Fall Break

Our van, Vanessa :), started having some engine problems that were a death sentence, as our mechanics put it. Tessa gets very attached to things, and she had to say goodbye to Vanessa before we traded her in.

I did a lot of online research and then Paul and I went and test-drove a few cars. We decided on a Toyota Rav-4. It's our first-ever brand new car, and we've enjoyed having one that feels very dependable. Vanessa was breaking down quite a bit in her last months, so it's nice to not worry about that any more.

Kai is serving a mission at the MTC now, and so he won't be in the library at the high school with Paul anymore. Junko brought Paul a nice gift basket on Kai's last day to thank him for all the years of having Kai help out. 

There was a gift card to Top Golf in the basket, and we were all excited to use that over Fall Break. We always have fun there!

My mom was hanging out at Al's one day while my dad was visiting Sandy, so Tessa and I went over to hang out too. Jonah was so sweet and gave the girls a few of his candy lei's from the Senior Night football game. I can't believe Jonah is a senior!!! He's having an awesome year on the football team, and is such a cool kid. He made me a fried egg while I was there. :)

Rockwell went on a campout with the Teacher's Quorum one night. They were planning on going to Strawberry Reservoir, but there was too much snow there that day and cars were sliding off the road. Brother Tanner called it and they turned around and went to Utah Lake instead. They had made crawdad traps and Rockwell was really excited to catch and cook those, so it was a little disappointing to just camp at Utah Lake and not be able to fish at all. It was very cold in Orem, but we didn't have snow on the ground. Tessa really wanted to hike over the break, so we went up the canyon and hiked Upper Falls. 

It was pretty to see the fall colors with some snow on top of the mountains too.

Everyone felt like doing more after Upper Falls, so we walked down to Bridal Veil Falls too.

Tessa and Damon painted their pumpkins.

It warmed up quite a bit and Tessa and Damon had a blast playing outside the rest of the break. Rockwell was off with friends all week, and these two played in our backyard all day every day. It was really nice that they were totally happy playing with each other and didn't ask to do much besides hiking. It was a fun, relaxing Fall Break!

Every time I looked out the window, they were laughing and having a great time together. I loved it! 

They wanted to show Paul and me the funny things they were doing with their coats on the tramp. They were laughing so hard they could barely tell us about it. It was cute!