September 28

Master D had his premier for his senior project capstone film, “Maggie”, that he executive produced – which means he was in charge of locations, budget, hiring, negotiating, scheduling, paying people and working directly with the writer/director – and he got to speak at the premier. It was about 20 minutes long but it took a year to make it.  He did an amazing job!!  We were SO very proud of him!  I am sure this is the first of MANY! October 2nd

For Aub’s birthday this year I gave her (me) tickets to see Coldplay in Portland (since she didn’t get to see them with the rest of us here in Salt Lake).  I flew up there on Saturday and we hung out for a couple mom & daughter days. I literally walked all over Portland (logging more than 23,000 steps both Sunday and Monday), and used Uber only when I needed it.

Sobering and devastating, the horrific attack on Las Vegas happened on that Sunday night – so just going to a concert the following night was full of emotions.  We were both a little frightened, but determined not to let evil take away from the connected joy of enjoying live music, somewhat worried about the band and the threat on their livelihood and a multitude of other difficult to name feelings going on.  Also Tom Petty had just passed away that day.  The band came on an hour late without giving a reason and started with a minute of silence with the lights off and the audience shining their cellphones – for the people in Las Vegas. (There were a bunch of very drunk yahoos yelling stupid stuff here and there – PEOPLE SUCK SOMETIMES) When it was silent at first, it gave me the chills.  You could see on the band’s faces that they were very emotional and Chris thanked the audience for being brave enough to come, said that he believes most people are good and that he didn’t want to let evil ruin our night or our ability to connect through music.  Then he sang Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin” accompanied by REM’s guitar player before they started the concert.  Near the end of the concert, Chris pulled two little boys up onto their C stage (which sits in the back of the arena and they play all acoustic songs before they run back to the main stage and end the concert – they don’t do encores, that is their encore) and gave one of them his acoustic guitar and the other one Johnny’s electric guitar.  They were maybe 9 and 10 years old.  The littler one tried to give it back too – I bet their parents were dying!!  As usual they put on an highly energizing, happy, fun and uplifting show.

My sweatshirt is special.  I ordered it off their website as soon as they started their tour and they don’t sell it at their concerts or on their website anymore.  I think at least 10 people asked me where I got it.

This is from their snapchat – I am pretty sure that’s my hair on the bottom left of the photo..haha

Oct 12th – 15th

My friend Mindy hosted a weekend fitness retreat to San Diego at the same resort that the Chopra Center is and Cherie, Christina and I joined in.  The weather was perfect, I slept amazing, loved the hiking, meditations, yoga, working out, collecting rocks on the beach for B, chatting it up and laughing our heads off.

I call this the Dr. Suess tree, I thought it was worth taking a photo of. 

And then we ended the weekend with the oxygen masks deploying above us as we were taxi-ing for takeoff.  That’s apparently not good, as we turned right back around and were delayed an hour while they fixed it and everyone asked us what we did.  That was a first.  I wasn’t even sure if they really existed.Ari has been cheering her little butt off all season and now we’ve moved into competition season.  

Oct 18th-21st

Fall Break.  It probably looks kind of ridiculous all the traveling I did in October – but in my defense it was not up to me when Coldplay decided to come to Portland, or when Mindy planned her retreat (that I agreed to a year ago) or when Canyons district took fall break right after.  But we headed out again.  Ari had to cheer the first day of fall break, so TT and I went to Huntington Beach for the first night alone. And I loved that! Ari came the next day and then B and Lelu on Friday.  TT and I found this very photo-worthy rose near the beach in Laguna. We went to Malibu for an afternoon, ate at Neptune’s net and found this super cool secluded little beach for them to free-climb.  (TT is REALLY into rock climbing right now) We did a little shopping…..I need to document the hair in all it’s shapes and sizes TT was also the only one brave enough to body surf. The waves were killer!  It was too dangerous to boogie board and TT eventually got kicked out altogether by the body guards.   Lelu is enjoying her time at Utah StateShe’s the only one who dressed up on actual Halloween.  She was a gypsy.Ari went to the Halloween dance with a boy named Alec – while I was at the retreat.  TT and Master D never dressed up for anything.