Mexico - Is This The Bus To Cartagena?

 We had a fantastic trip to Mexico with my cousins and spouses and Aunt JuJu and Aunt Marie. The cousins decided they wanted to get JuJu down to Mexico one more time. We went to Puerto Vallarta and had a blast. We stayed at the Hyatt Ziva and loved it. Gorgeous rooms, beautiful beach, excellent all inclusive food. They had a big buffet plus about 5 more restaurants, all delicious. It was only about a 3 hour flight, not bad. Aunt JuJu got sniffed out by a drug dog for her pickles. The resort had fun entertainment every evening, circus night, singers, mariachi, and dancers. They also had some activities during the day. We participated in a dancing lesson and water aerobics. Puerto Vallarta is gorgeous with jungle mountains on one side and then beach. It's kind of a big bay area. It's a smallish city and it looked exactly like what I expected Mexico to look like. JuJu loved being able to use her Spanish and everyone she talked to wanted to know if she grew up there because her accent is so good. Everything was reminding Wes and me of Romancing the Stone. We probably drove everyone crazy with all of our movie quotes. 

Pinewood Derby

 Our ward had a really fun Pinewood Derby, open to anyone with a regular class and open class competition. Land Shark came out of storage to compete in the regular class. She landed in about the middle of the pack, as expected. Everyone loved her design and her fish tailing down the track. She was definitely a crowd favorite. Wes made a new car and entered the open class. He combined a pinewood car with a slot car and a motor. He smoked his first heat, but then his car had some mechanical problems and he wasn't able to get it fixed in time to keep competing, darn. We ended up with some sweet awards though. They did a fantastic job, lots of round robin racing and everyone got an award. It was fun to see which families were really into it. Lots of fun for me to compete against my Primary kids.

Kid Librarian

 Olivia was chosen as "kid librarian" for the Smithfield Library. She got to make her own library display which stayed up for a couple of weeks. She chose the theme of rabbits; "Hop into a Good Book." She painted some rabbits, made some yarn bunnies, even typed up a few rabbit jokes. She picked out some books about rabbits to display. She did an amazing job! We are amazed by her creativity and artistry and super proud of her.

Happy Birthday Ivy

 Happy Birthday to seven year old Ivy! We had a fun party on her actual birthday this year. The next day, Kori was visiting so Kori and I took Ivy to lunch and shopping. She chose Cafe Zupa again, and we shopped at the Red Balloon Toy Store. She chose an adorable stuffed dragon she named Gray. We love you Ivy!

Basketball

 Ivy played some rec basketball this fall. It was really fun to see a few of her games. She was the only girl on her team, but she got right in there and played and ran and learned some new skills and had fun! Way to go girlie!!

First Snow

 The day after Halloween we woke up to a dusting of fresh snow!