October is the craziest month of the year at our house. Between marching band competitions, band concerts, marching band competitions, band tour, football games, (did I mention marching band competitions), Halloween, and a birthday, we are on the go non-stop! Well, technically, the birthday and band tour are in November, but within the first few days of November so October just rushes right into November without stopping. I have gone to more BYU home games than I originally planned because there have been conflicts with band competitions this year and Niles needed to be helping with those more than I did. So I took each of my boys to a game and enjoyed spending time with them. Jet's game was on a cold fall day and it was pouring rain so I wasn't too excited about it. But it stopped raining for the game itself so that was a blessing! They also won both games, which is great considering that wins have been a little scarce this season.
Also in the month of October: YW in Excellence which is a semi-major activity to plan and carry out. The next week was the combined YM/YW Halloween Party and the Mia Maids were in charge of it this year which means me. (Thankfully I have a great advisor to help me.) Those few weeks about did me in, I'm not kidding. I had a few days in there that I literally cried all day. It didn't help that I was recovering from a particularly nasty bout with the stomach flu and that every day is a battle with Jumble's depression. We did finally manage to get her into the district's home and hospital program after 4 long weeks of extreme frustration and run-around from Jumble's doctor. That means there is hope that she'll be able to continue with her school work and graduate from high school. I also succeeded in getting Atom into speech therapy through the school. The speech therapist tried to put it off for at least a year but I INSISTED that she test him this year because I was sure he would qualify, despite her doubts. I resisted saying "I told you so" to her at the IEP meeting when she told me he tested in the 1% for his age group on the speech test! So we've survived another month and there has been a lot of fun things mixed in with the stress.
On October 9th, there was a new competition added to the schedule in the Salt Lake City area, called the "Wasatch Front" competition. I took Atom to a BYU football game that day so I didn't make it to this one. Niles got some good shots of Jumble on the field:
This was the same Saturday as the ISU competition in Pocatello, ID. The band was originally scheduled to attend the ISU competition, but decided to attend the new competition when it was scheduled. Jumble was disappointed not to go back to Pocatello. I think she felt it would help to go up there and get back safely without a major traumatic event this time. But it was nice not to squeeze a trip to Pocatello into our day. The next day, October 10th, was the anniversary of the bus accident. On Monday, October 11th, we made flip-flop treats for refreshments in memory of Heather:
Jumble and Minnie remember their woodwind teacher.
It wasn't too sad of an anniversary. We are grateful to have made it through a tough year, and we can remember Heather with a smile--she was such an amazing person--and we know she is doing great things on the other side. We are grateful for her every day.
Next was the BYU competition on October 12th. It wasn't raining this year, which was very nice! And we weren't complete emotional basket cases like last year which was very nice.
And we got to hang out with our Arizona friends, the Idso's!
Bryce and Jumble after the show.
Up next was the Davis Cup on October 19th. It was cold and crowded and I got a lousy seat:
But it was still enjoyable!
Jet had his first pinewood derby on October 22nd. Niles helped him make two cars with help from my dad and his power tools! The "test" car turned out to be faster than the one he raced, unfortunately! But everyone had fun.
The next day was the Mt. Timp competition which AF hosts so Niles was there helping all day--from 7 a.m. until after midnight that night. That was the cold, very rainy day that I took Jet to the BYU game. I was able to go to the competition in time to do my band mom duties and see AF perform and it had stopped raining by then, thankfully! Minnie held down the fort at home and took the boys to the ward trunk-or-treat. And Boomer took advantage of the situation and managed to eat almost an entire Costco pizza while we were all away at various activities!
Here's one not-so-great shot taken at Mt. Timp on October 23rd.
This is Jumble with her friend Liz following the first band concert of the year, on October 26th. No, marching band doesn't keep us busy enough. We have to have the concert bands give a concert as well. I couldn't get any shots of Jumble on stage because there was a harp in front of her! Anyway, it was a very enjoyable concert with amazing music.
Jet was playing flag football during October. He earned the nickname "sticky fingers" from his coach because he catches every ball that comes his way.
He had fun and it was a very successful season for him and his team.
So we made it to Halloween:
Jumble was some kind of zombie.
Minnie was the Goddess Athena. This is her friend Brooke, who is Snow White, as you can tell.
Atom was Bumble Bee, a transformer, and he was being silly and not cooperating with the photo-taking. This was actually on Halloween, but the trick-or-treating actually took place the day before, on Saturday. I completely forgot to take photos that day. Something about my brain being fried. Anyway, Niles and Jumble were up in Logan on Saturday, the 30th, for the last local competition of the season. But he didn't get any photos because I wanted the camera to take photos of the boys in their costumes (which, like I said, I forgot!)
Jet was Iron Man. This is at my parent's house on Sunday. I made them put their costumes on again because 1. Like I said, I forgot to take photos the night before and 2. We didn't make it over to their house the night before so I wanted my parents to have a chance to see them in their costumes. (Nile's parents were in Paris for Halloween!)
See all that stuff behind Jet? That was a bunch of stuff I had spread all over because I was frantically working on a memory scrapbook for a girl in our ward, since the YW president asked me to do it. This beautiful girl, Magi Correa, turned 14 on October 31st and moved up from Beehives to my Mia Maid class. On Thursday, November 4th, she and her family were deported back to Argentina. They have lived in the United States for 10 years and have tried unsuccessfully to become permanent legal citizens by navigating the impossibly confusing debacle that we call immigration law. A very sweet family, a very sad story!
So Monday, November 1st, we celebrated Atom's birthday early (as always!) It was the only free night we had that week. He didn't mind getting his presents early.
Trying out the blizzard maker.
Yum!
Blowing out the candles.
The next day was election day and Niles and I both managed to make it to the polls. That evening was the American Fork Band Bash, an annual event that involves all the bands at the Jr. High and High School. (I know what you're thinking, "Didn't they have a concert just one week before?" And the answer is yes, they did!) This takes place in the gym so it's hard to get good photos. Here is Minnie with the Jr. High Symphonic Band:
And Jumble with the High School Symphonic Band:
And with the marching band at the end of the concert:
This is Atom heading off to school on his actual birthday on Friday, November 5th:
He had a special badge to wear from Nana and Grandad. We picked him up from kindergarten and took him to play at McDonald's and have a Happy Meal for lunch. Then we took him over to Tim & Rachelle's and headed off to St. George for band tour! (Jumble left with the band on Thursday morning.) Thanks, Tim & Rachelle, who had Minnie, Jet, and Atom all weekend!
This is Jumble with some of her friends after winning Red Rocks competition on Friday night:
Niles, Jumble, and I after Red Rocks competition.
The next day was Bands of America Western Regional. Niles and I were volunteering early that morning. We stopped to take a few shots of the St. George temple before our shift began:
I had a great seat for preliminaries so here are some great shots of the band during their performance:
Jumble is the clarinet on the far right.
Jumble is right in front of the color guard girl in blue.
They did a great job!
Drum majors line up for the awards ceremony.
American Fork got 1st place in their class, won all the caption awards, and made finals.
This is during their finals performance:
The finals awards ceremony:
American Fork gets their Regional Champions medals:
They took 2nd place overall in finals. Clovis West, from Fresno, CA, took 1st place. American Fork took 1st place and Clovis West took 2nd place the night before at Red Rocks--with the same judges. Go figure! American Fork took 1st place at every other competition of the season, so it was definitely another great year! Next year they have been invited to go to the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade (January 2012.) Both our girls will probably be in the band next year so we are hoping we can make it a family vacation and finally take all our kids to Disneyland.
Here's some photos of the last of our harvest from the garden:
Those pumpkins never got carved into jack 'o lanterns. That's just the way October went! Maybe they will be pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving instead.
I am still enchanted by fall leaves. Here's a few shots I took today:
This is the view from our street. I love the stunning view of Utah Lake. I enjoy it all year long. But I don't have a professional camera (and I am not a professional photographer) so this is the best I can do:
And more leaves:
Now if we can make it through Atom's birthday party tomorrow and Jumble's Preference Dance on Saturday, I might have a few seconds to catch a breath before the holidays hit!
Last Friday we had Atom's birthday party with friends (and cousins.) He was so excited about it! He wanted to have a Star Wars party. Since Jet has had two Star Wars parties, that made the planning and preparation very easy!
Building aliens.
Atom during Jedi training course.
Jet finishes Jedi training with a dive. We had enough game ideas from the previous parties that we didn't even have time to do them all.
The neighbor boys' dad told me later that his sons said it was "the best birthday party ever!" Hopefully everyone had a good time. I had to take Minnie to flute lesson in the middle of it and we had one of the day care kids here at the time as well so I feel like I missed a lot of it. (Niles works four 10-hour-days and gets every Friday off so pulling this party off was a joint effort. Thanks, Niles! It wasn't much of a "day off" for him.)
The next day was more presents for Atom as we got together to celebrate the Pew family November birthdays. Atom got a keyboard from my parents:
Also that Saturday, Jumble went to the Preference Dance:
How did she get to be so old already?!
Here she is all ready to go! Since she went to pick her date up, we don't have photos of them together yet.
But this is the "day date." They went horseback riding:
Another member of the group posted these photos on Facebook so I swiped them!
So this is Jumble's date--Ian Sanderson. All reports from everyone is that they had a great time!
