Dinosaur Museum

Ryan and I are part of a group of mothers that do fieldtrip friday's. We all have preschool aged kids and younger that we try and go and do activities with. Sometimes it's something like the discovery park in Pleasant Grove, or the park down the street. Sometimes it's the Bean Museum at BYU and the Farm at Thanksgiving point. We've done lots of fun things that are not always expensive. One Friday in November we went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point, which was a first for Ryan and I. We've talked about going as a family but just haven't done it yet. Ethan ended up going with his school class the next week. Anyway, it's a fun place. First picture is Ryan standing between the t-rex's toes. At one point he was tickling the toes. Kinda funny. The next picture Ryan is opening his mouth as big as he can like the shark. And the third picture Ryan is looking for bones with his brush. We had a blast. We will for sure be going back as a family.

Ethan's Piano Duet Festival

Ethan back in November had a piano festival that he had been practicing for months for. Towards the end there it was all i could do to get him to play the pieces 2 or 3 times each day. He was ready to move on to something else. He and his duet partner William did a great job. They got 34 out of 36 points. Ethan decided to look over to watch us watching him and got messed up for a measure, but other than that they did perfect. I'm going to try this posting video thing for one of the two songs they played. Plus it's fitting to have this posted to the blog for this time of year.

One more halloween pic

This is the only family picture of us on Halloween. Ethan went as a ninja, Sam went as Superman, and Ryan wanted to wear his ninja costume again. I went as the tooth fairy and Blake went as Elton John. So we went as a couple of fairies. (hehehehe)

Happy Halloween

Halloween Party

One more leaf party

Shortly after we got all our leaves cleaned up, Jeremy Stevenson (our neighbor's across the street) came with his two little boys to help his dad get all the leaves cleaned up in their yard. Ethan, Sam, and Ryan had all come over to help earlier in that same day to make a pile but we didn't get back over to finish it up so Jeremy got to do it. Jeremy's little boy Talmage the same age as Ryan and has come over to play several times when he comes to his Grandpa Ford's house. So when Ryan saw him across the street he wanted to go play with Talmage. They sure had fun. It makes us excited for when Talmage will be moving in across the street in April next year. Ryan will love to have another little buddy to play with. And for those of you that know the Stevenson family will definitely see the resemblance.

Here fishy, fishy....

Friday evening before General Conference Darin (Lori's brother) called to see if Blake and the boys wanted to join he and Casey (Lori's cousin/other brother) and maybe Nathan (Lori's other brother) and his boys in an early morning fishing trip. It didn't take much to convince Blake that he and the boys would love to go, but the early hour that they were going was what blake was concerned about. The boys sometimes don't do so well at the crack of dawn so blake said that he's just head up once the boys were up and moving. Just so happens that little boys can sense when there is an opportunity to sleep in and that's when they don't sleep in at all, in fact they wake up earlier than they do on other days of the week when they have to get up for school. (Can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?)
Anyway, Blake got the boys up and moving and dressed warm and packed some fire wood and chairs and headed out. Nathan and his boys went up at the crack of dawn and had just left before Blake and the boys got there since it was too cold. (that's why blake packed the fire wood.)
So when Blake got there they got a fire going and started to fish. At that point no one had caught anything. (so see getting up that early didn't make the fish bite either--they like to sleep in too from time to time.) They ended up catching 5 fish all together. Ethan, Sam and Ryan caught one a piece and then Darin and Casey caught the other two.
After a few hours Blake packed the boys up and headed down the canyon and ended up having a blow out on a new tire and called me about 5 minutes up the canyon. So i headed up to retrieve the boys and to follow him to the big o. Blake had just had the tired replaced 4 days before so he wasn't too happy about the blow out and big o was understanding to the frustration and replaced his tire only charging him the mounting fee. But by the time blake got home and the boys were out of the shower Casey and Darin were showing up to clean the fish and grill them (since fresh fish grilled is TONS better than frozen or day old fish). it ended up being an impromptu family lunch between sessions and Pat (lori's aunt) and Kali (darin's wife) came and enjoyed the fish.

I think everyone had a great time (despite the tire blowout) and it may become a new family tradition to go fishing on General Conference weekend. After all aren't we supposed to be "fishers of men."