Sunday, October 31, 2021

2021, October 25-31

Thus ends the 10th month of the 21st year of the 21st Century. The grown-ups celebrated 23 years of romance, and we trolled for candy. 

This glorious sunrise greeted us on Monday.

Fergus slept through it. 


 This is Lincoln. 

Part of Hallie's duties at horseback riding is taking care of the doo-ty. Eliza relishes the extra riding time.

We installed Landon's birthday sword on the wall. 


Landon had his braces adjusted. The orthodontist went with a fun theme. 



Eliza (dressed as a cow) went trick-or-treating to several places over the weekend: downtown Springville, Merit Academy, Spanish Fork, Provo, and around the neighborhood. 





Needless to say, she took in quite the haul. Landon didn't do so bad himself. 

Eliza managed to get Ferg dressed up on Halloween, much to his chagrin. 



Sunday, October 24, 2021

2021, October 18-24

School, a birthday, and rain occupied our week. 

Mike and Eliza did some science and math. The sugar solution above needs more sugar apparently. 


They're teaching Eliza different ways to divide, but she gravitates to the familiar. 

Landon continues enjoying the gym, and Eliza continues enjoying horseback riding. 

 We found this little blast from the past from an event at Victory in California. 


Fergus may be feeling under the weather. He's not enjoying the rain, and he's been hanging around indoors sleeping a lot.

One of Mike's Canadian friends from his online heraldry group mentioned that folks in the Great White North can get custom stamps made. Makes one want to have an excuse to use Canada Post. 

Both kids got invited to birthday parties on Friday. Eliza's was ninja-themed. Landon's was just a bunch of teenage boys running around. 

Speaking of birthdays, this kid had one. He's really a teenager now. Like a veteran teen. No more rookie year. 

As such, he got a real teen present (or something like that), . . . 

. . . a kata (straight Japanese sword). Yes, we suspect it will KEAL (We've become low-key fans of Forged in Fire on Netflix).



Keeping up the Asian theme, we had lunch at Oishi Ramen in Salt Lake. 

We sat at the bar and watched the owner hand make the Chinese noodles a couple of us had to eat. 



The food was delicious, and this guy had not one, but two bowls of ramen. Growing boy! But this face is one of, "Oh, no. I may have hit my limit."

Sunday, October 17, 2021

2021, October 11-17

Now it's really feeling like fall! Lots of orange color all around and a crisp chill in the air. We had a visit from Lily this weekend. 


The kids had a short school week, so this meant we could spread Eliza's schoolwork out a bit. As part of October and spooky Halloween, she's had monster-themed writing activities. Here is the monster snake she is writing about. 


We got our flu shots up at the university in the afternoon and then got some delicious cookies from Milk and Cookies. Apparently Landon felt a bit more than a little under the weather after getting his, as he got sick at school right at the end of 6th period. Fortunately, Dad was there to pick him up and take him home rather than to gym. 

Hallie had virtual jury duty on Tuesday, which basically meant a long day sitting on a computer waiting to see if she got picked for a jury. By about 2:00 p.m. Hallie found out she did not get picked and was released from duty for another two years. Later in the evening, Fergus graced us with a surprised blep. 


Wednesday proved to be quite the busy day. The adults have decided to donate plasma because we want a bit of mad money (or "blood money", as our neighbor calls it. What we thought would be a fairly quick intake took longer than expected and did not involve hoped-for child care. Fortunately, the Grands came to the rescue, and Eliza enjoyed some time with Grandma. 

We're getting snow on the mountains and chill in the air. 

Eliza and Jordan carved up one of her pumpkins, and it's beginning to feel like spooky times. Boooo!

Thursday meant no school for anyone, except Mike. For Mike, it was another day at the office; however, with no Eliza in tow, he got quite a bit of his "other" job done. We had fog and intermittent rain. No views of Y Mountain today, but the locust tree was bright.   

Do you think Landon enjoys his fruit-flavored rice cereal? He added a little bit of "healthy" to his breakfast by eating a pizza Lunchable with it.

We had a meeting with the therapist who did Eliza's evaluations a couple of weeks back as we took her and Jordan to horseback riding. We can now say for certain that she has dyslexia and writing difficulties, and it appears that the interventions we've been doing are the ones she needs. It's a lot of work, but it's validating to know that your child's learning struggles can be addressed and overcome with the right tools.  

We were treated with skies alight with dusk's closing rays. 

Eliza is thriving in her new-found sport. We're grateful for all she's doing and learning. 

On Friday, Mom and Eliza ran a few errands up north. She found this beautiful butterfly rock hidden by 801 Rocks. 


Hallie did a little pampering on Saturday morning, and Mike and the kids got the chance to take Lily over to Jaker's for some fun. 









Note the sign in this photo. Rule breaker. 


Now that it's harvest time, some interesting insects are out in force. We've had a number of praying mantises in the neighborhood. 

Lily came over again on Sunday and helped us take down the garden (now that we've had our first hard frost) and do some weeding on the playground. Mom made us all a yummy breakfast, but Landon and Eliza seemed more interested in gaming than eating. 

Later in the day Eliza, Lily, and Hallie went to visit our gymnastics friends, the Maynards. They had some more bugs that they had collected from their part of the neighborhood.  







Even Mom got in on the action. 

Meanwhile, Landon got started on a concealed weapon project.  

Later, the kids and Jordan carved Jack-O-Lanterns. 


Aren't they adorable?