HALLOWEEN!

 We had a fun month celebrating Halloween! Lots of parties, etc! For work we had to be DC characters so I was the riddler - I only picked it cause it was an easy costume! The boys went to a couple of different ward trunk or treats and never had a costume so they would just bum costumes off of Sara and Kati and all the boys would rummage through their costume totes and put something together! One night the twins and their friends went to a Zombie paintball night! They got to ride around in this truck thing and shoot paintballs at zombies! At school they had spirit week and these guys planned their outfits for every day - I loved it!! And of course they did their offical trick-or-treating with Payton and Chiara to carry on the tradition!! (this would be the last year we did it together though - which is sad...I guess that's what happens when kids grow up!)

CHANDLER HALF MARATHON!

 It's Friday night and Tanya Kimball calls me and asks if we are going to run the half marathon that we signed up for 2 years ago. It was supposed to be in 2020, but got canceled due to covid and now a year later it was upon us. I sort of hoped she would forget about it - I mean lululemon paid my entry fee so I didn't feel bad to dip out...but the more we talked the more we decided, "what the heck, let's just run it!" We did ZERO training. We got up early 2 days later the day of the race and rode down there together. Luckily my body remembered what to do and we ran the first 7 miles without stopping...then I got in my head and ended up stopping at every port-a-potty after that. We did some run/walking the last half...but we got caught up on each other's lives and had a great race! It was super fun to see our families waiting for us at the finish line - I don't think my kids have ever come to one of my races before! Going to church afterwards was rough. I was sore and tired. But so glad we did it together! 

ELI REFFING COMPLIMENT!

 Here is an email that a Coach sent to Andrea who is in charge of the refs for RSL

"I know its a tourney weekend and you all have tons going on at multiple fields, but wanted to take a minute and let you know how impressed we all were with our referee today, Eli. he did a grea job, helped the players get the ball places in teh right spot for goal kicks, corners, etc. impressive job by the young man. Enjoy the rest of the tourney." - Coach Ashcraft

"Thank Elias for his commitment and hard work" - Andrea

Always nice to get a little praise. Eli really is a good ref! He runs up and down the field with the players and really tells them what to do! 

MESA TEMPLE OPEN HOUSE!

 We got to take the boys through the Mesa Temple remodeled open house and show them the temple that we got married in! 

THE TWINS TWINNING!

 The twins left for school today actually twinning without planning it - ha ha! 

RODGERS FAMILY REUNION!

 We haven't had an official Rodgers Family Reunion since Summer of 2013 and Alyza was a baby there so we have since added several more grandkids to the group! It had been weighing on me that I needed to talk to Nate and ask him to have it at his cabin. My family was all on board and Nate and Jenn were so great about it. We knew that meant that Nate had to come up there with us and he was so gracious and willing to leave his family and Jenn was so nice to handle everything at home so that my family could do this. It was perfect - minus that fact that oh ya - Ashley and her crew didn't come. Lily got really sick the week of and long story short - they couldn't come. We struggled as to what to do - but decided to go ahead without them anyways since Lily was getting better and everyone had taken work, school, etc off. 

We had a mini birthday party for Grandma, had a smores night, went spotlighting, rode tons of quads, razors, etc all day long, went shooting, played games at night with the adults, watched movies, ate tons of food, Eli played tons of ping pong - even with Grandpa and he was most impressed with Grandpa's ping pong skills...we had the best time! So grateful we were able to get away for a bit and do that!