Each of the girls had school events that took place in November. Starting with Taryn, the school had a Thanksgiving feast where parents are invited to join the students for a Thanksgiving meal during lunch. Since I’ve been working in the office, I was able to come a little early, help serve the food as a PTA volunteer and then join Taryn for her lunch before starting work. They had cute backdrops to take pictures in front of, and I was able to get some with Taryn and one with her friend Diego while we ate lunch.
Tyler and Taryn had a daddy/daughter date when the older two had plans with friends and Aubrey and I were headed to a concert. I took a picture of them together since they were both dressed up and Taryn was very excited to spend one on one time with her daddy. They went out for a treat and did some shopping.
Aubrey’s school event was also the Thanksgiving Feast. Since her lunch was during my work hours, I wasn’t able to sit with her the entire time, but I was able to stop by and say hi and get a picture with her. She was happy to be sitting with her friends, so it worked out for everyone. I was happy to get the picture with her though.
Another event for Aubrey was that she won a ticket to her orchestra teacher’s symphony concert in November, so Aubrey and I had a date night together to hear the El Paso Symphony Orchestra. They were playing songs from the Planets which are songs that I’ve played before and are familiar with, so I was excited to go with her to this concert. Aubrey ended up falling asleep near the end of the concert. Too bad it was during my favorite movements, but overall she still enjoyed it. We were able to even catch her teacher, Mrs. Cedillos, after the concert was over to get a picture of the two of them together.
The parking garage was so busy that we ended up waiting to leave and walking around the San Jacinto Plaza instead while the traffic to died down. They were in the process of decorating for the holidays, but it was decorated enough to take some cute pictures and to see some fun decorations. We even got a dessert and shared some churros while looking at the lights and taking pictures. It was fun having a night out just the two of us.
In November, Tessa auditioned for All-Region. She was one of about 160 percussionists that tried out from the district. We showed up to the school early so she could warm up and we found two of her classmates and I took a picture of them while they ran through their audition music together. They go in groups of 15-20 and they had to play a snare piece, a marimba piece, and a tympani piece. Tessa felt good about her audition and we left the school with high hopes. Unfortunately, we heard from her teacher later that evening that Tessa had placed 27th. Placing that high out of 160 isn’t bad, but for the two bands, they only took 14 percussionists, so she didn’t make All-Region. She was pretty sad that she wasn’t in the top 14, but remembering that she had tried out in front of judges and other kids and felt like she had played the best she could, we were still very proud of her and her accomplishments.
November was also the month of Science Fair projects. Tessa chose a project dealing with water in goblets and the tone of music they make. She poured in different measurements of water and found out if the music pitch was higher or lower based on how much water was in the glass. She had fun making music, but was a little sad that there wasn’t much difference between goblets or pitches.
Abby was able to attend the temple in November, so here’s a picture of the youth that went on that trip outside the temple after their baptism session.
We made friends with Enna, a volleyball player on the UTEP team this year. She came to dinner with us one Sunday evening, so we ended up going to her last home game. Abby already knew Sophie from Franklin the previous year, and Enna and Sophie are best friends, so Abby was very excited to cheer them both on and get a picture with them after the game. Enna’s from Hawaii and knows the Chongs from our ward, so we all cheered her on as they played. It was fun to watch them play and see a college-level volleyball game in person.
The weekend before Thanksgiving break, Tyler had a work conference in San Antonio. We decided to all head down so we could spend time with Scott and his family. We love seeing family and hanging out with all the cousins. While Tyler was at his conference and Nevla was working on a class assignment, Scott and I took all 9 kids to the park to play. We had to walk since we didn’t have a car big enough to hold everyone, but the park is only a few blocks away from their house, so it was a fun little hike. I took pictures while we walked.
The kids love the park and my girls love playing too, but also being in charge of one of their younger cousins. Here’s Abby with Nadia as they rode the airplane. Chloe loved having older cousins to hang out with so they can make believe and play on their own. I caught these four during their “game” to pause long enough to grab a picture.
I did some photo shoot pictures in the tree area surrounding their park and I loved how the pictures turned out. Taryn was happy to be my photo subject. Aubrey was having fun finding good picture spots and I took this one of her and Nadia while they sat on a low branch that hung from a tree.
We attempted to get one good picture of all the cousins together, but getting them all to sit still, look at the camera, and smile is almost impossible. This was the best we could get and we were happy with it.
We tried before church to get some more pictures of all of the cousins, but it just wasn’t going to happen. Not only was everyone still getting ready at different times, but also the problem with the kids sitting still and smiling was still a challenge. I was able to catch Abby with Nadia and Haley while they waited for everyone else to get ready. Tyler was home in the evenings and helped keep the kids happy by turning on Disney+ on his IPad. He made some really good friends that weekend once they figured out they could watch cartoons or movies with him whenever they sat with him.
We drove home Monday the week of Thanksgiving and Tyler worked Tuesday. After he got off of work that day, we started our trek north to Utah for the rest of the week. We stayed in Farmington, NM on our way and got to Utah Wednesday afternoon. We were excited to spend the holiday with family and happy that everyone was able to be there. Even Andrew was there who had come home from his mission in August. This was the first time we had seen him since he had come home. Here’s our first complete Gibbons family picture since Andrew left two years ago.
We took multiple trips to see Dutchess on their property. Aubrey had a fun time finding places where we could do a photo shoot. She loves to have her picture taken. I really liked the ones we took in and around Grandpa Gibbons’ green trailer.
We loved seeing Dutchess and feeding her carrots and hay. The kids loved to talk to her and watch her run around and kick and play in the dirt. Tyler had fun visiting with her too. We love seeing Dutchess.
The cousins always have fun playing together and preparing for our annual talent show. Most of the times you can find the kids playing together in the backyard, or downstairs playing Grandpa’s wii. Tessa learned a song and sang it with Julia and Makaela during the talent show. All the kids pretty much scrounged up something for the talent show. Since we travel so far, we’re not able to bring the girls’ instruments or talent props, but they sang, danced, or did magic tricks and still had a fun time participating with their cousins.
The cousins really do like hanging out. They played a lot of games together and just sat around visiting and catching up since they had been together the last time. They played Spoons a lot together and had fun challenging each other to magic tricks and other smaller group games.
Our tradition of going to the movies continued as we went to see Frozen 2 on Thanksgiving Day. It was fun to remember that six years ago we had been in this same theater together on another Thanksgiving Day watching the first Frozen movie. The kids really liked the movie and we had fun being all together taking up almost two full rows in the theater.
The kids played some football during the week. It was chilly, but not too cold to run around outside. My girl were sad that there wasn’t any snow, but they did enjoy being able to take their games outside and have more places to play. Here is a picture with all of our girls with their Gibbons cousins, all of Tim and Lora’s kids. We really love being able to spend our holidays with family.
We know that families are forever and we love our family!
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