20 September 2015 - Fall Fare

Emily crossing the finish line at her most recent cross country meet.

Joanne had a Relief Society craft night. Oh, so crafty.

UVU hosted a giant steak fry on Friday night. Super good steaks done on the outdoor grill. Yum!

On Saturday evening, our family went to watch UVU play BYU in women's volleyball. There was a huge crowd and it was a lot of fun. BYU is currently ranked #9 and won in straight games (3-0), but I had my UVU green on for this one.

House update: the view of Mt. Timpanogos from Jessica's bedroom window.

We have soffit, fascia and insulation. Drywall is loaded into the house and ready to be hung.

13 September 2015 - Labor Day/Birthdays

Watch out for a saber-toothed Lily.

On Labor Day afternoon, we went to Tiffany and Brian's house to celebrate Meghan and Brandon's birthdays. Meghan thought it was hilarious that we bought Brandon shaving cream and a razor, which would have been funnier if he hadn't shaved his beard off the day before.

For school, Madeline had to make a solar oven. Here is our concoction of poster board, aluminum foil, and a quart jar painted black with high-heat paint.

Madeline's oven worked mighty fine for making s'mores.

Emily is running cross country this fall. This is her first meet.

On Tuesday, we went to an Orem Owlz game. They play at the UVU baseball stadium.

House update: Roof and windows!

Sunday we celebrated Phil's 65th birthday with a surprise party with his kids, grand kids and many friends.

6 September 2015 - MJ's Baptism/Adrienne's Blessing

This week we went to Vernal for MJ's baptism. Joanne made MJ a specially embroidered towel.

All of the cousins together following MJ's baptism.

At the after party, Lily got to hold a baby kitten.

This is how Madeline and Meghan spend time together nowadays.

On Saturday evening we left Vernal to head back to Orem. Sunday morning, baby Adrienne was blessed.

House update: Framing is now complete. The girls really wanted to climb out the windows and stand on the roof over the front of the garage, even though we had gone to see the house right after church and they were still in their dresses.

Joanne in front of the house with framing complete.

30 August 2015 - Work and Park City

After a four months of living between jobs, I finally started my new job at Utah Valley University this week. It's a much different school than the little trade school I used to go to for merit badge camp. The campus is beautiful, and this fall UVU became the largest university in the state by number of full time students.

A shot of UVU president Matt Holland, speaking to us at faculty convocation.

On Saturday, Grandma gave us tickets to the Utah Olympic Park. Emily, Jessica and I headed up to watch the ski jumpers while Madeline stayed in Utah County for a primary class party.

This picture is worth clicking on. The top of the rock climbing platform at the far end of the landing pool is 55 feet high. The ski jumpers routinely jumped nearly as high as the platform while doing all kinds of crazy flips.

After Park City, the girls and I decided to sample UVU's new indoor rock climbing gym. It is very large, and is one of the tallest indoor gyms I've ever climbed in. Emily is in the pink shirt in this photo.

House update: Our house has walls! It's finally coming along.

23 August 2015 - Back to School

We've been taking advantage of lots of baby holding time since we got here.

Our house finally has a foundation! No walls yet, but hey, it's a start.

You may notice in the picture above that Madeline's arm looks like it has a cast on it. It's actually not a cast, it's a bandage. I didn't get any pictures of the incident, but her bandage is covering some elbow road rash she got when we hit a deer on my motorcyle on Thursday. We were going to Aunt Tiffany's house in West Jordan for Madeline and Meghan to have a sleepover before the school year started. We were almost there, just about in front of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple on Bangerter Highway when a large buck jumped into traffic and eventually right into our path. I had gotten the bike slowed down but was unable to avoid hitting the deer. We were very blessed to not crash, but just as I was about to get the bike stopped, the deer rolled under my front wheel and I had to lay the bike on its right side. Both Madeline and I had scraped elbows, hers was worse than mine, but we otherwise survived without much damage. I can't say the same for the bike, which may or may not be salvageable, but in the grand scheme of things, that is not what matters. We definitely had guardian angels around us that evening. I was in too much shock to think to take pictures of the motorcycle laying on the dead deer, so I can only immortalize the event by describing it. I'm just glad everyone was OK. After getting checked out in the ambulance, we were able to continue on to Tiffany's house so the sleepover could still happen.

The ever-serious new driver on her way to her first day of school.

All three girls are attending Freedom Preparatory Academy in Provo this year.

Madeline is in 6th grade this year.

Emily is starting 8th grade.

Our cousin Hannah is starting school as well. She arrived this week from Virginia to start at BYU. On Saturday we had a cookout at Canyon Glen in Provo Canyon, and the girls cooled their heels in the Provo River.

Summer may be winding down, school may be starting up, but we're not done having fun yet.

16 August 2015 - Jessica's Birthday Outdoors

To celebrate Jessica's birthday, Grandma and Grandpa Phil rented two cabins near Jordanelle Reservoir between Heber and Park City. We took the boat out one day on Deer Creek and the next day on Jordanelle. The second day, the girls all learned to water ski. This is Jessica...

Emily...

and Madeline...

Of course there was some aggressive tube riding too.

At the cabins on Monday night, Jessica opened presents. She got Minion Twinkies from Aunt Jen.

And a mushroom pinata from mommy.

Phil proved he can still cut up the water at age 65.

I can still do it too, but 20+ years younger. I can only hope I can still do this 20 years from now.

After a couple of days in the mountains, we came back down to Orem. It turned out that our good friends from Pennsylvania were in town visiting family for the summer. Emily and Madeline had been especially good friends with Emma Stephens, so we got the kids together to play a couple of times.

This is us with Emma's mom Ashley.

One of the things we were able to do with them was a trip to Rock Canyon behind the Provo Temple where we spent a morning rappelling. Here is Grandpa Phil and Grandma taking a turn after all the kids had taken several rides down the rope.

On Saturday we also re-connected with Michael and Shauna Cleverly who are friends of ours from college. Michael and I were in the MTC together and though we were never companions we crossed paths regularly on our missions. We also roomed together at BYU before Michael and Shauna got married. It's been a long time since we've had time to get together, and it was awesome to get caught up. It was almost like we picked up where we left off more than a decade ago.

9 August 2015 - First Week in Utah

When we arrived in Utah this week, we moved in with Joanne's mom and stepdad in Orem. We're staying in their basement until our house is ready -- we're told it should be done around Halloween. We stopped at a 7-Eleven and they had Simpsons donuts, so I had to get one to go with my Slurpee.

 

After three long weeks of waiting and much patience, Joanne finally got to hold baby Adrienne for the first time.

It seemed like we celebrated Jessica's Sweet 16 birthday for about a week. It came shortly after we arrived in Utah. Here's Jessica with her Reese's Cheesecake birthday cake.