Fall 09

Rock Climbing up Rock Canyon in Provo with John and Elza

2009 Brazilian Festival at the Gateway Mall.
Mountain Biking up American Fork Canyon right when the leaves were turning
Sam's first field trip. They went to Hee Haws Pumpkin Farm in Pleasant Grove. Sam had fun seeing the farm animals, riding the hayride, picking his pumpkin and having lunch with his classmates.

Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving point. The kids had a blast with all the games, jump-a-roos, and treats. Thanks for the picture Spencer and Charlene!

A little get together with our old neighboors
Last day of Mountain Biking at Sundance. We had a blast letting the ski lifts do the hard part and haul us up the mountain, and then we just let gravity and adreneline guide us down. Too bad that winter is upon us. (Sniff...)
Bryce's 29th Birthday
We've got season tickets to BYU, which has been bittersweet this season.
Carving Pumpkins
Marcia's, Sam's, Fernanda's and Lucas' and Bryce's. We all felt that Sam's design was the best.
Halloween Parade at Sam's school. Sam was very proud of his "Warrior" outfit.
Posing for a picture before going trick or treating with some neighborhood friends. Lucas is Mater from Cars.
Our ward loves to do big activities, and this particular one was incredible. They had songs, dances, and slideshows for each area in Brasil, as well as tipical food from each region. It was fun to see how patriotic our Brazilian friends are.
November Girls Night Out: Olive Garden and New Moon.

Basement Project

Less than a month after we bought our house we started working on the basement that was completely unfinished. After 2 months of hard work we went from a 3 bedroom and 2 bathroom house to a 5 bedroom and 3 bathroom house. We did that so we could help out our friends Alisa and Fernanda. So, not only the bedroom and bathroom numbers got bigger but also the number of people who live here. It is really nice to have the girls here helping out with cooking, cleaning and babysitting.
This is the step by step photos of the bedrooms: Framing
Insulation
Drywall
Mudding
Baseboards
Painting
Carpet
Here is the final project:
Here is how the bathroom was:
Since I didn't like how the light wood looked with the green granite, I stained it dark. I also added handles to the drawer and a knob to the door.
This is the final bathroom project:
(Bryce writing now) Marcia did such a good job with choosing the colors, and materials. This bathroom turned out excellent. It is a joy to visit this lavatory. It feels like something out of a pottery barn magazine. I was especially impressed with her idea to stain the vanity. Marcia was really the project coordinator, and kept everyone on track and made sure they had materials and tools. She also lived like a single mom frequently during the 2 months taking care of the kids and everything else so I could work on the basement until midnight or 1 am. She also did a ton of work with me, and always did an excellent job, making sure everything she did was perfect.


I'm so proud of my handy husband! Bryce with the help of friends and "how to" online videos did some of the drywall and mudding. He did the wall and ceiling texture, install all the doors, the baseboards, trim, toilet, light fixtures, tub surround, tile, vanity, backsplash, etc... He also did the electricity and luckily no fires have started yet.
We would like to thank all of our friends who helped us with this project:
Jake, Don, Austin, Andrew, Preston, Eri, Fernanda, Sandro, Alisa, John Hobbs, Elza, Doug, Jesus, Chase, Tiago, Aaron, John Wilson, James, and especially Bruno, who came here everyday and worked about 70 hours before he went on his mission. Here is Bruno at his farewell:

Sam starts kindergarden

Sam on his first day at school. He loves school so much that he even wants to go on the weekends too.
Sam was chosen to be the star of the week. We had to make a poster about his favorite things. Riding his bike is one of them.
We also included on his poster that he does gymnastics,
and when asked what he wanted to be when he grows up, he responded "I want to be a missionary".
Sam presented his poster to his class. He showed them some of his gymnastics tricks and even taught them some words in Portuguese.

BYU football season started

This was the BYU vs OU game to start the season, right after BYU's game winning touchdown. The boys were dancing around and going pretty crazy.
Sam got to hang out with Josh, Dekker, and Kate and stay out of the way of the boys doing the victory dance.

Family Fun

Bryce had his work Party at a local water park called Cowabunga Bay. So much fun! Our kids love the water! The best part was the $500 dollar vacuum that we won in the raffle. Thanks Rain! (Bryce's work) It only took us 4 company parties to win the vacuum.
We had a little Family Reunion at our house. It was great to see all Bryce's cousins.

Trip to Colorado and Sam's birthday

We went to Colorado for Bryce's High School Reunion and a Girls Night Out that Tracy organized. We had a really fun trip!

The highlight of the trip was the BBQ with Pravin. He is moving out to Chicago to work as a Peace corp recruiter, and we were lucky enough to catch up with him before he left.
For our girls night out, Tracy took us to go horse back riding and at night she got us a hotel room where we made table runners and necklaces. The boys took care of the kids and did a little mountain biking in the morning.
Tracy also planned a really fun Spider man birthday party for Sam who turned 5.
Tracy is always so creative! She has the cutest ideas. The kids had to find fake worms that she hid in the playground "to fish" prizes.
The biggest "fish" the Sam got was more like a Transformers' bike. Thank you Tracy!
Brooklynn, Lucas, Sam and baby Hunter.
All 6 kids together for the first time in 4 years.
All the 6 grandkids together for the first time ever. There was only a little bit of biting and screaming!

Don's visit

Don, who just got back from Iraq stayed with us for a week and it was so fun to see him again.

We went mountain biking, had a few a few BBQs, and worked a lot in our basement. Thanks for the visit Don! Good luck in Afghanistan in a few months!