Catching Up

It's been forever so I'll catch up a bit via some photos mostly. We had a great time in SLC a few weeks back for the big Ascend Gala where mom and dad were MCs (they did a great job in a hard situation with a huge ballroom full of people who wanted to chat rather than listen to the overly many people speaking and performing!). I also go to do a training for an intern headed for Bulgaria for 2 months to work in orphanages - and got him a $500 check from Eyrealm to help him do wonderful things for the kids over there. The kids' favorite thing about the trip was an exciting train ride on Trax (mostly for the twins who are obsessed with trains) with Grammie and Grandfather and Eli, our zoo visit, and the fact that it snowed - they even built a snowman - in September!

This is the International Children's Choir at the Ascend gala

Here's a delighted Silas on Trax with Grammie and Grandfather
SNOW! In September! Didn't get a photo of the snowman, but there really was one.

Then Conference weekend here was great. Eli and Julie came down along with Tenille, Paul and Rennie so we had quite a houseful (luckily some could stay at Jo and Aja's while they were in Vegas for Aja's big reuion). Julie's great - so easy to have around, fun to talk to, bright, good to the kids. It was good to get to know her better and she definitely gets thumbs up from us. We ate lots of good food, watched the marathon for a while, went to the sand dunes (Eli sent a great video - always so much fun to run down those hills and the twins don't seem to mind face plants - end up with lots of sand in their nose, ears, mouth, etc.), hiked up to the caves behind our house, had a great late night hot tub with all the adults (including Jo and Aja who came back before Tennessee) and really enjoyed watching conference.

Here we are at the St George Marathon -
watched for Michelle Eyre but missed her -at least we tried!

Sunday morning session of conference.
Aja brought beads for the kids to string - worked out great.
Tried some jumping pictures at the sand dunes -
sort of hard to get air with a bunch of small kids attached but Eli and Julie did remarkably well!

Then we were on to lots of packing and getting work done and getting our great friends and babysitters oriented to their upcoming task so that we could leave for the East Coast with Ash and Ike.