One year older and taller, too!

The birthdays are coming fast for this one it seems!

14 years old.

He officially passed up his mama in height.

Pictures are not his jam.

Or attention.

So a quick snap in front of his presents is all I got from him.

He got a wood bat, long sleeve shirt, water bottle stickers,
and an Andy's gift card. 

(they love to ride their scooters there since its pretty close by).

He picked Cheesecake Factory as his celebratory dinner.

We invited the missionaries to join us!

Elder Bishop, Burch and Miksell.

Great elders right there!

Rusty turned 11 the following week!

He doesn't mind the pictures.

So funny how different these boys are from each other.

He got a catchers glove, long sleeved shirt, stickers and gift card to Soda Rush.

Collin and Weston came to play after school, and it must have been an

at home school day for Lane and Griffen.  

I got cupcakes for a treat after lunch.

Oh boy, nice goober face.

 

He picked Fuddruckers for his birthday dinner.
At Cheesecake Factory we learned that it
was Elder Mikesells birthday the same day as Rusty's!

We invited them to come as well.
I guess I forgot to take pictures that time, darn it.

Things that went down

And boy howdy did things go down.

Starting with the election.

No need to say what side we were on.

I proudly placed my Trump sign in my front yard for a good 3 months.

It got stolen in the first 2 weeks.

Good thing Stephanie supplied me with a backup knowing this would happen.

(People can be real jerks).

Just in case that one got ripped off, I ordered a banner to put way
 up high to make it harder to swipe.

I am not what you would call a political person.
 I vote republican, am a staunch conservative with a love for my country.
I'm not savvy enough to hold my own in a strong political debate,
 let alone a normal political conversation! 

I know enough to understand the basics. 

 Something changed for me this election. 
For the first time in my life I cared about what was going on!
I made it a point to understand more of the logistics and educate myself on
the task at hand.
I found myself voicing my opinions and beliefs on social media platforms.
*Never have I ever done that. 

It could have been because that was all the was blasted everywhere you turned.
Or was the talk of the town, err more like the WORLD for half of the year! 

I really resonated with one of our Come Follow Me lessons.
It was in Alma chapters 43-52.

"We are all enlisted", the war we are fighting each day against the forces of evil.
This war is very real, and the outcome affects our eternal lives. 
Like the Nephites, we are inspired by a better cause, which is our God, our religion,

and freedom, and our peace, our families. 

Even though I am nobody of importance, and in my measly, simplest way,

I tried to follow Moroni's example. 

Waive a title of liberty as best as I could! 
Through words and actions.

Some added extras on election day.
Do your duty and VOTE!!!

It was not looking good right off the bat.

Things like sharpies and voting fraud,  AZ colors switched to blue from red,
 waiting on Nevada to get their count.

Why does this get me so bad?!

A week later and we still had no idea what was going on!

Then it happened.

They announced Biden as the president elect.
How in the how?!
Nothing new to the year, though!

My dad has been having the boys trade off Saturdays working
in his yard and earn some money!
I know they look forward to it.
Especially since Grandpa likes to work hard first, then play after!

And by play that means taking the dirt bike out for some riding!

He bought one that fits them perfectly.

Spoiled grandkids!

It was a good day at Taco Bell.
In all my years of going, never have I ever gotten more than 5
packets of mild sauce without begging!

I looked in and discovered at least 20, without even asking!!

If only I could have tipped the drive thru window guy. 
Bless you, it made my day!

Matchy, matchy with friends at church is always fun:)

No social distancing here!

We found the prettiest bird in our tree out front!

Definitely not a bird from the wild.

I felt bad if someone was missing their family pet.

I put it on our neighborhood fb page with no claimers.

It eventually flew into another tree.
I hope its still alive out there somewhere!

The 3 youngest participated in a make shift primary program!

They each filled out a questionnaire and submitted it to the presidency.

They loaded all of them in a document to read on the computer. 

I thought it was perfect.

I was dreading having to video them talking or what not. 
My kids are camera shy for things like that.

Simple goes a long way.

This was Rustys last year in primary!

Rusty had his first season of basketball.

He is playing with the same group of kids he did last year.

Brent Bowden is the coach.

He has made major progress from last year.

Mainly, not complaining and crying about going to practices.
Ugh, that was stressful.
He has never had a coach that actually taught how to run plays in games.

It stressed him out big time.

Glad to see his progression and for him to learn that hard
things in the beginning get easier with practice!

My parents are the best and take him to games
when we are out of town or in a pickle with other kids activities.

A special treat for sure. 

Now that Della is in the big girl sizes,
these 2 have been matching quite a bit!

My favorite sight on Sunday mornings.

The girls get their hair done by me, then go to dad for makeup. 

 

Dunes Season

With the cooler weather that means one thing.
  Time for the dunes again!

This was hands down my favorite Biden meme.

If I had water in my mouth when reading this, no doubt

I would have spewed it across the room.

There have been a few day trips so far.

Since I wasn't there, I can't say much for what went on.

But I can sure document the pictures for the boys to enjoy later on!

 

Rusty and Lane are getting braver and starting to ride a bit in the big stuff.
Lane said he wants to be really good by the time Craig gets home from his mission
so he can go on the big rides with him.
I thought that was sweet.
Plus a great goal to accomplish!

 

Halloween

For the whole month of October the girls favorite thing to do after dinner
was load into the stroller, and go see the Halloween house a few streets over.

This house is legit!
Not only is the outside decked out, on Halloween night they have a 
haunted house that draws hundreds of people to it!

The man who does this is the nicest and
 definitely got to know us pretty well, lol!

Well looky here, actual costumes!
The poor kids the past several years have made due with
 items in the costume bin or whatever they could find laying around .

I HATE spending money on things that will get used once for a few hours.
Why are Halloween costumes so expensive?!
I'm in awe of the families that go all out with themes.
Yes, so super fun.
But all I see are dollar signs, ha! 

I must have had a moment of weakness.
2 prime days later they were happy as scary zombies and beautiful princesses. 

Scratch that.
Happy as a mermaid and a princess!
Luckily Lane is now too cool for dressing up.

We had a neighborhood pot luck dinner at the Whitmers, plus the missionaries. 
Then we all went home to set up shop for the trick or treaters!
The big question was, did covid scare them away this year?

Grammy and my parents joined us this year!
Our houses ended up being the jackpot with our candy, plus

Grammy's fun hand outs, AND my moms king sized candy bars!

I was excited to wear my authentic Salem witch hat!

I don't have pictures, but Marcie and Austin stopped by to join in.

 Towards the end of the night we made our way down to the haunted house with

the women and kids in tow, and the men stayed to pass out candy.

My girls were pumped to finally go through it!

So was I.

It was insanely busy with people everywhere!

I guess nobody ended up being concerned of the germs.

We hopped in the long line and started getting excited. 
In my mind I was surprised nobody was scared or crying they
were too chicken to go through. 
We have finally turned a new leaf with older kids, I was thinking to myself!

But then a "dead", bloody man came walking out of the haunted house,

dragging a shovel on the street making loud noises, and chasing a screaming girl. 

Game over.

Lindi LOST it.

It was a trickle effect and soon enough the only 2 people in
 line were Grammy and Grandma!

No amount of coaxing was working.

Luckily Rusty walked up and somehow Landon
and Marcie were able to make it in.

It was comical.

Maybe next year...maybe. 

Last day in Boston

I thought for sure Fenway Park would be closed for tours.

Just our luck, they opened them back up a couple weeks prior to us coming!

I'm not big into baseball, but I was pretty pumped to see this iconic field!

Plus, when you are married to a baseball guy, it makes it more fun.

We pulled up and I was surprised how small the stadium felt.

Compared to the massive one we have back at home.

We literally parked right across the street from where the tour started.

No parking garages or walking was nice!

Our tour guide was this short, older man who was a true Bostonian. 
His accent made the whole thing feel so authentic.
You could tell baseball and Fenway was in his blood.

I wish I took a picture of him.

There she was, in the flesh!
The oldest ballpark in the MLB.

The original wood seats in the grandstand section.

Up on top of the Green Monster.

The weather dropped this day and
 it was FREEZING up there!

Our tour guide mentioned that the last time the Red Sox
won the World Series was in 2018.

I did not know this, but ANY employee of the Red Sox
 receives a championship ring if they win.

I had to ask if it including janitors?

Yes, even janitors got a ring!

Our tour guide unfortunately did not start working for them
until a few months later.

But there was another worker who had one!

Hot dang, that is a lot of jewels!
And a whole lot of $$$$$

Such a neat place.
I learned a lot from the tour!

Everything about it was so cute.
Can baseball be cute?

Even the souvenir shop was cute!

I had heard about Blackbird Doughnuts in Boston.

Luckily there was one down the street from Fenway!

We got a few dozen to bring back home as thank you's to those
 who watched our kids while we were gone.
Nothing says thank you like Boston Cream donuts straight from Boston!

We cracked one open for us, duh!
We needed some breakfast!

We headed to Cambridge to get educated at Harvard!
We had no idea where to park, so we found an empty spot and set out on foot. 

We came across a Catholic church with open doors and a service going on.
It was Sunday after all, so I peeked my head in.
Then walked inside!
I think Casey was dying a little.

The choir was ending a song.
I asked a member what would happen next.
They were starting communion then it would be over.

We just stood and watched for a bit. 
Very intriguing watching different faiths function other than your own.

We found Harvard Square!

Law library, I think.

Hi Elle Woods!

The famous Memorial Hall!
I was super sad it was closed to the public.

Inside is Annenberg, a large dining hall where all the freshman eat.

The Great Hall in Hogwarts, from Harry Potter, is designed after Annenberg. 

We saw students going in and coming out with brown bags full of their food

they have to eat in their door rooms. 

Such a bummer time to be a student at Harvard right now!

You pay all this money and you don't get the full experience. 

I wanted to go to the bookstore, which was right outside of Harvard Square.
We noticed some commotion, and saw that they were filming a movie!
It looked like it was based in the 50's. 
Actors had on costumes, and they had transformed the local LP Licks ice cream into

"Dana's Ice Cream Parlor".

We asked around but nobody knew what the name of the movie was.

I could have watched them all day!

We were famished. 

I looked up some restaurants in the area and we decided on 

Boston Burger Company.

We saw Triple D signs, and then I remembered watching this episode, score!

The menu looked amazing.

Once we got our food we confirmed, yes indeed AMAZING!!

I love to see the temple!
One of my favorite things to do while on vacation, find the temples.

The gates to the first entrance were locked, so we drove through the most 
ADORABLE neighborhoods to get to the other side.
I wish I had taken pictures of the houses.

This entrance led down to the church building.
I am envious of how cute even the church building was!
You cant see it very well, but their were 2 big glass windows in the primary 
room were kids could look out to the beautiful scenery.

Next to the church was a parking lot and a trail that led you up the backway through
a mini Sacred Grove type forest up to the temple.

Unfortunately those gates were locked as well.
We thought about hoping over the fence, but then saw a security truck.

We decided to go back to the front entrance again
just to see if we could get a better view.

This time there were missionaries parked by the gates.

They said they lock them on Sunday's. 

It was fun talking to them and they were nice enough to take our picture!

 With that, it was time to head to the airport to go back home.

I couldn't believe all that we saw in such a short amount of time.

It's crazy how much you can accomplish with out little kids, lol!

It was a great taste of what New England has to offer.
I will be back for sure!