Catherine made herself a chocolate beard.
Almost daily, Catherine sets up and plays with her jungle.
On Saturday, a sweet lady in our ward dropped by to bring us a Christmas goodie bag full of socks, hot chocolate, and coloring books. The kids loved it!
We decorated for Christmas inside and out! Brian and Robbie did such a good job with our lights!
Playing time
Catherine and Liam had a dance party.
Thanks for coming, Bobby, Jesi and Liam!
Last week, Robbie was awarded a Stallion Scholar award from two of his teachers. They also recognized him and his friend at the on-line assembly for passing the AP exam. His teacher told them at the beginning of the year that if they got a 5 on the test, he would pay them $100, and he honored his promise. Robbie was pretty excited. He's the first student at the school to get a 5.
This weekend we went to the AALRR firm condo in Rancho Mirage again. In August when we went last time it was 120*, so it was nice to go again with cooler weather. We got there on Thursday afternoon, ate dinner, and went for a "night" swim. It was only 5 pm, but completely dark. The next morning, we got up and the kids did distance learning school. When the younger kids were done, we went on a walk around the community.
We love their ponds and open green spaces.
Tom found a hummingbird at the feeder this time too.
When everyone was done with school we went out to play tennis. I only got this one picture of Catherine, but we were all there playing.
Then we went for another swim- this time in the daylight.
On Saturday morning, we woke up to high winds and 20* drop in temps. We decided to head out early for a hike in Indian Canyon on the local reservation before the rain started. We chose the Andreas Canyon Trail since it was short (1 mile) and we didn't know how the weather was going to be. It was still windy and sprinkled by the end, but the hike was beautiful! It followed a creek up the canyon. It's mostly desert, but the creek made an interesting palm oasis to hike around.
Pride Rock where Indians would come to grind their grains.
trailhead
up the canyon
At the top of the hike, we crossed the creek on this foot bridge and headed back down on the plateau on the other side.
Because of the oncoming storm, we saw some pretty amazing rainbows all weekend. Here's a double rainbow over the hike.
At the bottom of the hike, there were some cooking huts like the Indians used. We made it out of there just in time. On our drive home, the wind picked up really quick creating dust storms before it started to rain pretty hard.
After the storms that day, we went for another swim, which the kids loved. Thomas lost his top front tooth that night too!
After we watched church on zoom on Sunday, we ate lunch and headed home. We saw another double rainbow on the drive home.
This year, Halloween looked a little different for us. The family voted to stay at home and not trick or treat. We bought ourselves a bag of candy, set up the outdoor projector, and watched The Mandalorian and the BYU football game. The full moon with clouds made for an interesting sky that night.
Lydia's Activity Day leader brought her this cute Halloween brownie that she made. She felt so loved.
