December 4, 2016

Halloween was fun.  Danny didn't dress up.  He went to a teenager party hosted by a family in our ward.  Rachel and Ruby were both Pikachu. Pokemon go is big in our house.  Aaron was his scream costume again and Seth was a Ghostbuster.  The new ghostbuster movie came out and Seth has been on a kick ever since. Actually I guess he was before it came out. He really liked 1 and 2 also.

Rachel started volleyball with a friend from church.  It's just a lesson once a week.  It's been really nice.  She likes it.  I think it would be really good for her to be able to try out for volleyball in high school.  Now they just tried out for a club team that lasts January to May and it is so expensive.  So we're trying to decide now if it's worth it and if she really wants it.

Aaron finished flag football.  He has such a good time on that team. We were so glad his coach decided to do flag football again this year. Danny finished ballerz for a while.  They take off the winter while they play for the school team. His school team is talking about practicing year round.  So that will be a hard choice for him if he has to choose between school and club.  He's been with ballerz for a long time and they are so great. Seth just started basketball.  He didn't do a sport in the fall.  He's loving basketball because he's one of the better players since he's older and his brothers have worked with him a little.  Ruby and Rachel are doing dance again.  We love their close, little, low-key studio.  Ruby is starting to do really well.  She still complains a little when I pull her away from playing to take her to class.  But she memorized their dance months ago and she practices it everywhere.  It makes me so happy!

We went to Austin to visit Casey and Kami over Veteran's day weekend.  We had a great time.  That must be a slow time for travel because it's the same weekend I found great tickets to go to San Francisco last year.  We left Wednesday night and flew over night and came home late Sunday night.  So we had 4 full days there.  Thursday when we got to their house, we slept most of the morning. Then we went to the State Capitol in Austin and did a little tour.  It was pretty.  Then we went to a military museum.  It was cool, but we only had 20 minutes before they closed.  We walked around outside and saw the tanks.  Then we found a workout playground place.  The kids thought that was great and we stayed there a while. Then we ate barbeque for dinner.  Friday we went to San Antonio. We went to the Alamo, which was impressive and fun, but very crowded since it was Veterans Day. Then we went and saw the River Walk.  That was really fun.  We had great weather while we were there.  We ate ice cream there.  Then we drove back and ate at our favorite monte cristo place, Cheddars. And we picked up a cake and ice cream and went back to Casey's to celebrate Ruby's birthday. Saturday we went to a fun park with Casey and Kami. Then the kids babysat and the adults went out to dinner that night.  Sunday we went to church.  We did our vacation church and had a testimony meeting with them in their backyard.  After lunch we went of a long walk on a trail by their house that went by 2 parks.  A man at the park introduced us to pineapple guava that were growing there.  We took some home and tried them.  They were good.

Danny tried out for high school basketball and made varsity as a freshman.  Their coach is new and he came from coaching basketball at a regular high school so he runs everything just like a regular school would.  It's so great.  The only problem so far was that Danny had 2 F's and a D. So he's had to work really hard to get those grades up.  I'm glad for some more motivation for him because Bob and I have been working on getting him to do better all year and it hasn't helped.

For Thanksgiving we got the whole week off this year.  That was great.  We stayed home monday and Tuesday and those days were full of taking kids to extra practices and I took a group of girls to do baptisms at the temple.  When I was at the temple a little while ago I was praying about when the Lord wants me to do and I felt prompted to help the youth get to the temple and to help Bob's sister get to the temple more.

We left Tuesday night for Ryan's house.  Wednesday we went to Magic Mountain with them because they had free passes.  We had a lot of fun, but it got really cold and windy toward the end of the day. It's nice that it's so close to their house and we don't have to pay anything to go.  Thursday we made the food and went to the park.  We ate around 3 when Kristal and Dan got there.  Then we went to see the new Disney movie Moana.  Friday we went to the beach.  It was a really nice day there.  Aaron and Seth got in the water.  It was hard to keep them out when it was as warm as it is some days in the summer there.  They played on the playground too and we ate a picnic.  That night we went to Chuck E Cheese for Ella's birthday.  Saturday morning my kids babysat and all the adults went to the LA temple.  I've never done a session there.  It was nice.  Then we had plans to go ice skating that afternoon before we headed back but we were too slow and then it started raining and we didn't want to get into traffic so we just drove home.