August & September

On Monday, August 9, Heather started Corona del Sol High School.  I can't believe she is in high school now.  She is around 5 feet 8 inches tall and is so cute!  She has such a beautiful smile.  She has a great sense of humor and is fun, fun, fun!  She is taking zero-hour Seminary, Advanced Language Arts, Spanish, Physical Science, Geometry, Choir and Dance (PE).  She really seems to be having a good experience at high school so far.  She went to her first Freshman dance, but left early because of the inappropriate dancing (grinding) and girl drama.  Heather doesn't have much tolerance for either.  She has joined the Glee Club and is having fun with that.

Freshman Aztec, Heather Heywood, on 1st day of school

At the end of August, Squirt, the Desert Turtle, joined our family.  A patient of Tony's gave us the turtle.  Desert Turtles can grow up to 14 inches and live 60-80 years! I guess Heather will have Squirt for a long, long time. Squirt is SO cute!  Notice that Heather is wearing her Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles t-shirt.

Squirt the Desert Turtle

For Labor Day weekend, we actually did something this year.  Tony signed us all up to run in the Disneyland 5K.  We flew over on Wednesday evening and flew back on Monday afternoon.  The race was on the morning of Saturday, September 4.  The race was so much fun!  Tony finished in 24 minutes (show off), and Heather and I finished in 44 minutes. She thought I was the worst coach ever because I made her run.  haha  BUT, she wants to do it again next year.  We enjoyed the time spent together.  That was the longest period of time we spent at Disneyland and it was EXHAUSTING!  My feet will never be the same.  The lines were pretty decent and the weather was great.  I think we are going to do it again next year, except Tony and I will probably run the half marathon too.

Heather's favorite ride, The TeaCups

Just before the race

Heather's first 5K

Heather & Tony California Screamin'

Closed?!?!?  Bummer!

The day I returned from the Disneyland 5K trip, I headed down to Costa Rica.  It was a fun trip.  Wednesday, September 15 was Costa Rica's Independence Day.  The office celebrated the following Friday by having each team bring in part of the traditional Costa Rican casado for lunch.  We had black beans, rice, corn tortillas, carne, picadillo, platinos, macaroni salad, and rice pudding for dessert.  It was yummy!  Especially the platinos maduros (sweet fried plaintains).  Those who were so inclined dressed up in traditional costume.  I was able to buy a pretty Costa Rican blouse after much, much, much looking.  You would think they would be easy to find the day after the holiday . . . and on sale . . . NOT!  It is the rainy season down there and I loved the rain.  Nice mornings, poured in the afternoon, and then nice evenings.

Rick, Jana, Erna, and Karla

I returned home just in time for our September Relief Society meeting.  It was on personal and family histories.  Judy Curtis presented a great lesson and we put together a really cute jar craft.  Little did I know that would be my last Relief Society meeting that I would be in charge of!  I was released last Sunday as the 2nd Counselor in the Relief Society Presidency and was asked to be the Young Women's Laurel Advisor (16- and 17-year old girls).  I'm pretty excited about the change.

Heather's first choir concert was last weekend, September 24 & 25.  She is in the Women's Ensemble.  They were awesome!  I can't believe how good they are in such a short amount of time!  They sang La Violette (French Canadian Folk Song), Heart, We Will Forget Him! (Text by Emily Dickinson), and Today Was a Fairytale (as recorded by Taylor Swift).