Rock’s parents came up for Thanksgiving this year and they picked Reagan up on their way so we had everyone home for the holiday.

The first night they were here we went to Bruchis, like we do every time Rock’s parents come visit. But we got there and they were all out of meat. A meat sandwich shop was out of meat?! Frustrated, we went to a pizza place instead. We tried again another night they were here and that time they were out of bread!!! Pretty sure they’ll be out of business soon.

We had some things go really great this year with food and not so great. I brined the turkey this year and it was the best we’ve ever had, besides Cam’s smoked turkey last year. Libby made Cam’s yams-a new family favorite. Rock made lots of a pies; a beautiful apple blackberry pie, an amazing looking merengue topped butterscotch pie and a pumpkin cheesecake pie. 

When it was time to break out the pies, Rock went out to the office to get the apple blackberry which had been in his office for a few days. But when he brought it in, it was covered in little tiny sugar ants!!! Didn’t even know we had an ant problem out there! They did their best to brush them all off, and some were actually crazy enough to eat a piece, but I sure as heck wouldn’t touch it. Yuck!!! Derek brought his kids over for pie and every kid, including mine wanted a piece of that amazing looking merengue butterscotch pie. Unfortunately, it was not a fan favorite. Little miss Rosie didn’t let him down easy when she told him what she thought of his pie. Rock says he will definitely try a merengue again, just not the butterscotch part. lol The pumpkin cheesecake was a hit, though!

The Sunday after Thanksgiving was Cade’s mission farewell. It was a really awesome day. He gave an interesting and insightful talk and I had many people tell me his talk seemed like a homecoming talk rather than a farewell. He has grown a lot this year and he will be a powerful missionary.

Here are a few of the pictures a friend took for Cade’s mission plaque. 

Reagan turned the big 21 in October. He was home the weekend before so we celebrated with him.

Libby and Levi got to be in a combined choir concert with the high school and the middle school. It was pretty awesome.

For Halloween this year, the kids wanted to go trick or treating instead of going to the pumpkin patch. But we did still carve pumpkins.

Libby was bored one day and decided to make a pumpkin witch. The pictures turned out as funny as the actual pumpkin.

Cade spent the month shopping for suits and ties and coats and boots for his mission and working at the temple every Saturday. 

We had the most beautiful fall here in Boise. The weather was beautiful and warm and fall colors took their time coming and then stayed for along time. Most brilliant and beautiful colors we’ve ever had here.  Here’s me enjoying the warmth at the end of September.

We celebrated Rock’s birthday on the 19th. This year he wanted peanut butter balls instead of pie, so that’s what he got.

Levi was busy with cross country. He had a roller coaster of a season this year. Some great races, some not so great. His team made it to state, but they had a lot of injuries this season and didn’t do as well overall as they’d hoped. But he’s more determined than ever to improve and has been planning and working with his off season coach-Rock- on running strategies.

Reagan came up for a quick weekend so we could take family pictures in the amazing Fall colors. I’m so happy with how they turned out! Thanks to my friend Barb for taking them!

The most exciting thing that happened in September was not actually Disneyland, but Cade receiving his mission call. I am so happy he’s decided to serve! Feel free to watch the whole intro-it’s good. Or you can skip to 1:27 to hear where he’s going.

For those who don’t want to watch the video-He is going to the Colorado, Fort Collins Mission, which actually covers as much of Wyoming as Colorado and a small portion of Nebraska too! He reports Dec. 13th at the MTC. We are so glad he doesn’t have to wait a long time to go! AND he gets to do 3 weeks of in-person MTC because of the holiday. Many tender mercies for him. 

Our last day in Florida was at Universal Studios. I was looking forward to this park the most because of Harry Potter World. Rock, Levi and Cade took off right away to go ride some big crazy rollercoaster while Libby, Reagan and I headed to Harry Potter World-through Dr. Suess land. It really was like walking through one of his books.

When we got to Harry Potter world the first thing we did was get a Butterbeer. Don’t tell the others because when they joined up with us an hour later to buy Butterbeers, they thought we hadn’t had one yet. It was good, but not as good as everyone claims. We slipped into Olivanders and watched him help a wand choose a wizard-VERY cool. Just in case you wondered, to buy a souvenir wand at Olivanders costs $75.00 or more! We did not buy a wand. Hogwarts didn’t disappoint though.

Every little while the dragon on top of Gringotts actually spouts fire!

Levi, Cade and Rock rode all the big crazy rollercoasters throughout the day and I rode the Hogwarts ride 4 different times with whoever I could get to ride it with me. It was a great day. But by the end of it we were all ready to be done. 5 parks in 5 days is actually crazy. I wouldn’t do it again. But I don’t really regret it either. We saw every park and did as much as we possibly could while in Florida. Well, Levi was bummed we didn’t see an alligator, but other than that… We ended our last day at Maggiano’s-my favorite Italian restaurant that is only in very big cities. Our flight home the next day went well and I’m so grateful for the awesome memories we made at Disneyworld to take home with us. 

On day 4 we went to Animal Kingdom. This was a favorite park for many of us. Rock took the boys early to open the park so they could ride Flight of Passage, the Avatar ride that has a huge wait. Then we met up for a safari ride. Very cool! We saw the biggest alligator I’ve ever seen. I should note here that Levi went running every morning we were on our trip and claimed to look for alligators. I don’t know if he really did or if he was just trying to scare me. You’ll have to ask him. The day after we got home some poor guy was eaten by an alligator in Florida so I hope Levi was just trying to scare me. We saw rhinos, flamingos, giraffes and gorillas as well.

My favorite thing at Animal Kingdom was the Tree of Life. It was a huge tree with every imaginable animal carved into it’s trunk. You could stand there for hours and not find all the animals carved all over this thing. It was amazing.

Libby and Reagan were brave enough to try Everest, the big rollercoaster there that the others had ridden the day before. I think everyone except me rode it several times. Pandora, the Avatar world, was the overall favorite, though. This world was incredible to walk through. We all rode the Flight of Passage and everyone loved it except me. 🙂 It had too many steep drops for my taste so even though you’re basically stationary the entire time, I kept my eyes closed for a lot of it. I was able to see that the Virtual Reality affects were amazing-at least in the 5 seconds when my eyes were open. Don’t tell my kids-they think my eyes were open most of the time. 😉

That night Rock and I went off on our own for a dinner date at Disney Springs while the kids all went back to Epcot so they could ride Guardians of the Galaxy. Another BIG favorite.

Up next; our last day in Florida at Universal Studios.