End of October

At the end of October, I got to go to the temple with Lia's friend Kyla and her other young women leaders. It was so nice to be there and I was grateful to be invited with these other great women! Also, Nate went to Nashville with some friends from work. And then Laura and her friend Brigham went to the Sadie's dance, Nate had an award made for his team at work, Josh and I went to the Jazz game, and we celebrated Halloween. Megan decided to be a lemon with her friend Juliet who was a lime. She had a "Where's Waldo" costume too, but decided to go with the lemon on Halloween. Laura also had some costume changes. She and her friends were "Hannah Montana" characters Halloween night. Josh wore Laura's "Holes" costume from her dance to school but decided not to dress up that night. Oh, and Ollie was a panda. We had our dinner and then the kids went with their friends. That Sunday we had a Halloween/Dia de los Muertos party with the Nelsons. Janet put together an ancestor table and shared stories from the Nelson and Spendlove families. It was beautiful! And the kids always love the halloween games like the mummy wrap.

Disneyland

At the beginning of 2020 we made a deal with the kids and told them if they kept their end of the deal, we would take them to Disneyland. It had been years and years since we had been there (Megan was young enough she didn't even remember it) and they were all dying to go. The kids did their part, but when covid hit, Disneyland closed and we had to wait. When Disneyland opened again and Lia ended up having the same fall break as Laura, Josh, and Megan, we finally made it happen. We have taken some really fun trips to some cool places, but this one was one of my favorites! I think it was the combination of not having been there for a long time, all the kids being older and getting along great, the addition of things like Star Wars land, and having a few dollars in our pocket to be able to buy food and treats that made it so great. It was so, so fun! Josh had been saving up to make a light saber and Megan had been saving up to make a droid and it was just as cool as they imagined it would be (we didn't get any pictures of Josh because they wouldn't let you take pictures in there but he loved it and was so excited to finally have one). And all the girls got Mickey Mouse ears. It was so fun to be together and we were all sad when it was time to go home.