Christmas Bus!

The long-awaited day of the Christmas Bus.  How my kids love everything about this day.  If we ever missed it we would be in big trouble.  This year didn't disappoint.  We even had some excitement to make it extra memorable.  The performances at the care center were amazing as usual.  It's fun to hear everyone improve year after year.  Games at the church were super fun.  My kids loved every second.  And then we headed to Temple Square to see the lights.  We had a different driver this year.  No big deal though.  We can handle change.  We made it downtown without a problem, although traffic was a little worse than usual.  We enjoyed the lights and made it back to our meeting point with the bus.  And then we waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  It wasn't a crazy cold night, but it definitely felt like winter.  The little kids were getting really cold.  The parents were getting mad.  Dad was calling the driver.  A lot.  No answer.  Called the driver's boss.  He didn't get an answer either.  Finally we all decided every man for himself and we all ubered back to our cars.  Right after we all left the bus finally showed up.  The driver was supposedly felt bad that we had all left.  I think she just felt bad that she got caught.  We still don't know what she was doing.  Getting a crown burger, drugs, taking a nap, only she knows.  But it made the night extra exciting and one we won't forget anytime soon!

The men's song.  Love it!

So cute nativity

Cute baby Gabby!

Make a snowman!

Proof that we did ride the bus

Waiting for our Uber

Grandma Great Marion

I don't think I've ever had a busier December than I had this year.  I was just going through all of the pictures and there's a lot to get through.  We started the month off with a funeral.  Jake's grandma died after a long time of not feeling great.  Poor thing didn't have an easy last few years.  It was great to get to know more about her early years at the funeral.  She was a hard worker with some definite spunk that never left her.  It was pretty amazing to watch her kids sacrifice to take such good care of her the last few years.  She didn't want for anything.  We have some pretty great relatives, both here on earth and on the other side.  So blessed.

Love this picture of Grandma Great and Grandma Tracy 

Dave, Jackie, and Tracy

Thanksgiving In Boise

We got to go to Boise this year to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday and Thanksgiving all at once!  Pretty awesome.  This celebration has been in the works for 2 years.  No lie.  I've had an invitation on my fridge for 2 years.  I decided I wasn't taking it down until it happened.  My dad and his siblings did a great job planning everything.  I'm sure they were all exhausted at the end of the weekend.  It was great to see aunts and uncles and cousins who I haven't seen for years.  But the greatest part was seeing my grandma and how happy she was to have everyone together.  She's one of the greatest people I know.  There are about 150 family members for her to remember, and remember them she does.  She doesn't just know everyone's name, but also what they're busy with, what they enjoy doing, and even what they're struggling with.  She sends a gift and a card for every single birthday.  Yep, all 150.  Every single member of the family feels loved by her.  Zero judgement, just love.  Jake may not have been excited to go to Boise, but when I reminded him why we were going he couldn't complain.  She's the best.

The weather tried to keep us from going.  There was a huge storm almost the whole week in Utah.  Jake tried to say the roads were too bad to go, but I reminded him that we frequently drive on horrible roads to go skiing so I'm sure we could manage.  Miraculously, Parley's wasn't awesome, but otherwise we somehow slipped through in between storms.  Definitely felt blessed for that miracle.  We got to Boise just in time to eat lots of yummy food.  We caught up with family and got to watch an awesome slide show of my grandma.

We stayed with my cousin Jenn and her family.  They were so great to let us stay.  They live on 5 acres with farm animals, so I thought we would fit right in.  They even let us ride horses.  My kids were sooo excited for that.  In keeping with my bad animal experiences, I may have fallen off the horse.  People wonder why I don't like animals...  We got pictures taken as a huge group.  They went impressively fast.  We did lots of swimming in the hotel pool.  Swimming with Uncle Toby is enjoyable for teenagers and little kids.  And we made it up to Ann and Brian's to see their awesome land and have a delicious breakfast.  All in all a pretty great Thanksgiving I think.

Amazing decorations

Look at all of those people!

Watching the slide show

All of the Mark Spjute Clan

Even the teens were into swimming baseball

Pictures at the capital

Sage finally got to ride a horse!

True love to walk someone else's kid on a horse in the freezing snow

Devouring pizza after swimming.  Let's just say they ate a lot

Cute grandma telling us all how happy she is to have us all there

Singing Spjute Family songs

Who can get the balls out of the box fastest?

October Happenings

October was a pretty busy, but good, month!  We got to go to the annual witchy-poo party.  Such a great event.  Dad and Kathy always go all out and the kids love it!  Pretty awesome to have grandparents who do stuff like that.  And we made it through Halloween.  Definitely my least favorite holiday.  Zack was on candy duty (not that anyone really comes to our house).  He asked if he could just put the bowl of candy on the porch.  I told him he could handle answering the door since he had nothing else to do.  He managed.  Kate dressed up as Rosie the Riveter.  She's at that in-between age where she's not sure what to do for Halloween.  She and her friend came trick-or-treating with Sage and I.  They didn't last very long.  And Sage dressed up as and archery person.  She and her BFF made a map of where they wanted to go trick-or-treating.  It was very intense, as is everything with Sage and holidays. 

Jake randomly decided to dress up in old costumes

Jake participated in his first press conference for the Gary Sinese Foundation.  He gets to be the general contractor for the project.

Scary Sage

Scary Joker 

The kids at the witchy-poo party

Donuts on a string

Grandpa made slime.  I can't even express how happy this made Sage.  Grandpa will forever have a special place in her heart.

Sage's haunted house.  She won a prize for her hard work.  Winning a prize plus slime equals the best witchy-poo party ever!

Carving pumpkins got serious this year!

Zack somehow carved this mountain bike.  And then a deer ate it the next day.

Sage did this one all by herself.

Jake did a Jeep pumpkin.  He is all things Jeep.

Sage ready to go on Halloween

Rosie the Riveter

Happy Halloween!

Sage and her BFF with their candy haul.  And their map.  They insisted on weighing their candy when they were done.

Fall Break

Another fall break spent in St George, with a little bit of Cedar City thrown in for fun.  Good thing Greg and Tracy let us stay at their house because we sure love it down there!  Now that we mountain bike, fall break = state championships.  Last year the course was in St George.  This year it was in Cedar, but we decided to stay in St George and make the drive.

The race was so fun!  Zack had his best race of the season.  So glad he ended on such a good note!  We got to the course Thursday afternoon to pre-ride it.  I got to ride the course, along with a million other people.  It was a really fun course, but way more technical than what we normally ride.  Tons of rocks to ride up and down.  I had a lot of fun riding it, but can't imagine trying to ride anything like that in a race.  These kids are amazing!  Zack raced at 8:30 Saturday morning, so we had to leave St George at 6am.  And then I almost made Zack miss his last race of the season.  It was horrible.  Jake will never let me navigate again, which is fine by me.  When we pre-rode the course I was driving so Jake got us there.  I assumed he just typed the area into apple maps and followed the directions.  Not the case.  Apparently he clicked on the link in their flyer and that's how we got there.  Well, Saturday morning Jake was driving so I typed Three Peaks into my phone and we headed on our way.  At one point Jake said, "Are you sure we shouldn't turn there?"  But I double checked that I typed it in correctly and assured him we were going the right way.  And then, a little after 7, we were told we had arrived and to park our car.  On a dirt road.  In the middle of nowhere.  I almost started hyperventilating.  I was going to make Zack miss his last race!!  Thankfully, we were able to get the right coordinates into google maps (never using apple maps again) and we got there just in time for him to warm up and get to the start of the race.  Phew!  Just a little stressful. 

Anyway, we spent the weekend mountain biking (Jake and I went for a long ride one day, Jake and Kate went for a longish ride, and the three of us went for a quick ride), swimming, eating yummy food (we found some really good mexican places), and a fun dusty razor ride.  A good time was had by all.  Except for maybe Sage.  On Friday morning while Jake and I were on our ride (of course) Sage crashed bad on a scooter.  She scraped her face up, had a fat lip, and chipped her tooth.  She was very upset in a very dramatic way (because Sage is drama).  It did look pretty painful, poor thing.  So for most of the weekend she was pretty sore and not her usual spunky self.  A definite bummer.  But other than that the weekend was great fun!

We celebrated my birthday in St George.  Sage put this together at home and got it all the way there.  She's the best!

Sage trying to have fun at the park even though she hurt really bad

They had to ride up these rocks at the finish line.  It was crazy and fun to watch.

Last race done!

Ready to go for a razor ride!

This is a super cool gypsum mine.  You can cut really cool rocks right out of the hill

Sage driving the razor.  Sadly she did better than Kate

This is what we looked like when we got back.  So dusty!

Poor Sage and her sad face.