Sunday, November 1, 2020
October Week 5
What a beautiful fall week! Halloween celebrations went better than expected, and all Halloween dreams came true.
Monday, October 26
Mark begged and begged to make a pumpkin pie, and Amy really wanted to bake with them, so after a nice walk around the neighborhood, those three got to work. Mark and I had baked the pumpkins earlier that day.
Tuesday, October 27
Wednesday, October 28
Thursday, October 29
Friday, October 30
Saturday, October 31
Sunday, November 1
Mondays are so exciting now because we get to talk with our missionary! I brought the phone down to Jon first so we could hear from her together. Then he went back to work and I got to talk with her a lot longer. Such a blessing and so fun! It also feels good to give her info she needs to get important things taken care of.
We had a great family home evening that night! After our regular stuff, we watched an episode of The Chosen together since we missed it on Sunday. The boys warmed up to it a little more.
Because Weston lost his sense of smell over the weekend, he decided to test for COVID on Monday so didn’t come to work. (Results came back positive on Wednesday.) On Tuesday, Jon took me out to lunch to Costa Vida! I’m soaking up the advantages of my extra time with Jon! We stopped by a “ski swap” which was more of a store having a sale. The few skis that were actually being resold were super pricey still, so we didn’t get anything.
Our school’s drivers ed program was shut down for a while due to COVID, and then had a backlog of students needing simulators and in-car training. Scheduling with the one guy doing in-car training and testing was a pain, but Adam finally got in his 3 separate driving times and then his test. We scheduled an appointment online with the DMV to finish the job. Yippee! We didn’t have a wait, signed everything, paid, and now Adam has his license! He wanted it on his birthday, but this was the closest he could get due to the back log - still within the month. Good job, Adam!
Thursday was Rock Canyon’s Halloween party. They did so many creative things this week for the kids! It was a Harry Potter theme. They did a sorting ceremony, the hallways were decorated, and the kids loved every thing they did!
Mark chopped up the Anaheim peppers he grew. He was quite proud of them!
Tyler and Mark love to come with me to Day’s Market! It’s the only store in which I’ll let them wear their roller blades. They each bought Takis, a box of oatmeal cream pies, and Tyler bought a 2-liter jar of root beer. Oh boy! I just needed a sweet potato and potatoes for our Halloween orange mashed potatoes.
I resurrected the indexing leaderboard. (We took a long break during COVID and the summer.) I was surprised that Amy had indexed more than me in 2020, and isn’t too far behind me in all-time indexing numbers!
After teaching Tyler how to index, I figured we should do a monthly challenge and give a prize to the person who indexes the most that month. Then we’re on equal ground. Tyler was excited about that.
Mark did this cute art activity for school.
Adam and Andrew harvested the rest of Andrew’s mini bell peppers on Monday, and diced them all Tuesday. Now they’re frozen and ready to use in omelettes, etc. Yay!
Jon helped Tyler and Mark wax their skis!
Jon met the priests up at Springdell to shoot pumpkins, throw knives into them, and hit (tomatoes) with a baseball bat. They tried out all the activities in preparation for next week’s activity where they will host the young women in doing these same activities. Tyler and Mark got to have a go at the pumpkins too and loved it!
Jon quickly ran out of ammunition for his shotgun, so the boys tried out his handgun. He will only let the young women try his shotgun next week (safer).
Meanwhile, Andrew and the teachers carved pumpkins inside the church.
...blow up the balloon in their treat bag, decorate a jack o’ lantern face on it, tie it to this tree, and get a pic with their spider ring and vampire teeth.
The best part of activities is always the talking. I love seeing the girls interact, talk and laugh.
Jon gave all the boys haircuts that night. Tyler requested one specifically so his blonde hair wouldn’t show so prevalently in his black costume.
Tyler was very proud of hitting this tomato perfectly through the center with an arrow!
Amy, Adam and Andrew drove to Spanish Fork to celebrate David & Peter’s 18th birthday! They brought cookies, had cake and ice cream with them and then played Carcassonne.
The older young women had a Halloween treasure hunt in the parking lot. Cindy, Flori and I hid pieces of 2 skeletons. The girls had to find them all along with treat bags, assemble their team’s skeleton...
I opened the garage to give them a ride to school and found... an empty garage! The Lexus was dead, Amy took the truck to high school, and Jon took my van to racquetball! So the boys threw on their roller blades and skated to school in their costumes!
Amy’s cross-country coach asked me if I could host a team dinner on Thursday. I was happy to! I made a huge pot of spaghetti, meatballs, and 4 pans of cheesy breadsticks. A few girls brought salads. Breadsticks were the big hit and they were all eaten! The weather turned dark and cold, but these girls stuck it out and laughed and talked in our backyard for a long time! I loved hearing that!
Jon was nice enough to pick up Tyler from practice for me so I could manage the dinner.
Amy drove all the boys over to Barney’s to do more work on his knife-book shipments. It was the greatest thing for them because our kids didn’t have school (and Barney’s did), so were able to be super productive with their day. Jon and I wish we could provide more jobs like these for our kids because it’s so good for them! They were all really great workers!
Friday night, Jon and I went out to dinner with Brandon and Kim, and then to another improv comedy show. We had a great time!
Amy and Summer hung out, and Andrew spent the evening with friends. Adam later joined them.
The weather on Halloween was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and warm! ...And this happened! Jon taught Amy how to ride his big motorcycle! Holy cow! She said it felt so cool and rode for quite a while! She rode on her own with Jon near her on the e-bike, drove with him on the back, and then lots more on her own.
When dinner was close to ready, I took Tyler and Mark to Paula’s yard for their traditional Halloween portraits. They are always so willing to take photos because they love their Halloween photo books!
Tyler - Dementor (from Harry Potter)
Mark - Halo Dude
Mark wanted to take photos doing all sorts of poses.
I thought of making something a little more grown up, but the kids still really love Yummy Mummies! Accompanied by orange mashed potatoes, orange Jello, and a yummy peach smoothie.
No one else was planning to dress up, but our ward did a shared Google Doc and requested photos in costume, so everyone scrambled for something. I couldn’t get over Jon’s choice of costume.
After the little boys trick-or-treated in the upper and lower U, they hopped in the back of the truck, and Jon and I drove them around the ward. We first stopped at the Rowberrys to see if Sawyer wanted to come with us, but he was happier going alone on his electric scooter.
We weren’t sure what to expect with trick-or-treating during the pandemic. Many more houses than normal were dark or had signs on their door saying they were skipping this year. Luckily, many houses had their porch lights on and welcomed our little trick-or-treaters like normal! The boys came home with more candy than they’ve ever had before! The residents either had them take 2-3 pieces instead of one or a handful or two! So that more than made up for the closed homes. The Kemps have always had a cauldron of homemade rootbeer, which is our kids’ favorite. This year, the cauldron was full of ice water and cans of rootbeer.
Kim Money challenged the boys to roll down her hill. She said that the winner could have an extra treat out of the bowl! Tyler stood up and tried to run up the hill, and bit the dust, he was so dizzy!
Going for social distance candy giving, the Sandholtzes set up a candy slide for the kids. So creative!
We indulged in candy and watched Hotel Transylvania 3. (We’ve watched these for the past 3 years now, which has been fun.)
Josh and Alia came over and played games with Adam until 8. Amy drove them to south Provo to pick up their friend. They tried to find a teenage trunk-or-treat from the address Josh “memorized,” but it was incorrect. Instead, Amy drove them back to the Rowberry house where the group took off trick-or-treating. Amy wasn’t interested so came home.
Andrew had friends over to watch a movie in our basement. It was a great Halloween for all!
Jon jumped on board and tried his hand at programming a quick app that can decipher text. It can read text, but no handwriting at all... so it sounds like I’m still going to win, ha ha (just kidding).
I think I’m in trouble, though! Andrew asked me that if he beat me could he have a sleepover. Adam came up with a request of his own. After setting some boundaries, I agreed. After church, Andrew indexed most of the day. Oh boy!
We had an intense amount of Zoom meetings before church. I had my class presidency meeting followed by Sunday School Zooms for the teenagers. Andrew couldn’t get on his presidency meeting, and then his Sunday School Zoom was a bust too. Frustrating.
Andrew went to church early to help prepare the sacrament, and the rest of us followed. It was a fast and testimony meeting.
The most effective tool we’ve used this past month in family scripture study has been candy corns! After reading each chapter and while discussing each topic, Jon throws a candy corn to anyone who correctly or thoughtfully answers. We’ve had the most paying attention and participation ever! It’s brilliant.
Right after church, Jon and Adam had another successful presidency meeting.
Amy was conscientious not to stay too long on a school night.
The Middletons set up a pumpkin display drive-thru. There weren’t as many pumpkins as usual, but still so many amazing ones! This last display was the best - all in honor of their daughter Lindsey on a mission in Kentucky speaking Karen.
After Jon had a cousin phone call, and a Springdell board meeting, and I had a nice talk with Nancy, we enjoyed Mark, Tyler and Amy’s pumpkin sheet pie. It turned out super yummy! Well done!
We topped off the night watching an episode of The Chosen as a family. The boys act like they’re so relieved when it’s over and that it will be such a punishment to watch it again, but they are totally into it. Jon joined his sibling weekly Zoom and talked and listened in until it got so late... and until it turned too political.
Phew! What a great week!
That night, Jon took the 4 boys to Barney’s house where Barney hired the boys to help him package books and knives for a big shipment for his business. The boys ate up the work and did a great job!
Out in Washington, here is a pic of our missionary while they were finding people online. They are required to do an hour of that per day, which isn’t her favorite, but she was able to find a new person this week through it!
Natalie received my “greenie” package on Wednesday! She loved it and was so excited!
She also did some religious canvassing on the street. She got sick from exposure to her investigator’s second hand smoke. Even though they know it isn’t COVID-related, they had to cancel a few in-person events to be more socially distant than normal.
Here is Natalie out to lunch with some awesome members.
Two beautiful sister missionaries out doing the work of the Lord on a gorgeous fall day!
Sister Lund needed to be festive, so she used the only food coloring in her apartment and made... she wasn’t sure how to make it Halloween-themed... “witch pancakes!”
Sister Prusse, Sister Jarvis, Sister Gulledge and Sister Lund
The sisters ate dinner at Red Robin together. One of the two going home has a lot of money left on her card and treated the others!
They had to stop proselyting after dinner because of Halloween, so they made caramel apples, apple cider, and orange rolls for the elders, which they delivered to them. The elders, in return, threw candy at them from their door and then their balcony. In case you didn’t notice her costume in the pictures, Natalie was “Sister Gulledge” for Halloween, and her companion was “Sister Lund.” Pretty easy costume!
