The Circus

I took Rockwell and Tessa to the circus at UVU this week. It was a really late night, so Paul stayed home with Damon. 

We met the Loosli's and Carr's there.

The kids loved it! There were magic acts, tigers, elephants, tight rope walking, silk acrobats, motorcycles in cages, and all sorts of other stuff. 

My favorite part was watching the kids watch it all though. Tessa said every new act was her favorite, and she loved everything about it. 

  

  

It was a very fun night!

I Love My Minivan!

Our minivan was in the shop for 4 days, so I drove the Camry instead. I have always loved our van, but wow do I appreciate it even more now! Luckily the kids thought it was fun to switch things up for the first 3 days. We were all excited to have the van back by day 4 though. :)
We were waiting outside Paul's school for a few minutes one day and the kids were laughing their heads off, so I took some pictures. They thought it was hilarious when Damon would bite their fingers.

Friday vs Saturday

The weather changed drastically this past weekend. Here was Friday.

  

And here was Saturday.

  

  

  

  

Around Our House

Rockwell came up with a fun idea to build towers out of red solo cups and knock them down with his dart guns. They kids had a blast with that!

He also wanted to experiment with food coloring and water. He made different combinations and studied them with his magnifying glass. Once they all were basically the same color he put different amounts in each cup and hit them with spoons to hear the different tones they made. I love that he finds learning fun!

Paul and I are doing a 21-day no junk food challenge with Mel & Earl, EJ, Elijah, Amarie, Al & Keith. Tess and Damon helped me make some blueberry muffins. I was hoping they would satisfy my sweet cravings. This challenge is hard! I definitely miss my Dr Pepper. :) Only four more days though. I can do it!

Cute boys!

Tessa and Damon were playing upstairs one evening. They came down after a while and Tessa was so proud of herself for getting Damon changed into his pajamas. She seriously is going to make a great mom one day!


Al and Katie's kids were off school on Tuesday this week. They took Tessa with them to see Ferdinand, go shopping, and eat dinner at Cafe Rio. Tessa sure loved spending all day with them!


I guess that's one way to watch a movie. :)

Al said Tess and Hallee had fun shopping. Tessa held things up and said, "Oh this would totally fit me!"


It was so nice of Al to take Tessa with them. She was in heaven getting all that time with her besties.


When I was in Oregon Paul got Damon to go poop on the potty! He went the day after I got home too. He's so proud of himself!


Grandma Ham came down to play today. Tess and Damon loved showing her their tricks, blowing bubbles, and swinging with her.



While Tessa and I were driving to dance this week Tessa said, "Look Mom, there's the MTC. It's called that because it has no water, right?" It took me a minute to realize she thinks it's called the "Empty Sea." I explained that it's the 3 letters that stand for Missionary Training Center. She laughed and said, "Oh, I thought it was a sea that had no water." So funny!

Oregon

Caleb's mission farewell was supposed to be on the 14th of this month. After my parents, Al and I had bought our plane tickets to fly to Oregon for his farewell, his mission president called and did a Spanish test over the phone. He speaks Spanish better than they expected, and so they moved his report date up to January 1st. The plane tickets were going to cost a significant amount more to change to New Year's weekend, so Al and I decided to keep our tickets as they were and just spend that weekend with Gary and Julie's family anyway. I felt so bad not being there for Caleb's farewell, but hopefully he knew that I wanted to be there! My dad ended up coming to Oregon that same weekend too since Jacob was being ordained a deacon and given the priesthood. He bought his tickets much later than Al and I did, but we ended up in the same row on both flights. That was nice!

Gary and Julie picked us up from the airport Friday night. I got a tour of their house and then we visited for a while. It was so fun to see them again! And it's so different visiting without any kids. I got to be a sister, a daughter, and an aunt, instead of doing all the mom stuff that consumes my time usually. It was so fun to play hide and seek with my nieces and nephews. I got to know Lindy, Jacob, Ammon, and Ashley so much better on this trip. I absolutely loved that! Ashley was Al and my little buddy all weekend. We loved that she would come hang out in our room and talk with us. I'm bummed I didn't think to take more pictures with the kids though. 

On Saturday, we all loaded up in the van and headed into Portland.

We walked along the Willamette River and looked at the cool bridges.

We walked halfway across the one pictured above. A boat needed to go underneath it, and so it started signaling that it was going to raise. We jogged off just in time for the boat to pass under.

We walked down to a food cart corner for lunch. Julie, Lindy and I tried some Gyros from a Mediterranean cart. They were yummy.

  

Then we took a ride up and down the Willamette River on the Portland Spirit.

The first hour of the ride was absolutely beautiful weather. Sunny, warm, and no wind. We sat at the front of the ship and soaked in the sun and beautiful views.

Grandpa got rocked right to sleep. :)

The ride back up the river was much colder and much windier. We went upstairs where there was a little more cover. Next, we drove into Washington to hike Beacon Rock, the tallest standing monolith. It was still freezing, so I decided to leave my jeans and leather jacket on over my hiking clothes. Not the best way to hike, but I guess I was glad I had them. :) It was a very steep hike with tons and tons of switchbacks. 

 The views were beautiful everywhere you looked.

Hiking warmed us up, but it was freezing again at the top, so we didn't stay very long before heading back down.

Lindy and I had a nice chat on the way down. She is an amazing teenager!

We went to Sweet Tomato for dinner and then pretty much just crashed that night. We went to church on Sunday and got to see Jacob ordained to the priesthood. We had a birthday celebration for Jake that night, played more hide and seek, and watched family videos. That was so much fun. I got up early Monday morning and went running with Gary and Julie. I have always loved running in Oregon! The air is so much easier on my lungs than Utah air. It was fun to have that time to talk with Gary and Julie. We got to see Ashley dance a couple of her clogging songs that morning. Super cute! We shopped at Costco and then Julie, Lindy, Al and I went to lunch and to Menchie's before we needed to leave for the airport.

I'm so grateful to Paul for taking care of the kids all weekend and supporting me going on this trip. It was very good for my soul. I was definitely in need of a break, and this was a great way to get one. There was a funny text waiting for me when I got off the airplane Monday night. Paul said this was probably a sign that it was a good thing I was almost home. During dinner that night, Paul told Tessa to finish her 1 waffle for the billionth time and Tessa replied, "Dad, I wish you would go on a long trip. And if you went on a trip, I wouldn't go with you." Haha! It was wonderful to get away, but it's good to be home too. I feel refreshed and ready to Mom again. :)