Ensign Symphony and Chorus

With the support of my family, I have begun an exciting journey as a member of the new Ensign Symphony and Chorus. It is a new group in the Pacific Northwest, and has already been an amazing experience for me. It is a 150 voice choir and a 75 piece symphony. We rehearse once a week and it is composed mainly of Latter-day Saints.

We had our world premiere concert on October 21st at Benaroya Hall, which is 2,500 seat hall designed like an Italian Opera House. It is beautiful, and is one of the greatest concert halls in the country. It was amazing for me to perform on that stage. We had the violinist Jenny Oaks Baker there to perform with us, and it was just an incredible night. Here are a few pictures......

We have a large number from our ward that is singing in the choir. Here we are back stage before the show.....Green River Ward represents!!

It is thrilling for me to be a part of this group. I'm so excited for our Christmas concert!

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year. The kids made costumes out of what we had around the house, and it worked out great! Dylan got to dress up for his preschool class, I pulled the kids out an hour early so we could go trick or treat at Amazon and meet Justin's new co-workers, and then we came home to go around the neighborhood. The kids had a good time.

Here's Dylan and Katelyn standing by their works of art

Here we are visiting Amazon

And here are the kids ready for round #2. Lindssey was a gypsy, Katelyn was a pirate, Brandon was.....I'm not sure. It kept changing. But he loved wearing the wig and my striped socks! And Dylan was a cowboy. We tried making Weston a cat, but he didn't like that too much. He also wiped his black nose onto my white cardigan when we got to Amazon, so I gave up on his costume at that point.

Justin's Cell Phone Pictures

I downloaded the pictures on Justin's phone the other day and found some gems! So here are a few from the end of our summer and start of the fall.

Justin and I went out to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate our 13th anniversary this August and had a super yummy meal! So we just had to take a picture of our food....

That's a breaded mac 'n cheese ball covered with cheese on top of his hamburger.

Sweet picture of our niece Heidi

Aunt Marianne and Brandon having fun....

Dylan being brave after our hike to Mt. Timpanogas Cave

A picture of us trying to get all the kids to smile during our family photo shoot

Cousins reading

The guys went to a Real Salt Lake soccer game when we visited Utah

And to help the kids pass the time on our long drive home from Utah we gave each kid their own roll or masking tape. Here are some of their creative uses of it.... :)

This is a picture of poor Charlie on a little car ride. Brandon thought it would be funny to buckle him up. No, we didn't ride anywhere with him like this!

Justin took a trip to Moab to attend the BYU MBA marketing trip. Here's a picture of him in a hummer riding over the red rocks.

Love this picture!

Since we had so much fun on Dylan't preschool trip to the pumpkin patch, we returned there that weekend with the rest of the kids and had a ball.

Doughnuts with Dad before school! Love Katelyn's chocolaty smile!

And finally, Justin took this picture of a bus that is obstructing the arm that comes down at a train crossing. Oops!

I'm glad Justin takes pictures with his phone!

Fall Fun

Here are the rest of our happenings in September. The weather is starting to change, but we have a lot of beautiful days still.

This is an afternoon after school on a beautiful day. The kids love to go out and play ball!

These two little boys love to play together. The picture is hard to see, but Weston is making one of his signature facial expressions. He loves putting his chin down and looking up and you. It's so funny!

This is what we concocted for wacky hair day at school. The girls both have cups on their heads to make this style work. And they stayed in all day! Katelyn can't keep her eyes open when the camera flashes lately, so many of her pictures look like this.

Pumpkin shaped sugar cookie decorating!

This boy is 10 1/2. Can you tell?

And finally, a normal face!

Before bedtime shenanigans!

This is a full length book that Katelyn has written. It is quite impressive! And this is probably the 3rd or 4th picture we took, she kept closing her eyes when the camera flashed.

And unfortunately this is an all too common sight......Weston chewing on Charlie's dog toys. Eeeeew!

I got to go with Dylan and his little preschool group to the pumpkin patch, and it was so much fun!

Weston is such a happy boy!

On the hay ride

Dylan got to pick out his own little pumpkin, and this was his choice. He's sporting Lindsey's watch too.

What a fun day!

And we have to document the homework of Lindsey's that Weston ate. I found it in almost 20 wet pieces on the floor. We did our best to put it back together. I had to write a note to Lindsey's teacher explaining that the baby....not the dog ate her homework! Obviously we're still not used to Weston's new crawling skills he just picked up this week!