September

For Labor Day weekend at the very end of August and the beginning of September, we had a fun Atkin girls weekend. We rented an Airbnb right on the canyon in Filer/Hagerman. Sadly, while Shari and I were getting groceries she started to feel horrible and threw up. So, I took her back home and she missed the first night and day. We missed her. The four of us had fun kayaking/paddleboarding to the Blue Heart though:

So blue/teal:

It was cold too! I had to jump in. Sadly, it was quite crowded since it was a holiday weekend:

We met up again with Shari that night for dinner at a random restaurant we found nearby.

The house was really pretty and we mostly enjoyed just hanging out talking there:

It was just what I needed.

Soon after that Joe and I headed to Utah for the Faith Matters conference. We enjoyed it. Jaime joined us there too. We stayed the night at Rich & Toni's new place.

Some quotes I liked from Joseph Grenny's talk

I loved all the art too:

I always leave feeling really inspired and uplifted from those events. 

A beautiful sunrise over our dirt yard:

We had a storm with a beautiful double rainbow after. Eve and I saw it while walking around the block and Nate and Joe saw it while golfing:

I made a delicious peach pie:

Eli decided to do cross country at the middle school. I was so surprised and impressed! I thought he hated running. He had a rough season at times but he stuck with it and walked if he had to. First meet:

Eve had her first exhibition and it was SO cute. It was on being your own super hero and they all dressed up and sang some cute songs:

We went to Ruby's baptism. It was fun to see family and we even got some family pics:

Eve loves to play with filters while we're talking to Lizzie and it cracks us up sometimes. Also, Joe falls asleep sometimes :):

Another fun hike with Eve:

Eve drew a really good 5. She loves working in her workbook:

The stake put on an activity one Saturday for all the young men. It was a 26 mile hike down into the canyon and back. Eli mostly stuck by Joe, who did it too. Nate mostly stayed by his friends. I was impressed they all got through it. There were some sore feet after, though.

Eli had one of his last meet down in the canyon at Rock Creek Park and Eve and I had fun watching him. He did great!

Sometimes Eve gets tired of being dragged to her siblings events:

Nate is 15!

Nate had a good birthday this year. He had his requested cinnamon rolls and Hawaiian's Own mango orange juice for breakfast. That night we all went to Outback for his birthday dinner: 

After that we went home and opened presents. I loved this series after Eve gave him a squshmallow

Love those two.

Then we got to watch BYU win their football game.

We also got the house toilet-papered for his birthday:

They did quite a thorough job!

All Nate had wanted was new golf clubs so Nate, Eve, and I ended up driving to CA to go pick up some of Grandpa's used clubs from their house. It was a fun little road trip. We left early on Wednesday and Nate drove from Wells to Winnemucca and did a great job. We listened to music and watch The Lion King together. We stopped at Greenwood briefly to pick up some of his clubs there and then drove to Stockton. Nate tried out the clubs and chose the ones he wanted while I read Eve some of Grandma's Little Critter books that she loves :). We didn't stay too long and then got back on the road. I got the In n Out I wanted and then we drove back to Truckee. We played an awful lot of I-Spy with Eve :). We made it by about 8pm. It was fun to have time to talk to Mom and Dad that night and watch some AGT. The drive back on Thursday went pretty smoothly too. I was worried about making it back in time so I drove the whole way. We watched Zootopia on that drive. We made it back in time for Nate to get to golf and for Eve to get to her exhibition. It was a successful trip and we were grateful for Grandpa's generosity in giving them. 

Nate also got to have a friend party. I took him and some friends of his to Gemstone, the climbing gym, and then we came back to our house for fried chicken from Ridley's, Caesar salad, and watermelon. They also had fun swimming in our pool which finally had the concrete poured.

Nate has had a great year. He finished up middle school and started high school! I couldn't believe it but he's ready. He's on the JV golf team and loving getting into that more. I posted about how he broke his thumb and sadly missed most of the baseball season. He was able to play in the outfield a bit even with the cast but not as much as he would have. He did a good job supporting the team though and he's excited to try out for the high school team this year. He's a great speaker. He spoke in church and also tried out for the speech team and made it! He kept up with playing his saxophone in band and did great with their numbers. He did amazingly at the middle school science olympiad and is excited to compete in that one more time. He went to his first stake dance, although I'm not sure he loved it. He also got to go to FSY this past summer and he loved it! He has matured a ton and is growing fast. He is a great driver and good at parking (despite one small incident parking at Old Greenwood). He had a rough experience with his driving instructor at the high school. He basically would flip out all the time and made him not want to drive but he was able to get past it and is doing fine now.

He still loves gaming and playing on his switch. He loves playing catch or other games outside. He loves big bowls of cereal like I do. He loves Kool-Aid, randomly :). He's gotten crazy fast solving his Rubik's cube and can solve a bunch of different kinds. He is very neat and orchestrated the cleaning of our whole house when Joe and I were getting back from a trip to Utah! He is super smart and does very well in all his classes. Sometimes hell just amaze me by all the Jeopardy questions he gets right. He is a very good brother and plays with Eve all the time. He patiently teaches Eli and helps him with baseball. We are all so blessed to have him in our family. He's the best!

Some pics of him:

(He humors me by aggreeing to be in my BeReals :)

August

The Allen reunion started at the end of July this year.  It was weird not having Lizzie and Natalie there but we had fun. We kicked it off going to Kings Beach:


Unfortunately it was a bit cold and super crowded so we didn't last too long.
Eve showing off her big stick with Abby at dinner:

We had a super fun game of soccer after church on Sunday. Unfortunately, we played barefoot and it resulted in some serious injuries. I seriously cut up and injured my foot but I was having a blast and didn't notice it until we finished:

I love those games so much.

The next day was boat day:

Nate and Eli both got up and Nate impressed us with throwing and catching a football while wakesurfing:

For Grandma and Grandpa's meal, they ended up taking us out to eat at the Gray's Crossing clubhouse. It was delicious and Eve had fun taking pictures:

We also had lots of fun at the pool of course. Eve especially loved Spoto:

We also had another trip to the Reno temple for baptisms. Joe watched Eve while I went in with the boys:

We had a fun night playing tennis and pickleball too:

Eve got some love in the pool too. She loves being thrown in the air:

It was another great reunion. Nate drove home for us for part of the way:

We got home to find the pool filled up, although not set up yet. The boys decided to get in:

Another cute Natalie selfie:

She worked hard at Dutch Bros. over the summer and prepared for school at CSI.

We love seeing pictures of Lizzie. She loves Portugal and loved her first companion Sis. Neto:

We love Facetiming her, although sometimes Joe gets sleepy:

We'd had never been to a rodeo so we decided to take Eve and go to one at the fair:

I enjoyed it and Eve loved riding a couple rides after:

Another Daddy snuggle pic:

Nate helped Eve make a cool magnatile tower one morning while we enjoyed the Olympics. We loved watching those this year.

Then, it was time for our trip to Colombia for Emily and Pedro's wedding. It was a marathon travel day but the kids were champs:

We got into Barranquilla around 11pm and had to find a taxi to get us to our Airbnb. They only had smaller ones to we had to split into two taxis. We were a little worried but we made it and managed to find our apartment without too much trouble. Eve enjoyed our balcony in the morning:

Joe and I ventured out to find food at a grocery store the next morning. The view from our patio:

The was a park nearby that I took Eve to, although it was quite hot and some of the equipment was too hot:

That day we took an uber to the beach. We ate at a restaurant on the beach:

That food was just OK. We had fun playing in the ocean, though, even though it was warm! It wasn't really refreshing at all with how hot it was outside. It was still fun playing in the water. 

Then a storm came in and it started to rain so we got out and found a nice Uber driver who let us all cram into his car wet.

That night we met all our family at a really good Brazilian steakhouse place:

It was fun to meet Pedro and see he and Emily together.

The next day was wedding day! We took a taxi to the temple with all of our luggage, which we kept at the visitor's center. Then, Joe and I went into the sealing. It was so beautiful! I loved hearing it in Spanish too. Then we waited for the Emily and Pedro to come out:

The cute couple:

After pictures we took a bus to Santa Marta where they live and where the reception was. It was really unique and cool to see all of the countryside while we drove:

We made it to our hotel there which was really nice:

Then it was time for the reception. It was right on the beach, which was beautiful but very hot and we ended up having time to kill. Sadly, the water was still not refreshing but we did have fun looking at all the crabs around:

Then, the ring ceremony on the beach started. They both wrote vows that were so beautiful! I loved it.

More fun pictures while the sun set:

I loved the beautiful place setting:

We had some delicious food there too:

The reception was really fun with dancing and Pedro playing but it was long and some kids were done:

Proof that Eve did like dancing for awhile:

Joe and I even danced for a bit:

She also loved getting to hold a bouquet:

We even stayed until the end when we made a sparkler tunnel for them which was fun.

Sadly, Eve woke up with a fever the next morning which put a damper on our adventure plans but we were pretty tired anyway. I was able to make my way to the grocery store on my own that morning to get her medicine and some orange juice which was fresh and SO delicious. She drank that up so we went to get her more. Luckily it wasn't too bad and she felt better after the medicine. I took Nate swimming at the hotel pool and we tried they're delicious coco fresa drink:

Since she was feeling better, we all swam that afternoon. That night, the kids opted for room service and Joe and I took a walk along a beach and found a place to eat dinner. It was a beautiful night:

Too soon, it was time to leave. We had another long day of travel ahead of us. 

Looking for a souvenir at the airport before we left:

Thankfully, we didn't go through the problems that Chris and Lisa's family did--they got rerouted through all kinds of different countries. We just had problems when we were flying from Bogota into Atlanta and couldn't land there due to storms so we landed in South Carolina. We stayed on the plane for a bit until it was safe to fly to Atlanta but that meant we missed our connection so we had to stay the night at a hotel there. We were all so exhausted and we had to get up early the next day so we didn't get much sleep. Joe was nice and sang songs to Eve until she fell asleep that night even though it was 1am. Natalie, Nate and Eli all got up on time and were knocking on our door to wake us up the next morning so we had to hustle out. We got on our plane with no problems and made it back to SLC the next day. 

Eve loving her Burger King crown as we started:

How we finished--passed out in front of an ipad:

Thankfully she did pretty well, especially since she was recovering from being sick. The other kids did great too. They were self-sufficient in their row since Joe and I always sat with Eve.

Immediately after we got back, Natalie started school. Then it was the boys' turn:

They had to start a day earlier since they both started at new schools--Eli in 6th at the middle school and Natalie as a freshmen at the high school! Big day, but they both seemed to like it and do well.

Eve didn't start for a little bit longer. She had fun drawing pictures and taping them all over the house:

Here is her version of George:

She and I had fun on another hike one day:

Then itw as time for Eve to start preschool again:

She was excited to be back.

They had a fun water play day:

She sure loves her school.

We found a picture Natalie made from preschool and we thought she and Eve look a lot alike:

Eve loved these cute ears: