Anniversary Week

This week was very fun.  Jeff was able to attend a conference in Monterey, California.  Because it was so close, he was able to rent a car and drive to the conference rather than fly.  This worked out great because cars can take passengers.  So I hopped in the car and joined him on this little adventure.  We decided that it was a slightly late anniversary trip.  It was worth the wait for the price!  We drove up to Monterey.  I spent a rainy Wednesday just relaxing in the hotel room while Jeff attended meetings. 
On Thursday, I was able to rent a bike.  I was very grateful for small blessings, the bike shop was closed, but when I went there, the owner happened to be there for a meeting.  He was willing to lock the bike up outside for me to use, and have me lock it back up when I was done.  I was so grateful that it worked out.  So Thursday afternoon, I took a lovely ride downtown and followed the historical trail around the city.  There are so many historic houses downtown.  Some of them have been converted to offices, but a large portion of them have been donated to the historical society.  Unfortunately, none of them were open.  But I enjoyed the buildings and the beautiful gardens that surrounded nearly every one. 

Then on a beautiful sunny Friday, I rode along the coast to Fisherman's Wharf, and Cannery Row.  I saw beautiful scenery, a rich blue ocean that contrasted and clashed with the dark rocks of the coastline, lined by historic Victorian homes.  It was really very beautiful.  We went out to dinner every night and sampled the local cuisine. 

 On Saturday, Jeff was finished with his meetings, and we needed to return home.  We drove down 17 mile drive for more sweeping vistas of the rugged Northern California coastline.  Then we followed Highway 1 down the coast for about half of the drive home.  We watched the sun paint brilliant streaks of all colors across the sky as it set over the ocean.

5 pointed hand-Stars

We went down to Hollywood to see Mann's Chinese Theatre, home of the cement clad hand and foot prints of the stars for the past 80 years.  We had been there once before, but it was before Allie and Gabe were born.  So after a trip to the temple with some friends, we stopped by there as part of our "Tour LA" year.  It was fun to see many familiar names from past and present.  Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Julie Andrews alongside Harrison Ford, and Arnold Swarzenegger.  Some of our favorites were Harry Potter and Star Wars, featuring R2D2 and C3PO.

A Happy Thanksgiving

For this thanksgiving, we went to my sister's house.  Just our family nearly doubled the number of people at her house, but it made things all the more fun.  With my father also in attendance, we had quite an age range, we hit nearly every decade for the past 60 years.  We had a great dinner complete with a lot of mashed potatoes, played a fun family football game after and topped it off with yummy desserts.  It was a great day.

a passing

This morning, my grandmother,Alice passed away after a long and full life. She wiil be reunited with all of her siblings, her parents and her husband who passed away 19 years ago almost to the day. I am so happy for her. She was ready to leave this earth and continue her progression elsewhere. I am so grateful that I have lived near her and been able to visit her and become friends with her over the years. Here are some of my favorite places memories if her.

She always sent me a card for my birthday with 5 dollars. When she discovered that I liked bicentennial quarters, she would save all the quarters she came across during the year and send them to me for my birthday.

Some of her favorite phrases were "Oh grab" and "Well,..Mindy!"

She loved to watch the Dodgers play baseball.

She was always reading a book and we would talk about the book that she was reading.

She loved to play games.  Some of the favorites were dominoes and Sorry.

She loved the avocados from her tree in the backyard.  Sometimes she kept a count of how many were on the tree.

She often talked about her twin sister, Alta.  She talked about her so much that I didn't realize that Alta had only lived a few days until I was an adult.  I thought they had been little girls together.

Grandma wrote me letters every week during my freshman year of college.  Her handwriting was so bad, it killed a lot of time to read through them.

Goodbye Grandma, we will miss you.

Cackling at Halloween

This year we cackled and shrieked our way into Halloween sending all in our paths fleeing.  Not really, but that was our intent.  We were the villains.  Jeff portrayed Captain Hook, complete with mustache and long black hair.  I was Malificent, the evil queen from Sleeping Beauty.  Allie was Ursula, the octupus like temptress from the Little Mermaid.  Gabe was the thorn in the side of Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy.  We enjoyed being a little wicked for the evening, even though it was in looks only.

A Hair Cut? Why not cut them all?

While it seems like everyone in the family is growing out their hair a little to accommodate Halloween costumes (yes, that does happen at my house), Maddie decided to go in another direction.  After years of unsuccessfully trying to grow her hair long, she resigned herself to try a new style.  She cut her hair very short.  It is amazingly cute.  It frames her face perfectly, is so easy to manage and looks stylish and fun.  She loves her new look and has received several compliments on it.  Check her out!

Under Attack

We were attacked this week by a flu bug.  I won't go into the details, as in most attacks, casualties are not pretty.  I managed to continue to hold my scrapbook weekend at my house anyways, some of my friends were willing to brave being placed in the line of fire.  We had a great time laughing and working despite the underlying evidence of the upcoming battle.  I think that this week promises to be much of the same.  We have bolstered our defenses as some members of the family have yet to be conquered.  Only time will tell.  I hope to report with better news next week.

Life's little moments

This week, things just went on as normal.  We didn't do anything spectacular, but we spent the week doing normal things, so I thought I would give you each a quick update on our normal things.

Jeff is doing well at work.  He hasn't been quite as busy lately, but that will be changing and he will go back to his normal 9-midnight self.  He recently was able to establish funding for an exciting developmental program.  He is very excited to work on this project.  Unfortunately, some of his best friends and co-workers recently left the company for greener pastures somewhere else.  He is going to miss them.
Mindy is still in cub scouts, but after 6 years with the wolves, she recently moved to the bear den.  Although not intended, it was perfect timing as Gabe was also moving to the bear den.  It almost feels like a new calling.  She is still playing volleyball 3-4 times a week and basketball a few times a week while the kids are at school, then does things with/for the kids all afternoon.
Maddie is finding her junior year to be less stressful than the sophmore year.  She has found a few good friends, and is enjoying her math based AP classes.  She started taking her fencing classes again, and is looking forward to beginning driver's education and training.
Jayd is being challenged a little more with the demands of school, but he is rising to the occassion.  He plays volleyball at every opportunity and his skills are improving.  He has been practicing with the track during PE and is enjoying the strength training benefits.
Allie is doing very well in school.  She tries so hard to do well on each test and quiz and complete her homework on time.  She is also my best little missionary.  She is always telling me about how she brings the gospel into her conversations at school and invites many of her friends to come to church with her.
Gabe is getting taller and smarter by the minute.  He has recently taken to bike riding and is frequently asking to ride over to the train station, his favorite bike ride.  He is playing volleyball at the park and rec.  He was a little dismayed to find that he is the only boy on a team with 7 girls.

We are enjoying the fall weather, and just being together as a family.  Life just seems to happen sometimes and you don't even stop to think about all the little interactions throughout your day.  We can appreciate that even the little things make up a full and interesting life.

Not Too Shabby....anymore

Since Jayd and Gabe's current bedroom was the "garage" for 10 years, I had never found the time or motivation to put curtains in the room.  The previous residents removed all the window treatments before leaving, so there weren't any curtains/blinds in the room.  At the time, my only consideration was to protect things in the room from the sunlight, and to provide a small measure of privacy.  So I quickly grabbed an old fitted sheet, cut it into squares that would cover the windows and hung them up with nails.  The sheets stayed up performing their lackluster duty for 10 years.  Now that we have properly converted that room back into a bedroom, I thought that more fitting window dressings could be arranged.  So I made some cornice boxes (these are very fancy terms for me) and put up some curtains.  I like them very much, they are simple, yet a little elegant and perfect for a boys room.

The streets of Venice

This week we had a random day without school.  Wednesday was declared a local holiday and the kids were out.  As part of our "Tour LA" year, I had wanted to take them down to Santa Monica and ride our bikes along the beach.  There is a path there designated to ride bikes, rollerblade, skateboard etc.  We finally went this week.  We rode from Santa Monica south to Venice Beach.  As we wound along the shore, we heard live jazz music, watched the skaters in the skate park, and glanced over at the many tourist shops (several with medical marijuana) lining the promenade.  Then we rode inland a bit to explore the area of Venice.  I finally found the famous canals that give the city it's name.  Nestled within Venice is a network of canals,  The houses face the canals and there are very narrow walkways along the canals.  They are connected by bridges.  We rode around a few of the canals.  They were beautiful, the house had green lush gardens, and the bridges were cute and quaint.  It even had a bit of the aroma of Venice to transport us across the globe.  Other than a small bike crash resulting in a cut elbow, it was a very smooth ride.  We enjoyed riding along and soaking in the scenery.

Parading the Shuttle

On Friday, Jeff surprised me with a mid-day date.  He picked me up at 10:00 and we jetted down to the Getty Center for a glimpse at history.  The space shuttle, Endeavor, was on it's way to the California Science Center to be displayed for future generations.  As this was the last time that the space shuttle was to be in the air, they decided to parade the shuttle around the LA Basin a few times before landing at LAX.  We (along with scores of other people) were present to witness the shuttle being flown from a grand viewing point at Getty Center which is located at the top of the Santa Monica Mountains.  We watched as the 747 carrying the shuttle emerged from a fog of haze in the west, crossed the sky over the downtown area.  Then it faded from view only to reemerge, this time from the south (we understand it passed over Disneyland) and head directly towards us.  It banked slightly west before turning east again and passing nearly directly over us.  We were able to clearly see the shuttle.  Jeff had always dreamed of going to a shuttle launch.  Although this doesn't hardly compare, it was a small concession.

On Saturday, the parading continued for us.  This past week has been Simi Valley Days, which culminate in a parade on Saturday.  I have always wanted to go, and finally, we were clear of baseball games and other activities that allowed us to attend.  Gabe and I decided to walk in the parade with the cub scouts.  Allie and Jeff were standing on the sidelines watching the parade.  The staging (or waiting) part was long and tedious, but I really enjoyed walking in the parade.  Allie enjoyed watching all of the different people go by, and especially enjoyed the candy they passed out!

Around the House

It has been a fairly routine week at the Stout house this week.  We have done the usual activities, scouts, volleyball, swimming and, of course, lots of homework.  Since life has slowed down a bit, we are trying to focus a little on our home and some of those projects that we have been wanting to do for a while.
This week the focus was on a workbench in the garage.  Having a workshop has always been high on Jeff's list.  After 8 years of fixing and building things in the "spare room", the addition of the garage had a big impact.  But it just wasn't quite complete without a workbench.  Now that our garage seems to be our own, and we happened to get some free scrap lumber, it was time to get busy.  The project just seemed to become more complicated as the day went on, but in the end, we have the sturdiest workbench I have ever encountered!  Jeff is looking forward to using his new workbench for our next project, after he finishes cleaning up the mess in the garage!

Trading Spaces

Last week was the big week, the one that Maddie (and others) have been waiting for since the completion of the garage over two years ago.  The fourth bedroom in our home was finally converted into an actual bedroom.  This had a domino effect that gave every child considerable more space.  Since the birth of Gabe, 9 years ago, Maddie and Allie have been sharing a 10 foot by 10 foot bedroom and Gabe and Jayd have been doing the same.  With the vacancy of the 4th bedroom (it took me two years to purge, remove and relocate the items that had been stored in that room), every child now has a space about that size each.  Maddie stayed in her original room.  It has remained nearly unchanged, the only difference is the bunkbeds were replaced by a single bed.  Allie moved into the boys bedroom.  It is largely filled by the king size bed, such a big bed for such a little girl!  We are grateful to have reduced Allie's floorspace and hope that it will inspire her to stay a little neater.  Gabe and Jayd moved into the "new" bedroom.  With nearly twice the size of the other rooms, they should have a little more room to breathe.  An ironic twist of fate, the biggest room has the smallest closet.  I suppose it is a good thing that they are boys and don't need nearly as much closet space!  We have been experiencing a few growing pains over the week as we sorted out personal belongings, moved furniture and arranged it all, but in the long run, I think that it will be good for the family.

Allie's Room:

Gabe's "Room"  (note: the big white square behind the bunk beds is Jayd's Room)

Jayd's "Room" (note: I am standing next to the bunk beds in Gabe's Room)

 

Maddie's Room

Hollywood Bowl "Flicks" to life

 Friday night we went to the Hollywood Bowl.  I have always wanted to go there, but hadn't remembered to buy tickets early enough (it seems like every time I looked, only box seats were left).  This year, I remembered early, and was able to go to the box office and purchase tickets the day after they opened.  There are so many good concerts performed there over the summer, but I was thrilled to be able to purchase tickets for the concert I really wanted, John Williams. He is one of the most successful composers in cinematic history.  He has composed the scores for Harry Potter, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Jaws and Star Wars, and many others.  It was so much fun to go to that concert.  We recognized most of the songs he played.  The opening song we immediately recognized, although we never would have associated it with him.  He played the Olympic Theme that NBC uses.  During that performance, they showed great Olympic moments on the screen.  It was very entertaining, and aappropriate for this year They didn't use the video screen for every song, but they did on occassion. 

  They showed famous sword fighting scenes.  Maddie was satisfied, they included the scene from the Princess Bride.  For the finale, they played the entire last reel of the movie ET as they showed the movie on the screen.  It was over 15 minutes of music, and just amazing to think of the impact the music has on the film.

As an encore, they played several selections from Star Wars.  The crowd was very excited, and several people had brought light up light sabers.  As soon as those familiar notes began, the light sabers came out and were waved around the theater.  It was a very fun experience.  The evening was full of laughter, entertainment, and of course, very emotional music.

First Day of School

It happens every fall, or at least every near the end of the summer.  In my mind, summer seems to end when the kids go back to school.  But it is hard to think that summer is over when the temperature is just ramping up.

I think that September is the hottest month of the year.  Luckily for me, the temperature has obliged me, at least for the time being.  The kids went back to school, and the longest heat wave of the summer broke on the same day, bringing the temperatures down to a cool 93.  I know it won't last, but it was a refreshing way to start the summer.

This year is the same as last year, I sent two children off to highschool, and two children off to the elementary school.  Jayd was quite pleased with his schedule, Maddie had a class that she didn't request and didn't want, but quickly went to the counselor and was able to get it changed to a more satisfactory subject. 

Allie was put in the class with the teacher that she wanted, although it didn't matter much because the two teachers team teach and she will spend nearly as much time in the other class.  Gabe has the teacher that I wanted him to have.  He is a little worried, she has a reputation of being a tough disciplinarian.  I am not worried, Gabe generally isn't a behavior problem and I think that he will do just fine.  Here are their pictures on the first day of school.

The campy, cozy beach trip

For our last hurrah of the summer, we went beach camping!  It is quite a popular thing to do in Southern California.  We made reservations 6 months ago, before our summer came together and we discovered we were going to be camping more than ever.  We were a little weary of camping, but much more practiced at it, and after all, it was at the beach.  Upon arrival, the kids were quite disappointed that we weren't actually sleeping on sand on the beach.  The campsite was about 100 yards from the beach on plain old dirt.  They were quickly pacified when they discovered the tree behind the tent that was very easy to climb.

We spent a lovely two days at the beach.  It was so convenient to be camping so near to the beach.  We went down to the beach, swam in the ocean, played a little volleyball, then went back to the campsite for lunch.  We returned later that day after the crowds had gone.  We walked along the beach, made footprints in the sand and watched the sunset.

The next day, we had a sand castle building contest.  Here is Maddie with her sand rendition of Helm's Deep from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  It was very well done.  Allie, Gabe and I finished the day on the boogie boards.  It was low tide, but the waves were quite big and we caught a lot of good waves and rode them until we reached the shore. The ocean was very strange that day.  If you look closely at the picture of Gabe on the boogie board, you might notice that the water directly behind Gabe had a glassy effect to it, similar to a calm and still lake.  The ocean was like that all morning.  The waves would roll until and look perfectly smooth and glassy until it crested and foamed.  It was very unusual.

  

We had a great time with our last hurrah at the beach.  We have been busy, but feel refreshed and ready to start settling into the routine of school.

On the Horizon: the Vertical Horizon

  Jeff discovered that one of his favorite rock groups, Vertical Horizon was scheduled to play in Roosevelt Utah (population 6,000).  Upon further investigation, he also discovered that it was put on by the park and rec district and was free.  Since we happened to be in Utah that day, he made arrangements to go.We were hesitant right up until the end, it just seemed so bizarre that we weren't really sure if it was going to happen.  But it did!  We walked right up and sat on the second row.  Once they started playing, we walked up and stood right near the stage!  It was fantastic.  We love their music and it was so fun to hear them play it live.

  

The lead singer and songwriter, Matt Scannell, was very personable and told us stories about when he wrote the songs and sometimes about his inspiration.  It felt really close and personal.  We had a great time listening to the music and being there.  After the concert, we stayed to get autographs from the band.  What an experience for a first concert!

Californian Snowbirds

 One day while we were in Utah, my mother-in-law suggested we go to Snowbird, a Utah ski resort.  She said that they had many summertime activities for all ages.  So off we went.  It was so much fun!  First, we went on the alpine slide which snaked down the bunny hill through purple wildflowers. 

Then we tried the ropes course.  That was our favorite activity.  We wore a harness, then climbed up into a tall steel structure.  With the harness attached to a rail above our heads, we walked on across narrow planks and ropes fifteen feet above the ground, like a tightrope walker.  They had a mechanical bull, climbing wall, bungee trampoline, and monkey arms. 

After those activities, we rode the ski lift up the mountain to do some hiking.  Unfortunately, we were a little confused and when we arrived at the top, we discovered that we needed to hike up another 500 feet to arrive at our destination!  After that climb, we were done hiking for the day, but spent the day playing on all the other activities.  We came home exhausted and filled with memories.

A Narrow Vacation

We have spent the last week hiking around Southern Utah.  We have probably logged about 25 miles over the week as we explored Zions National Park, Calf Creek, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef National Park.  Our favorite by far was the Narrows in Zions. When Maddie was a baby, Jeff and I hiked down the Narrows.  We started at the top and hiked down the 16 miles in a day.

We loved the experience, and really wanted to come back with our children someday, but recognized that 16 miles in a day was not really going to happen again!  Luckily, things seemed to align, and we were able to go this year with our children.  We hiked from the bottom up this time, around 9 miles round trip.  It was a fabulous day.    

We started out quickly submerging into waist high water.  We spent the next 8 hours hiking up and down the river, mostly in the river, and sometimes swimming in a canyon that was only 15 feet wide and 1500 feet tall.  It was amazing.  The kids had a great time jumping off of rocks, and floating down with the current.  It was everything that Jeff and I had hoped to do 16 years ago.

Camping

We ran away camping for the weekend with our best friends, the Buscos. 

 We just went to a local camping ground, but it was great just to get away from the house and relax, and spend the entire day and night with friends. 

 Everyone had a great time playing in the creek, climbing trees, catching frogs and sitting around the campfire.