Dax could barely hold the turkey without dropping it.
At the boys' school they have a special event called the Turkey Trot on the day before Thanksgiving Break. The winner takes home a frozen turkey, and second and third place get smaller prizes. Last year Mark took second and was the proud winner of a bag of candy. There is pretty stiff competition between he and his best friends Shad and Cael.
Dax was totally determined to win the kindergarten race this year. It's all he's talked about for the last few days, and he's even lost a little sleep over it. Before leaving for school on the day of the race, he even said, "Once they say go, you take off and you never look back-- that's when someone will pass you!" Of course, we've been trying to lower his expectation, because we know that you lose more often than you win.
Well, the big race was today. In the third grade race, Mark took 4th place behind his buddies Cael and Shad and another boy in our neighborhood named Talon. The race was so close that they actually did a photo finish, but the picture showed he was just a bit behind. That left him out of the winner's circle, but we were really pleased that he congratulated his friends and was a great sport. Sometimes that's better than winning.
This is the only picture I got of Mark running the race. I was in charge of watching for winners. He is in the blue sweatshirt right in the middle, a few steps behind Cael...his best friend who won!
When the kindergarten gun sounded Dax was off like a shot. It wasn't even close, and, of course, he never looked back. So though we'll be going to Grandma Daniels' for Thanksgiving, we'll have a turkey to cook when we get home!
Dax was the leader from the get-go!
The top 3: from right to left, Dax, Noah Crosby (live-in our neighborhood), and Eli Olson (on Dax's soccer and basketball team). So all great friends!
Dax was SO happy! It was so fun to see him enjoying the moment!
So, I tell everyone I injured my foot skydiving. That's true, technically. I was actually skydiving out of the back of Glen's truck after unloading the 4th and last load of dirt for our new raised garden beds. After a very short flight, I landed in a hole in the grass and felt a flash of pain, which was accompanied by a nice little pop in my ankle.
"Stupid, Stupid, Stupid," I thought, and I was mostly certainly right. I hate doing things like this, that make you feel old and fragile. Worst of all was, it was one of those things that you see coming as it's happening-- like locking your keys in the car: you're pushing the door shut, saying, "Wait! Stop! The keys are in there!" but your hand just keeps on pushing.
Anyway, the ankle was soon softball sized, and though I was almost sure it wasn't broken, I didn't want to be that guy who walked on it for 2 weeks and then had to have 4 screws put in so he can never go through an airport metal detector again. So Natalie loaded me up, and we went to the doctor's office. We sat there for 2 hours while the tech tried to log in to the x-ray machine. Luckily, Grandma was at our house throwing up so at least the kids were sort of supervised. As I was literally hopping out the door to go to the Instacare, the tech called us back in and managed to take the x-ray. It was negative-- just as I thought-- but it took 2 hours and $40 for that peace of mind.
We waited a long time...too long!
Finally getting an X-ray!
His ankle was VERY swollen.
Here is the comparison between his two ankles. This is a few hours after it happened.
So they gave me a new brace, a prescription for Loritab, and an antinflammatory. I skipped the pain killer as well as my church meetings the next day, and by Monday morning a beautiful shade of purple had settled in the outside of my ankle. The pain's not too bad, but living with the stupidity of injuring yourself still stings quite a bit!
Halloween begins with the carving on pumpkins. This usually takes place as our FHE activity the Monday before Halloween. This is Dax's favorite activity. It's all he can talk about until it happens, and he very carefully plans what he is going to carve. The other boys have fun, too. Mom and Dad usually are the helpers, so we don't carve our own pumpkins unless we feel super ambitious, which we didn't this year. I was proud of the boys and their carving. It was definitely a win!
Scary Seth!
Mark is very focused when he's carving.
Seth told me what to carve on his pumpkin. We drew a picture beforehand so that I got it right.
Randy helped carve Dax's name in the back of his pumpkin for him.
I loved Mark's mouth that he created.
Dax tried to match his jack-o-lantern's face. And I love that he added hair to his vampire pumpkin!
They look even better all lit up.
This year for Halloween we ALL dressed up. I can't remember the last time I dressed up, but Randy has to because his 4th graders expect it. I decided that we might as well try and have fun with a Star Wars theme. The two older boys wanted to be Jedi, and I tried to talk Seth into Yoda, but he would have none of it. He wanted to be a bad guy, and he had to be blue. So we let him look through all the Star Wars books, and he decided he wanted to be Jango Fett. I made all the costumes, except for Jango Fett. I ordered that one on Amazon, but I made the jetpack! Oh, and my mom made the Jedi Cloaks, My Princess Leia dress, and Randy's vest--you know, the hard stuff that looks awesome. I'm so glad my mom can sew so well!
So here are the Star Wars stars of the Ockey Family!
Han Solo-- it's all about the attitude.
Princess Leia (from a 6 year old perspective).
Luke Skywalker
Obi Wan Kenobi
Jango Fett
The jetpack was his favorite part!
Obi Wan needed one more pose!
Mom and Dad have their tickets to the December 18th opening night for the new movie!
We had big plans for Fall Break. One of the families in our neighborhood invited a few close friends to share a vacation resort at Bear Lake. Actually, it turned out to be 69 close friends in a 16,500 square foot mansion. There were 13 families sharing 19 bedrooms (bigger families had 2 rooms) and each had their own bathroom.
This was our bedroom...and we loved having our own bathroom!
The kitchen was amazing! And this is only part of the tables and half of the kitchen!
The view of Bear Lake was amazing!
The property featured a basketball court, tennis courts, a full theater with 38 lazy boy recliners, a TV in every room plus the common areas, ping-pong, billiards, and 2 kitchens with a common area with seating for around 75 people. There was a large walkout balcony and even a lighthouse that had over 100 steps leading to the 360 degree view of Bear Lake and the surrounding valley. Best of all, the cost was split 69 different ways, so we paid about the same price as you'd pay at the average hotel.
There were 25 adults and 44 kids to share the place, and we got along really well. The first day we arrived around 4 o'clock and got all settled in. The host family graciously bought pizza for the first night, but otherwise, we split up the meals. After pizza, the kids watched a movie in the massive theater and the adults settled in and made use of the ping pong and pool table.
The theater room was so FUN!
The Ping Pong games were intense!
After the kids were in bed, there was a wild night karaoke. We sang Firework by Katy Perry together, which was really "good" (for karaoke) but Wade and Randy stole the show with their rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen with Wade in full costume including a wig. This went on well into the night, and it is a wonder that the kids slept at all! Though everybody sang along to most of the songs, Randy also sang Sweet Caroline with Grant and Somebody to Love with Marc Bule. Who knew he was brave (and stupid) enough for karaoke?
Randy definitely stole the show...he was the karaoke king!
The next day the kids were up early (at least it seemed early if you were up until 1:30 wailing out rock-n-roll songs), and we were in charge of breakfast. Natalie had organized the entire breakfast and thought she'd be a major player, but the other families that were assigned with us promptly grabbed the utensils and begin flipping pancakes and rolling sausages. All we really had to do was help with the cleanup. Meanwhile, others were organizing fun games for the kids including Halloween Bingo, talent shows, and even a 40 foot parachute that was Seth's favorite part of the trip.
Seth had so much fun with the parachute.
Everyone had fun with the parachute!
Later, there was a tennis tournament for the men (Randy went 3-0) and ping-pong, chess, and pool. Finally, we went to the lake. It was a beautiful near 70 degree day, which is amazing for October, and though we thought we might have to stay out of the water, it wasn't too bad. We all waded and spent around 2 hours playing in the shallows.
Randy loves to play tennis. I need to learn how to play!
Dax had fun chasing all the tennis balls.
Randy's killer serve and Marc Bule's height helped them to beat everyone!
After that we got LaBeau's shakes to spoil our dinner, and then back to the house for pulled pork burritos that we didn't have to do anything with but eat. That evening we watched the BYU football game in the theater and then put the kids to bed. It was another late night with huge games (20 adults) of Mafia, I've Never, Signs, and a doozy called Screaming Feet. By the time we stumbled to bed at nearly 2 am we knew we were in for another early morning.
The boys had fun letting their feet sink into the sand.
So many kids on the beach made it extra fun.
Seth loves Bear Lake!!
We saw our bald eagle friend from the summer was still hanging around.
Troy had the only injury of the trip. Mark and Troy had fun spending time together.
There were a lot of us at the beach!
The sand was more mud than sand.
Seth had to go out to the "big water."
These three stood out in the water and talked for about an hour.
Mark and I were the most excited for shakes!!
Breakfast was continental, and we cleaned up and got ready to be out by 10 am. The cleanup was more like straightening as the cleaning fee was included in our price, so that was nice. Then Randy and the big boys went for a ride in the Razor up to the summit to view the lake. Finally, we piled in the car and drove home the back way through Randolph.
We saw a golden eagle eating a rabbit on the way home which was aMAZing!!
It was an amazing fun vacation, and we hope we get to do it again every year. We really feel it was a unique bit of fun with friends that we feel closer to, and our kids loved it. We do need to sleep for about a week, though....
Randy also failed to mention that on the way up to Bear Lake, we spend the day on four extra adventures:
Box Elder Natural History Museum
Ryan's Park
Stokes Nature Center
Tony Grove
And we never miss a chance to visit Angie's for lunch!
Families involved in this excursion included: Petersons, Monsons, Olsons, Ellis, Bules, Schoepkes, Schultz, Goodwins, VanCotts, Haws, Sargents, and Johnsons.
We set up the telescope and spotted boats on the lake! And stars, too!
