The Utah Valley Symphony had their annual School Concert today. LaReita having injured one of her fingers with a knife was unable to play. So instead, she took James and Anthony out of school to attend the concert with her. After years of playing in the concerts she finally go to sit next to her boys during this one. Although cutting her finger so severely that she couldn’t play wasn’t the plan.
Some pictures from the concert: (not only was it for children but there were also children performing!)
School children arriving at the Provo Tabernacle building.
Traditional Halloween didn’t really happen this year for lots of reasons. It was celebrated on Sat the 30th. It started hailing at prime trick-or-treating time, so there weren’t many that came. It was just plain miserable outside. We didn’t even get our traditional fire set up out front. AND we forgot to get a picture in all their costumes. Oh well.
One notable thing was that James bought his costume this year with his own money! It was $21.34 and was a Star Wars character – like Jango Fett, but something else. This year Samuel wore a different costume each day of the week. Ben finally settled on wearing the orange jumpsuit prisioner costume and a blue wizard-looking hat. So he was the “Prisoner from Azkaban”. Yeah. Nobody realized it until we told them, then they smiled. Pretty ingenious for a 6 1/2 year old (who just finished having the book read to him). Anthony was himself, which made costuming easy. And Jacob just stayed inside with mom while she made homemade tomato soup, grilled cheese and fresh apple cider. LaReita’s cousin (well, 1st cousin, once removed) Jonathan Mitchell* was the door handler. Dave drove in the car being the back-up for the boys and friends Carlos and Cesar as they ran through the cold drizzling rain.
*Jonathan works for Dave and LaMont in the Find-A-Code business. He and his wife moved to Washington this summer. He came back here this week to do some conferencing with Dave.
Who's that toddler in the funny blue hat?It's Jacob!Jacob gets some hat-wearing tips from BenjaminSam and his suckerBenjamin's BootyAnthony's candy eyesAnthony's candy maskJames' candy facePost-candy crash
Anthony has to write a 5 sentence journal entry each day. His birthday (and party) was on Monday the 25th. On Wednesday the journal question was, “What is the nicest things that someone has done for you?” He wrote: “The nicest thing someone has done for me is my mom. She made me a cake for my birthday. It was chocolate and had a new transformer on top of it.” Not quite 5 sentences, but it was the nicest 3 sentences he has written!
Lynette of course asked if this was a ‘normal’ cake. And it was… for the most part. 🙂 Brynn even had 2 helpings and she usually doesn’t like chocolate cake at all! So that was fun to see. I also made a applesauce spice cake for those that didn’t want to have so much chocolate. Since it was snowing that day I refused to buy ice cream, but made hot cocoa instead. Which was why I had to have the applesauce spice cake – to dip into the hot cocoa. The hot cocoa was also made from 50% powdered milk from Grandma’s Country Kitchen. That is the BEST powdered milk I’ve tried thus far. (Having grown up with a lot of powdered milk, I’ve developed a kind of ‘taste’ for the stuff. And I’ve had some pretty awful stuff.) My boys will even get excited when I get Grandma’s Country powdered milk.
Grandma Leavitt was there and even gave the traditional recycle card! (A long-standing family joke and tradition. Grandpa was there and I’m sure was smiling.)
It was a wonderful party and family council afterward.
Excited AnthonyLighting the candles.Lighting the candles (angle 2).Just about ready...Signing "Happy Birthday"Cutting the CakeThe kids can't wait for cake!Grandma Grace and Aunt Kris
James and Kooper (neighbor boy) were working on their Tracking merit badge and needed to take some pictures of animals in the wild. On the walk in the canyon they came upon a cave. Anthony took these pictures of Benjamin and Sam in the cave.
Cavemen
James also took some pictures of our chickens “nesting” in the tree in the back yard at night. Every night, one-by-one, the chicks fly up into the tree to roost for the night. Chickens in trees, who would’ve thought.
... and some chickens in a tree. On the eighth day of Christmas...
We’d been promising the boys that we would go to the Lagoon amusement park all summer long and we finally found a free weekend. Mom took Jacob and Sam on the kid rides while dad had to endure the roller-coasters with James, Anthony and Benjamin.
Sam and Jacob on the car ride (like they didn't get enough of the car on the hour long drive to get there!)Jacob and Sam on the Rocket Ship ride.Sam on the Swing ride.Anthony, James (how cute) and Benjamin posing.
Just a few weeks before attending the World’s Longest Pinewood Derby Track event, our local Cub Scout Pack had their Pinewood Derby race.
The Berky Family Cars
We made 4 pinewood derby cars with the help of a neighbor and his jig saw. The boys had their cards painted with spray paint and then they painted their own designs on them. Although none of the cars were super-fast, they were not the slowest cars either and all the boys got to race their cars after the official race was over. Anthony, the only Berky boy eligible for the official race did well with his car – once they got it going the right direction.
Then several weeks later we attended the World’s Longest Pinewood Derby event in Sandy, UT. Grandpa Berky was with us as well. The event was held at the Rio Tinto Soccer stadium in Sandy. There were not as many people there as we had thought there would be so the boys got to race their cars down the track a lot of times. And since it was not an official race, we were allowed to put all kinds of extra things on the cars to weigh them down so they would go faster and longer on the track. We used batteries, screw-drivers, even the bottle of wood glue we had brought along.
The Berky Family at the World's Longest Pinewood Derby Track
James before a race. He was even interviewed by a TV News Channel, but didn't make it on the news.
Cesar & Carlos Nunez, Benjamin, Anthony and James Berky
