everything. 

After a summer that felt like a blip, school started for these two. Freshman year for the Flave.

Senior Year! 

Nils and I got our teeth whitened. That was fun. 

We have all manner of pestilence right now at our house. Mice, voles, spiders, mayflies, mosquitos, you name it. This hawk has been hanging around, and we love her because she eats all the things. We named her Hawkie because we are incredibly creative. 

We've also had quite a lot of hail storms, and crazy microburst rainstorms this month.

Things are good. Life is busy. 

Once sentence update on the kids:

Anders is working for us now as a production assistant and it seems to be going well; he's good at a lot of the things we need help with. 

Addie crochets a ton, made a legit quilt this week because she decided she wanted to do that, and is wrapping up the outdoor pool season.

Aani is also finishing up the outdoor pool season, has only a couple of classes at school and is on the waitlist for hair school.

Ava goes to school like a normal kid, just started fall tennis season, and is impressively always up for anything and everything. 

Okay, time to go to bed for real. 

1 Million and Vacation Month

We went on a 6 day cruise with Kevin and Tonya at the beginning of the month, and it was muy fun! We had 2 days in Cabo, 2 days at sea, and 1 day in Ensenada. This was Kevin and Tonya's first cruise, so we hoped to show them the joys of cruising. We had tons of fun and basically talked for 6 days straight, had late nights playing cards, doing excursions, eating excessive amounts of soft serve, and learned that the Pacific Ocean is cold. I don't know why that was new information, but all the days at sea were pretty chilly!

We had an all-day tour in Ensenada. We drove out to La Bufadora, walked through the crazy market to get there, did a couple of stops at notable places in Ensensada, like an old prohibition era casino and a winery. We were on a bus a lot with a tour guide that literally talked the entire time. It was impressive. Ensenada is not that exciting, but the tour guide managed to talk about it non-stop. "There's a Costco- we love American franchises!" Same.

 

Pina Colada in the crazy market- Nils asked for a refill and was granted one. 

Aw, the towel animals were so cute. 

Our first day in Cabo, we did an excursion through the cruise. The things we did were fun, but the lady who was shuttling us around was a real pill. Her name was Bernice and she was clearly very stressed out and made us feel like cattle being herded. Bernice didn't get a tip from us, no sir. 

On our second day, we did a walking taco tour that we found ourselves, and it was nice to not have Bernice there. We had so many tacos, we could hardly eat any bites by the end. 

El Arco boat ride

Chocolate melting cake, creme brulee! And they even had GF chocolate melting cake! Love them.

We showed up to Kevin and Tonya's house on the morning of our flight, and were greeted by their doggies, Brinx and Milo. It made us laugh. 

First look at the ship! 

Our last towel animal of the cruise. 

Got this amazing shirt from the taco tour. 

Kevin and Tonya taught us how to play golf with cards. 

IYKYK- this is my motto. Hookin' and cookin'. I don't know how they knew I would be in town to set this sign out for me! 

We loved our waiters, Edwin and Lilir.

We got home from our cruise, and had a week in between to recover and then we all hit Bear Lake with the kids and their grandkiddies. We had all the fun. The weather was great, the lake was beautiful, we beached, we boated, we pickle balled, went on walks, had chill time, ate a lot of shakes, played Bunco, did a 500 piece puzzle and a 1000 piece puzzle, listened to little children talk and scream and be funny. 'Twas great. 

Magnolia or "Maggie"

This kid- living his best life. Napping on a boat with a fry hanging out of his mouth. Mr. Hayes. 

Anders and Baby Jane.

We were all a bunch of puzzle freaks!

I never saw a pizza this big! 

Shakes for days! 

Lennon or "Lenny"

Aani and Ava went to FSY in St. George while we were on our cruise. They had a great time and loved it. There were a few things that tried to make it difficult to get there, but they made it. I have a friend who lives there who was kind enough to make sure they could park the car at her house, and then dropped them off and picked them up when they were done. Without her, it wouldn't have happened, so we are all very thankful to her. 

Ava had tennis camp the first week of the month, and then Aani and Ava had girls camp a couple of weeks later. It's been so busy. 

Addie has been working tons and tons at the pool, and was thrilled to have a week off to spend at Bear Lake getting paid to not work. Anders has finished up contract work, just started a new sales job, is scrambling to make the mini truck business viable- it's a lot. Prayers are always appreciated. 

And, last but not least, this milestone was achieved a couple of days ago: 

Thanks, Anders:

Boy oh boy! Subscribers are a vanity metric, but this is a pretty big milestone. Now we just gotta keep trying to make good content that subs will want to watch! 

We have a whole month where we're not traveling. Imagine that. We're hoping to get some projects done around the house and garage/shop, and regroup with strategies and workload. And then there's all the church stuff. It's fine! 

Peace out! Thanks for reading!