Sweet Berry becomes a bit more sassy

In November we celebrated Berry's 4th Birthday.  She received a surprise for her birthday - Aunt Jeniel and Lyssie came to celebrate with her.  We celebrated the special day with breakfast in bed (provided by her sisters) and lots of playtime with Lyssie, Jeniel and her siblings.

Jeniel and I had fun making her Rapunzel cake

 

 Curly and Lou insisted that Berry have a birthday party, so we decided on a dress-up tea party with a few friends.  Curly, Lou and our 9 yr old neighbor (who Berry loves to play with) served the girls and played games with them.

Berry is in a wondrous stage of life when everything can be make-believe and magical.   She chatters all the time, and says the cutest things.  She is snuggly and sweet with everyone (and I mean everyone) most of the time.  She had also become prolific in her use of paper, crayons, markers, scissors, and glue.  With that said, turning four also seemed to turn up the sass in Berry and time-out has become a bit more of a necessity.  We wouldn't have her any other way though!

So happy she became part of our family

October in a pumpkin shell

If you could sum the month of October up in three words it would be dirt, rocks, and fun.

Let's start with the dirty stuff.  I can't even calculate how many hours days we spent working on our unfinished yard.  We removed rocks and more rock and even more rocks.  When we thought we had removed as many rocks as was humanly possible, we kept on removing rock.  For some reason, we did a lot of this in the dark using shop lights.  Then the sprinkler man came and worked his magic.  Finally it was time for sod.  The night before our sod arrived we decided it was a good time to put in a french drain.  So once again in the dark, we dug a really deep trench and an even deeper hole.  Then we took all that rock that we had removed form the yard and put it back in the yard, added drainage pipe and burried the whole thing.  We finished about 11:30 at night.  I think our neighbors might have been questioning our stability of mind...and so was I.  Finally we laid sod.  We were humbled and grateful when about 30 people youth and adults from our new ward showed up to help us with this project. 

 Seeing green grass out the window makes me smile!

Now for the fun.  Berry started preschool.  She loves going with her buddy Lilly.

 My girls surprised me with a spa night - a nice foot soak in icy water, foot massage, and hair style.

Curly, Lou and I had the privilege of traveling to Arizona to see many of our dearly missed friends and tour the Phoenix temple during the open house.  The whole weekend was a wonderful treat.  We stayed a night with Uncle Lynn and Aunt Blynn (and the crazy girls took a dip in the cool pool).  We enjoyed visiting with them and playing with their dogs.  Then we traveled to Peoria and stayed with the Bakers.  They were wonderful hosts.
 
When we arrived, Candy told me more volunteers were needed and asked if I was interested in helping with the Temple open house on Saturday morning.  Of course!!!  Dave offered to take all six of their kids plus my two to the Mormon Helping Hands service project, so that Candy and I could go help at the temple.  It was such a treat to be part of that experience. 

Later in the day I went back to the temple with the girls for our tour.  Because I had been through the tour as an usher earlier, I was able to point out things to them that I had noticed, particularly the beautiful artwork. 

The few days we were there were filled with visits to many friends.  We were always on the go.  We had park dates and dinner dates.  Curly and Lou were able to see almost all of their friends.  We were able to spend time with our dearest neighbors and many other friends.  We were also able to attend our old ward on Sunday. I loved being able to catch up with old friends as if not time had passed at all.  I even got to squeeze in a jog with my running group. 

The whole trip sped by so quickly and were on our way home to Idaho with many happy memories in our hearts.
 

 

We arrived home for a beautifully warm Halloween (we still felt like we were in Arizona).  

We got creative carving pumpkins courtesy of Grandpa Lake's garden.  Paisley joined us for a "spooky meal".  And we had a fun night of trick-or-treating.  Curly and Lou dressed up as Hermione and Ginny.  Berry was a princess and Spud was a very appropriate Lion. I helped with Lou's class party and thought I should probably dress up too, so I threw together a gypsy costume.  Even my dad got into the spooky spirit, and scared innocent trick-or-treaters with his creepy gardner get-up.  Fisher didn't dress-up, but he did carve a gnarly pumpkin.

Waltours 2014

About five years ago, Grandpa Woodbury began traveling to Southern Utah every fall with his sons and sometimes grandsons.  He called this annual pilgrimage "Waltours" (after his name Walt).  This year, grandpa extended the invitation to Waltours to the entire Woodbury family and it turned into a mini family reunion.  We all headed down to St George, Utah in mid-October to see the sights and enjoy the gorgeous weather.

We had planned to visit Zion National Park, but happened to be there on a very busy day, so we skipped it.  Which turned out just fine.  It had been quite a while since many of us had seen each other and we were happy to catch up.  We visited the Grafton Ghost Town where our great-grandmother taught school during it's "hey-day" of a community.  It might look familiar - it has been the set for several movies, including "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

In the evening we visited the adorable St George Children's Museum.  We had free reign of the museum and the kids (and adults) had a whole lot of fun.  We loved that they had a shadow picture room just like the old Salt Lake City Children's Museum had featured.  It was nostalgic to be in there with my cousins.

 On Saturday we began with a walking tour of old town St George.  Grandpa grew up in this area and we saw his childhood home and his grandmother's home, along with an old general store that has been turned into a quaint sweet shop (with every pleasing flavor of soda imaginable).  We also toured Brigham Young's winter home.

 We ended the tour in the town center and enjoyed a picnic lunch.  Then there was lots of time to play in the splash pad, relax on the grass, or ride the carousel.  Berry was fascinated by the many bronze sculptures around the town center.  She would hug them and talk to them like they were her new best friends.  After some downtime at the hotel, we drove up Snow Canyon and took a hike in the beautiful red rock.  The finale of the evening was a delicious dinner at a local restaurant.

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 The reunion was short and very sweet and we are so happy that we were able to go!

A year of summers

 I keep joking that we have had a full year of beautiful summer weather, but it's not really a joke.  We moved from Phoenix just as the really hot summer began and came to Idaho where the beautiful summer is like the lovely Phoenix winter.  I hate to say it, but I think the pleasant weather ended yesterday when rain and thunderstorms blew in and seem to be here to stay for a while.  (I hope we don't have a year of winter to follow our year of summer :)  I guess since summer is officially over, I better wrap up the events of the last month or so.

We never had a chance for a true camping trip this summer, but we did squeeze in a quick overnighter to Island Park.  We enjoyed the cool weather, pine trees, s'mores and wading in the river.

Berry keeping me warm

Wading in the river

A cool treat on the way home

 We received good news from T-man and Shar that they decided to move to Utah (It's not 3 minutes away, but we will take 3 hours over 15 hours)!  To try to help them with the move, their kids came to play with Grandma and us for a week.  We had plenty of cousin play time the last week before school began.

Berry and Lyssie

 Curly and Lou were excited and nervous to begin a new school year at a new school.  Their worries were gone after a few days as they realized this school is just as great as their old and there are plenty of friends to be made.

 T-man and Shar came for a few days to pick up their kids before moving into their new house. We actually ended up closing on our new home the same day they did - we like to do things just like them (we got married the same day also :) We followed them back to Utah and spent Labor day weekend visiting family. 

In Utah, Fisher and the girls had a fun daddy-daughter outing with cousins and Uncles while I went to Swiss Days with Lynette, Ba and Jenny.  We also enjoyed a beautiful canyon hike with Oma and Grandpa, then visits to the new Utah Museum of Natural History, Grandpa and Grandma Woodbury, Pehrsons, and K-Rae.

Cousins and cones at Oma's

 Once school was under way, we began slowly moving into our new house.  It took a few weeks, but with lots of help from lots of family we are now settled and enjoying our new neighborhood and home.  I have been able to walk the girls to school in the morning (something I have never been able to do because school has always been too far away) and then watch them get off the bus in the afternoon.  We have loved seeing the change in season and beautiful fall colors.

An Autumn evening walk

Who needs to hire a piano mover?

 Our biggest project has been trying to get our yard done before winter.  This is a huge undertaking and I can't even begin to describe how many rocks we have "harvested" from our backyard.  My dad and Fisher (with some help from me and my mom) have spent many, many hours preparing the ground for a sprinkler system, grass, and trees.  If the rain ever stops, we might get it done!

Hard at work on the back yard

Two cute, little thieves sneaking snacks in the pantry

The in between parts

Welcome to Idaho sign by Paisley

I know summer isn't over yet but before the business of back to school begins, I wanted to make sure to record all those things we have been doing "in-between" the big events of the summer.  We have played hard this summer and had so much fun!  Here are a few of the little things that made up the day to day.

Berry has become buddies with our adorable neighbor

Learning Russian games and dances at Summerfest

Visit to Grandma Betty

Spud wrestling cousin Nels

Visit from our dear friends, the Bakers

Getting settled in our cute apartment

Lots of bike rides...

... and cold treats!

Picking huckleberries

Eating huckleberries

Treats after picking huckleberries

Playing in dirt

Finding a house

Playing in the rain

Curly making clothes for her doll

Beautiful Sunday walks

Celebrating our 12th Anniversary!