Thatcher Football Game

Thatcher had a football game near our house on Friday night, so we were able to go watch and support this awesome team.

The girls: Mom, Becki, me, and Anna

I'm so proud of my brother for being such an awesome coach.

School Book Fair

Jack's school had a book fair this week and I volunteered to be a cashier. Jack had a great time being my helper and showing me everything that he loves about his school.

Phoenix Temple Open House

The new Phoenix Temple is opening in a few weeks so we got the chance to take our whole family through for the open house. We are so grateful that we will have a temple five minutes away from our house!

Lake Pleasant in October

It turned out that Colombus Day was the perfect day to be at Lake Pleasant. We saw only a handful of other boats out and the water was still plenty warm for a swim. We took my parents out with us and I'm pretty sure they had a good time too.

Papa tubing with Elliot and Audrey

A little time on the beach digging in the sand

Mimi caught her first fish - EVER!

At sunset, we saw several wild burros come down by the water to graze.

Cleveland

The couple times of year that Ty has a work trip are my favorite times to tag along and enjoy a little break from the day-to-day routine. We went to Ohio a couple weeks ago and we loved every minute. We ended up with a few more minutes than we thought due to the burning of a Chicago air traffic control tower, which delayed our flight by two days. So we made the most of it and went to Kirtland, Ohio, where there is a lot of great LDS church history sites. Thank heaven for a very patient Mike & Lois who watched our kids all week, then unexpectedly watched them all weekend!

General Cleaveland memorial. I'm not sure why they spelled his name wrong in naming the city after him. And hello to fall temperatures. At 67 degrees, we were both in jackets right away. Getting cold under 70 degrees is probably the best sign that the Arizona summer is finally over!

We love to find what Ty calls "a good food value." Generally this means no chains, frequently a dive and pretty good food. The Flaming Ice Cube was a total vegan restaurant, complete with flower child chef, incense and hippies new and old. This was a pesto "burger" (soy and oats) with "cheese" (? we didn't ask). It was delicious!

 We walked our vegan food off along the piers of Lake Erie, which was beautiful. Cleveland is called the "mistake on the lake" but we enjoyed it. The only thing we didn't get to do was go fishing. Ty will be bringing his pole next time. 

I love having nothing on my list to do each day. This was the "productive" part of my day reading a book listening to a piano player. 

 Another good food value: 

split the entree of ribs, brisket and salad so there's still room for the chocolate lava cake!

Walking the city at night in downtown Cleveland. 

*We were not mugged during the making of these photographs

 Ty found his next hobby: paragliding. Just after this photo was taken, the man you see paragliding went parallel with the shore and crashed into a tree. We ran over and found him 30 feet up, uninjured. 

After he got down and we pulled his parachute out of the tree, we sat and watched about 8 or 9 others fly around for an hour. After watching that crash, it's funny how my confirmation that I would never do this 

was Ty's confirmation that he can't wait to try it.

Walking along the beach at Edgewood Park. 

Kirtland was very powerful for us. Going to place that you know the Savior has been and learning of the faith of so many pioneers was inspiring and lit an interest in knowing more about our history. 

Upper right room is the school of the Prophets where Joseph Smith and others studied the gospel of Jesus Christ and established much of the framework of today's LDS church. They have many of the original buildings (including this one) complete with the original hard wood floors. It was a fun trip to spend time together and see some new sites!

Jack's Birthday

This birthday boy has had a fun week. His birthday celebration started Wednesday night with In-N-Out. I think this has been a tradition for Jack's last four birthdays.

Thursday was his actual birthday and he asked for waffles, eggs, and bacon for dinner. Mimi brought his favorite bakery cookies and mint ice cream for dessert. He opened his presents and, as you can see, was very excited about this minion shirt.

On Saturday we had his birthday party and invited friends from his primary class. This year, Jack asked for a minion on his cake. We had pizza, played games, and had fun doing a homemade obstacle course.

Jack's Favorites at Seven:

Animal - giraffe

Food - pizza

Activity - play Nintendo 64

Movie - Despicable Me 2

Color - gold

Seven

Jack turned seven years old this week. We're so proud of the young man he is becoming. Here's a few pictures I got of him this morning before school.