Family Party

We have a lot of birthdays in our family in October, so we got together in our backyard to celebrate everybody. 

Julia, Benny, Miles, Dallin and Harvey, Ikey, Clancy, Chloe, Jovie

Caitie with the two babies. 

Grandpa with the kids

The kids with cookie moustache. 

Isaac loves Minecraft

I don't like video games, never have, never will. Nikki could beat me at all of them, starting with Tooth Invaders on our Commodore 64. But, I love my little boy more than I ever could have imagined, so I read about, talk about, and live Minecraft more than I would ever have imagined.

This is a Minecraft creeper Jack-O-Lantern.

This is an Iron Golum. I don't know what that means.

This is a village that Ikey built.

This is a train that Ikey built. It has torches for lights on the locomotive. 

Hiking in Park City

We started up the Armstrong Trail and hiked down Dawn's Trail. It was beautiful, and the kids found some good sticks to use as broomsticks. 

Jovie does homework

This girl sings and dances almost nonstop. She scored very high on her early literacy test, but so far, she won't read to us. She's apparently still "hiding her skill from her parents."
Here she is doing homework.

Camping on Antelope Island, taking a dip in the Great Salt Lake

We met the Karney family and the Kanshepolsky/Gotshalks at White Rock campground on Antelope Island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake for a camping trip. Pete joined the camping event for one night. 

Here's the movie: https://youtu.be/hY8ocFNtamo

We saw the most beautiful sunset while we were driving onto the island on the causeway. 

We camped at the White Rock group site. 

The food was crazy good. Karney and the guys made dutch oven potatoes (with bacon!) and salmon the first night and fajitas the second night.

Jovie danced on the bales of straw in the trailer. We picked up eight bales of straw from a farmer in Layton to set up our outdoor theater for Peanuts Movie Night. More on that later.

 We hiked to Buffalo Point right from our campsite and we were rewarded with a rocky playground and a great view of the lake.  

We hiked a long long way across dry lake bed (stopping halfway to make sandcastles) so we could take a dip in the salty lake. All the kids howled when they immersed their bug bite-y legs in the water. 

 Joelle, Aimee, Jocelyn

Avi, Paige, Morgan, Isaac, Jovie, Ellie sit on the hay wagon. 

The kids were sandy, salty, and bug-bitten at the end of the adventure. 

Pretty little girl

Jovie models a dress we brought from Mexico. Ikey said that the shirt with Mayan illustrations was "too scary" so we gave that to Jovie too. 

At the dentist

Ikey's adorable smile is filled with some crazy teeth. He's got a supernumerary (extra) tooth on the top and a  fusion and gemination  IN ONE TOOTH on the bottom. His dentist and his orthodontist say they've never seen both features in one tooth, so he's a record-holder. 

He also had the misfortune of having a mom who didn't floss his teeth when he was a baby, so he had a big cavity in a molar, so he had to have that one extracted last June. Here's the video when he woke up from anesthesia: https://youtu.be/AZ3zCywkve4

His funky baby tooth isn't going to fall out on it's own, he's got two supernumerary permanent teeth tucked up in his jaw, and his mother had braces for six years, so he's destined to spend a lot more time in the dentist office. 

Luckily, he likes his dentist a lot, and she has a waiting room stocked with iPads, so he doesn't mind visiting at all. 

Let's hope that our dental insurer doesn't keep track of our lifetime limits!