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!

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.