It's been a while...

The Hyde Family- Fall 2013

I feel as though I am always playing catch-up when it comes to blogging.  I love the idea of having memories, photos, and videos of my family all in one location.  It has been so fun to go back and look at posts from years ago and see the changes in my family.  The only problem I find is as my children get older, I find it more and more difficult to find the time to sit down and write and download pictures and videos.  I really need to make a better effort of doing so.  So here is the LONG re-cap of the past few months...

Russ really is an amazing man, father and husband.  He is so talented, adventurous, and helpful.  After Russ gets home from work, he helps shuttle kids from one activity to another, builds bamboo fly-rods, ties flies, takes Garrett to the batting cages, helps Gracie with homework, encourages Grant with scouting, helps me do dishes, etc.  He will sit only occasionally- if the new Sports Illustrated magazine came in the mail, or if there is a really good game on.  Otherwise, he is moving from one project to another.  This fall, Russ had the incredible opportunity to travel to the Bikini Atoll islands  for another fly-fishing adventure with Grant (his fishing partner) and some other fly-fishing addicts.  It was "the trip of a life-time"-That of course is a little joke, because this has been said about every trip he has gone on!!!  For those of you, like me, who have NO IDEA where the Bikini Atoll Islands are, they are located somewhere between Hawaii and Australia and are too small to see on a regular map, unless you zoom in to 1,000 %.

       Garrett at age 15 1/2

Garrett will be turning 16 in just 20 days.  We can hardly believe it.  He is just about 6 feet tall and only 145 pounds.  He is finally putting on weight and starting to fill out a bit.  School has been a little tougher for Garrett this year.  I have actually seen him doing homework.  We haven't seen that in years.  He is taking Chemistry, honors Math and Language Arts, Spanish III, woodworking, seminary, weight training, and graphic design.  He played fall ball (baseball) this year instead of football.  He loved it and had the opportunity to play with the upper classmen.  He played well, pitched a ton, and hit great.  His team actually won the fall ball championship and each of them got a new baseball jacket.  That was exciting for him.  He will have baseball tryouts next month and is anxious for season to get underway.  He can usually be found at the baseball field, texting, playing dunkball, doing homework, or watching Castle (a show he discovered during Christmas vacation).

Garrett's Fall Ball Championship Team

 Grant at age 13

Grant has become one busy kid.  The day after Grant broke his foot, I emailed his gymnastics coach and told him Grant would be taking some time off.  That next week we ran into one of his previous gymnastics coaches who is now coaching at another gym.  He was so excited to see Grant and asked Grant why he hadn't seen him at any of the gymnastics competitions.  Grant told him that his group had never really even talked about competing.  Scott encouraged Grant to switch gyms and start training with him again.  We attended a meeting and was really impressed with their program.  Grant went to a practice that week, cast and all, to try it out.  We decided to give it a chance.  Grant now practices about 11 hours each week.  He has improved so much in just 2 months time and yesterday competed at his very first gymnastics meet.  He did pretty well considering 1/2 of that training time was in a cast.  Here is a video of his very first ever gymnastics meet event- the vault. 

Grant is really enjoying school this year.  He is taking math, history, language arts, science, PE, weight training, orchestra, and FACS (kind of like a home ec type class in our day- it is required).  

Last week Grant went on the Klondike for scouts.  This year was "AWESOME".  Because Grant had been on two previous Klondikes and had fulfilled his cold weather campout requirements, he was allowed to stay in a cabin with the other older boys and some of the leaders.  The younger boys had to sleep outside in tents. The next day, they were able to go skiing/snowboarding at Brianhead all day.  Grant took snowboarding lessons and then hit the slopes, all while earning his Cold Weather Sports merit badge.  He LOVED it and is already trying to figure out how to get back up the mountain and go again.  I wish I had been there to take some pictures.

Gracie at age 10

Gracie is so much fun.  She is full of energy and fills our house with it.  Gracie, too, is still in gymnastics and is preparing for her upcoming competition season.  She practices at the gym about 8 hours each week.  She enjoys school and her teacher this year.  She loves her friends and is with them every second she is not at school or gym.  She has a cell phone now and loves to text anyone who will respond.

Here are some other random pictures of our fall/winter activities:

It was cold and raining/snowing at the game, Garrett was sick, and BYU destroyed Idaho State- but they still had a great time.

Our nephew/cousin, Halen, was wrestling in a huge tournament in Las Vegas.  Russ and Grant were able to go down on the second day and watch him wrestle and hang out with Halen's dad, Dean.  They had so much fun and were SO IMPRESSED by Halen.  Out of about 135 boys in his weight class, Halen took 4th place. So awesome!  And he is only a sophomore.  Imagine what he will be like as a senior.  

We were able to get all of the cousins together one day and take a bunch of pictures for Nana.  It was quite a quick adventure, but very successful.  Here are a few of the better pictures:

All 12 of the kids were pretty well behaved considering it was cold.

These are just a few of the activities we actually have pictures of.  I am not very good at remembering to take pictures...maybe because I get flack every time I try.  I am not allowed to take pictures at baseball games... it is BAD LUCK.  If I pull out the camera anywhere else, all of my kids scatter, make faces, or delete pictures I take.  Someday they will be sad that they weren't more compliant.