Making Time for Jack

Our schedule has been a bit hectic of late. We managed to fit in a trip to the pumpkin patch last week but tonight was the first evening when we had time to carve them. Daniel has been so busy that he didn’t even choose a pumpkin this year so our Jack O’Lantern total this year is three. The kiddos went with mostly tradition designs this year. Nathan chose a scary pumpkin face and Malia selected a cat. Only Matthew strayed from the typical and carved a sports car. He got frustrated partway through due to the high level of detail and a few wrong cuts, but some toothpicks helped repair the slips and although he was not terribly pleased with the result, I think it turned out just fine.

Commander-in-Chief

Tonight is pumpkin carving night. Matthew googled “scary pumpkin carving template” and it pulled up this.

Cue laughter.

Poor Jolly!

This year Malia decided to decorate her playhouse for Halloween. She rigged up some fantastic spiderwebs all along the roof line. I went in to check on her after she went to bed last night and discovered this:

Hopefully Jolly doesn’t start having spider related nightmares like I get.😂

What a Wonderful World

Since we drove south to see Daniel’s competition yesterday, we decided to take advantage of our location and traveled home via Zion’s National Park. We only had about half a day to spend in the park, but we rode the shuttle nearly to the top of the park and hiked up to weeping rock. This is the first time I’ve ever been to Zion’s and it was the best time of the year to go. It is far too hot for me in the summer, a migraine inducer to beat no other, so visiting in October was perfect. It was warm enough to go without a jacket as the base of the park and just a tad chilly in the upper reaches. It meant that I was able to do our small hike with no negative after effects. This is truly beautiful country.

After a long day yesterday, sleeping in an unfamiliar bed and an exciting morning, we had some pretty tired kiddos by lunch time. We had considered driving home via Bryce Canyon, but taking consideration the state of our children, we chose to take the more direct, shorter route home.

By the time we got to Beaver, we were all a little slap happy. Malia had to burn off some energy after being in the car for so long and got friendly with the mascot of a local gas station.

Dinner seemed like a no brainer as well although in the end, we opted for pork tacos instead of the beaver. 😜

It was a long couple of days, but we enjoyed out little road trip.

Marching to the Beat of Their Own Drumline

Marching band has been Daniel’s life for the past three months. Pretty much all he has had time for is school and marching band. But he absolutely loves band, so in his opinion having it consume all his time is a good thing. As the season has neared its end, however, he has begun to realize that this is the last time he’ll be doing everything he is doing. It is the bitter mixed with the sweet. He was the woodwind platoon leader this year so having that additional responsibility for and interaction with the other kids in his section have made the impending end of the season even a bit harder.

Today was the last competition of the season, the marching band state championship. The size of our high school’s marching band increased so much this year that they ended up in the 5A division, the one with the largest bands. In our state, the top three bands have been in the top three pretty much forever. And the 1st place winner has been the same school for 20ish years. As such, our little band didn’t hold out much hope as far as winning goes, but they were determined to give it their all. And our band teacher wanted nothing more for them than to see them do their best and improve with each competition. Although they ended up scoring last in their division, they all felt like they gave their best performance of the season and were really pleased with that.

The state championship competition is held in St. George each year and since this is Daniel’s last year, we decided to drive down so we could see the competition. One of the things that our marching band has become known for state wide is the fact that they cheer for everyone. No matter which band is playing and no matter how good they are, our kids cheer for them. This competition was no different and it was really great to see that some of the other bands that generally cheer for no one else have begun to reciprocate to our kids. In spite of the fact that they were the little fish in the big division pond this year, they have earned the respect of the other bands in the state for their sportsmanship and enthusiasm. I honestly could not think of anything better for which to be known.

It’s an ending for Daniel, only the first of many to come in the next year. But it has also been an amazingly good experience for him and I’m so proud of how well he has done.

Shutterbugs

As I may have mentioned in the past, all my boys have developed an interest in photography. And since he no longer spends all day every day taking pictures of school age children, Kevin’s interest in photography has been renewed. He has learned to love it again as a hobby rather than a profession. A few months ago, he discovered a nearby photography studio that rents their space for photographers. They don’t take any pictures themselves, but they provide drops, lights, props, etc. for photographers who don’t have a studio space of their own. He took pictures of all our parents there in the spring and when it was time for the kids’ yearly photoshoot (and Daniel’s senior photoshoot), he opted to rent a studio space again. He and the boys had a fabulous time. One of the fun things was that while Kevin was taking the serious photos, Matthew was taking behinds the scenes shots. This is the first time my kids have been able to shoot anything in a studio and they learned some things. End result? Some really great photos…and a morning well spent.

Art Reflects Life

Malia is a very crafty kind of a girl. She loves to color and draw, paint, cut, glue, etc. At school this week she was assigned to draw a picture of each of her vocab words. This was my favorite. It made me laugh!

Bump, Set, Fizzle….

Matthew has been playing volleyball at the rec center again. He has gotten pretty good. His overhand serve sends the ball clear across the court. The best overhand serve I ever developed send the ball clear down to my feet. 😉 In spite of (or perhaps because of) his own increasing skills, he has become frustrated with the ability level of most of the other rec players as well as the lack of focus on teamwork in his current team. He would love to play with a more serious, more skilled group but unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any community volleyball leagues around here. We’ll keep looking but he might not be able to step up his game until high school.