Hotel California

The coolest opportunity was gifted to us. Shawn bought tickets to The Eagles at the Sphere in Las Vegas for him and his family. Their flights from Dallas was cancelled and rescheduled so they were toast when they got home. Shawn didn't want the tickets to go to waste so he invited some buddies. Hardly anyone could go on such short notice and Merril told me that I needed to come with him. After all, Hotel California has been one of my favorite songs for a long time. So he checked with the boys and I hopped on the trip. I've never been inside The Sphere. It's cool looking from the outside!

I recognized almost every song.

Shawn, Wade, Merril and me were able to go. WOW! What an impressive show!

So many cool visuals! We were up on one of the balconies and it was hard to know where to look. It was really impressive! It was fun to hang out with the guys.

 

Philippines!

Jack said goodbye to the MTC because it's time to fly to the Philippines!

The MTC prints off instructions to get to the airport using public transportation and says, "K, good luck!" He made it! This is one of his first pictures in the Philippines. This is his trainer, Elder Marigza.

He's quite old. He's about to go home but he was 23 when he converted to the gospel, waited a year to go on a mission, has been on a mission for 2 years and now he's almost 26! Wow! Jack says he's great!

From Jack's first email from the Philippines: "Some of you may know that my dad, while on his mission, got to his first apartment, and there was a guitar there that was broken at the top of the neck, and he fixed it and started playing it. Well, as it would happen, I get to my apartment on Thursday night, and from behind the desk I see the top of the neck of a guitar. I go and look at it, turns out its got a crack at the top of the neck. I ask my companion about it, he says its old, kinda ugly, and he doesn't want it when he goes home. Long story short, I now have a guitar, found in my first apartment on my mission, that I get to keep when my companion goes home. Some of you may also know that my dad still has that same guitar. As it turns out, that is now part of my plan, to keep this guitar forever. I see this as a sign from God that my mission will be good, because all this time I had been worrying about if my mission would be good, but getting this guitar, very similar to my dad's guitar, I think is a sign from God, because my dad had a good mission and always talks about it, and I think God is trying to tell me that I will have a good mission too."

Lovesac Party in Dallas

Shawn invited all the buddies to the Lovesac party in Dallas, TX. Merril was the only taker and so off we went on another adventure! We went to this huge gas station, Buc-ee's, that makes Maverik look like a peasant station. There was a whole jerky station. They boast the largest convenience store in the world.

Looking around, we discovered that Dallas is where JFK was shot. There was a memorial.

I standing next to the grassy knoll, right next to the road where he was shot. There's a big X on the road where it happened.

The party theme was western themed. We shopped at goodwill for a hat. We only found one. It didn't really fit on my head and didn't fit Merril at all. 

The party included a Flo Rida concert. I only knew a few songs but it was still fun. Shawn and his kids played a few songs at the beginning. They're so cute. We ate some great food and spent time together and now it's back to real life! 

Beaver MTB

Beaver has a new venue this year.

Selfies!

 Juliet started 13th and bumped up to 9th. She's killing it! She really wants to qualify for state!

We're proud of her. This year she's a captain and she wants the all in award. I'm sure she'll get it.

Tahoe Issues

Okay so the Tahoe has had some issues since we got it. I drove it to Midway for the girls trip and it was shifting weird. I asked Merril about it and we had it checked out by a transmission shop and it needed a whole new transmission. Lame. We got a really great deal on on the Tahoe and we feel like if we fix it, it will be a reliable car for a long time. It's just annoying to drop $6,000 on a transmission right after we got it. Oh well, c'est la vie! About 2 weeks after it was fixed, a sweet college girl clipped it in the parking lot of TJ Maxx. Oh man!

It's so cherry and I finally got rid of the Expedition with its messed up bumper and now this one got hit in the exact same spot. Sadness! The sweet college girl went into TJ Maxx and had them make an announcement, "Will the owner of a Red Chevy Tahoe come to the front of the store?" 

She was shaken up and I tried my best to calm her down and thanked her for coming and finding me. It was Mark Madsen's daughter. We got it fixed a week later and now it's amazingly perfect again!

Around the same time, Merril's rear differential broke on his truck. We have a ton of cars but we were struggling to find something to drive. Old reliable, the Expedition bailed us out a few times. But now everything's fixed and we're good.

Surfer Boy

Welcome to Jamie's Hair Salon where you might or might not get the style you want but the price is always free. :) Mark wanted bleached hair and so we gave it a go! Bleaching hair makes me nervous because if it gets overdone, then it breaks off. Yikes! I erred on the side of caution and didn't quite get it super bleached. 

It's a little orangey so I bought some purple toner and it should help. 

I missed a spot here and there but overall, it turned out pretty good!

 

Blind taste test

The blind taste test is a game our kids have played for years. You basically blindfold the taster and the other looks for things to feed you in a spoon. Some things are tasty and some are gross. Then they switch. I wanted it remembered.

Other Sunday randomness: Mark got his hair braided. It's getting long and needs a cut. 

 

HOCO and the Zucchini

The garden grew a ton of zucchini this year. I don't know where the squash bugs were but we had a great year. So Juliet asked Will to Homecoming with a ridiculously huge zucchini. Whatever, funny, good times.

Fast forward to the day of Homecoming and they both look amazing!

Juliet wanted me to make the corsage with just baby's breath to match her dress.

But Will had kept the zucchini in the fridge and they went to Sakura for dinner. They asked the chef if he'd cook it and he said YES! Juliet has the funniest video of Will with the zucchini in his coat. That chef was super nice to them.

Other than that, the dance was normal and they had a good time!

Smokey

We woke up the other day and it was so smokey! We heard that Southern California had a lot of wildfires and the smoke made its way here. 

We couldn't even see Pine Valley Mountain. Mountain bike practice and a powder puff game were cancelled because the air quality was so poor. 

It made the sun a lovely amber color though. 

Spooky Scary Skeletons

I know it's not even close to Halloween but sometimes you just need another skeleton in your life. The new Halloween decor has dropped at Walmart and if you don't get it early, you don't get it. I don't really need another soft blanket or skeleton but I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! Mark was chillin' with the skeleton in the morning before school.

Rough Week

When I was helping with pit zone takedown at the panguitch race, my phone was in a bag and somehow got stepped on. The screen protector was cracked but the actual screen looked okay. I discovered later that the screen actually is cracked and all of this inky blackness started to take over my phone. The touch screen was also completely unresponsive. Bummer. I switched my sim to Jack's old phone and I'm using that until I can decide what to do.