September 2023 - Andy is old as dirt and we take a "no kids" weekend in Miami

September 1 - Melissa planned the science lesson this week.  Owl Pellets!  Lilian's face says it all.  Owl vomit?! I don't think so. 

Hannah and Finn got a little more involved and spent some time dissecting and identifying the bones.  Finn loved it. Hannah was happy to pass hers off to me to do.

But Melissa was the most enthralled. She enjoyed this as much as I've seen her enjoy anything in our 12 years together. 

Saturday the 2nd they pulled the bones they'd been soaking in vinegar as part of their Bones unit study. Delicious pork ribs a few weeks ago and bendy science project now. 

Monday the 4th, we spent most of the morning stripping flooring and pulling down ceiling tiles at the Numbers' house. The kids really enjoyed it, as they spent most of the morning watching shows with the electric baby sitter. 

9/4 - Melissa took the kids to Dry Wash to go explore with their homeschool friends. The kids found lots of frogs, a snake and a salamander.

 

Melissa and Emily Laws with the girls.

Cassidy Tait and her little girls, Clifford the dog and Hannah and Lily.

Finn with his salamander.

9/6 = The kids were finishing up their Bone unit, so they had to label some of the main bones.

9/8 - Melissa had an idea to get logs to make a nature playscape by our dirt hill. Teryl Pugh let us pick out some wood and sawed it for us.

9/10 - Lily got a scooter (from a yard sale) and was a quick learner. Her too small "wedding" dress gave her magic powers.

9/14 - Lily loves training Goldie and giving her treats.

9/20 - I had my 40th birthday and got spoiled by my family. Lots of treats and the kids even got "me" a Lego Corvette.  I haven't seen it for at least 2 weeks as of this writing. 

9/22 - Finn is loving the nature play area. We spent so much time pulling and cutting weeds from this area.  I was trying to cut some of them with my electric trimmer and Bret Saunders (across the street) saw me and loaned me an amazing gas powered/wheeled destroy everything trimmer.  It probably saved us 2 hours of weed pulling. 

That same day we got the front yard prepped for laying out rocks.

9/22 - Saturday Melissa and I got to go on a date to the temple. We also picked up food from a new, really good, sandwich shop in Monticello called The Overbite.

9/23 - Hannah and Finn both lost a tooth tonight!

9/27 - This is a big event. Hello Grandma and goodbye parents.  Grandma watched the kids 9/27-10/2 so we could go to a conference/vacation in Miami. 

9/28 - We had a redeye flight. Wednesday we drove to Lindon and went to Costco and the Purple Turtle with my dad for dinner.  Nana's in England.  We flew 11:30 PM to 6 AM and road to the hotel in a big rainstorm.  We crashed at about 7:30 and slept until 11:30.  Then we walked down to the beach before exploring a little. 

Dinner Thursday night with Melissa's virgin strawberry daquiri.  Hopefully it shows up, but there is a tiny drip of red because she tilted the cup to far in her sipping pose.  After 2-3 pictures she ended up with a nice puddle next to her hand. 

After dinner we walked about 2 miles back up Miami Beach and took pictures at several of the cutely decorated lifeguard towers. 

9/29 - Andy had a conference from 8-1, then we hit Little Havana. Cool art, great food, giant chickens.

Dominos. 

And real chickens!  After seeing lots of chicken statues on Calle Ocho (8th Street) we ended our walk with a bunch of real chickens outside a bakery. 

Chickens!

9/30 - Saturday heading to the beach!  The weather was great, the water was in the low 80s.  So weird to feel almost like floating in a tub.  The beach was really steep, you were up to your chest with just a few steps, good thing we didn't have kids. 

10/1 - Technically it is October, but we were still on our trip.  My conference let out a little early on the last day.  We went to the Miami Holocaust memorial.  It was interesting to read the stories and see the art.  Dozens of dying, starved figures climbing to release. 

The memorial is attached to a botanical garden, so we went to explore the plants. 
Our flight home was scheduled from 6:30-9:30 this evening, but (insert airline excuses here), so we were 2 hours last and didn't get to Lindon until after midnight. We did have plenty of time to watch General Conference at the airport.

We had a lazy awakening, picked some sweet potatoes from the garden with dad, then headed home at about 10:30.   Super fun trip and it was fun to see dad for a few hours, too.