Jay-B's Reflections: Oktoberfestivus

The month of October is already a third over - really nuts! I can't believe how fast time has flown this month. Although it doesn't feel like we did much today, we actually did and it was a good Saturday. As for the rest of the week since my last post, there's not much to report - work went well and we spent a bunch of time in the evenings helping Ashtyn with her homework.

I've actually been thinking about that a lot. I'm worried that we are spending SO much time trying to help Ashtyn with her homework that we are hurting the family in two major ways. First, I'm not sure that we're actually "helping" Ashtyn. Seems like she may need to fail some to really learn the responsibility and accountability that she needs to be successful for the rest of her life. Amy and I need to pray about this some to see what we can do. Secondly, with so much attention directed towards Ashtyn, I'm afraid that the rest of the kids are missing out and may even be a little jaded by the lack of attention. So, Amy and I need to consider some other options.

Speaking of Ashtyn, I did have a great "date" with her last night. Actually, I had "dates" with all three of my girls this weekend. Yesterday was laps-for-learning at Rangeview Elementary and Amy was in charge of the show. So, she had to be at school for pretty much the entire day - which she not only loved, she did a really great job at it. She's so awesome! I'm so proud to be married to her. Anyway, I came home from work a litle early to pick up Aubrey to take her to pre-school. For lunch, I took her and baby Jarrett to Panera bread. It was a really great get-away for the two of us. Nice to not have any major fires at work so I could concentrate on these sweet little kids.

After work yesterday, I meet the family and we watched "Meet the Mormons" at the theatre. Super awesome movie and I think we all enjoyed the experience. It was probably a little over the heads of the little kids, but I think Ashtyn and Alyssa were touched. I'm glad we went. After the movie, we had dinner at Pho Duy, which is definitely a family favorite. There's never a wait and the food is always good. Next, I had some time with Ashtyn (and Jarrett).

Amy took the other three to get some final trimmings for Halloween costumes, so Ashtyn, Jarrett and I had some time alone. We stopped in at Sierra Trading Post, a new store in Fort Collins. We weren't very impressed, but we did find a nice ski jacket for Ashtyn. We may need to go back and buy it! After enjoying ourselves at the store (and we really did - I felt like I was connecting a bit with Ashtyn), we stopped by Dairy Queen for dessert. Again - it was nice to spend some time with her. I told her about my feelings of not wanting to lecture her, to scream at her and to hover over her every move. That's not the parent that I want to be, but I feel pushed to do that for some reason. I just want her to be great, to be successful. But, she needs to want that for herself. I need to take a step back and let her be "Ashtyn". I need to let her figure things out for herself, even if it means failure. I need to let her soar, but be there to catch her when she crash-lands. I have much to think about and pray about on this topic. One thing for sure - I really love my sweet Ashtyn. She's growing up so much - I miss her already!

Today, I was originally supposed to go to a Varsity training session in Fort Collins, but I bailed on it. I learned that you only have to have the training once and I found some documentation to prove that I took the training back in November of 2009. Done! So, we spent time cleaning the house, I really enjoyed sitting on the couch, feeding little baby Jarrett, and we got ready for the day. We didn't leave the house until about 10:45am and the goal was to have a late breakfast in town. Turns out that the rest of Fort Collins thought the same thing, so it took us forever to finally eat. Around noon, our food finally showed up at Doug's Day Diner. Great food, but we were nearly starved. Amy and I realized that it is just not worth it to spend $85 for our family to go out to eat. Way too costly for the benefit. Time to keep the family at home for every meal, expect special occasions. We can probably still do Pizza or Chinese from time to time, but that's it!

After lunch (that was supposed to be brunch), we drove home and quickly put on our Halloween costumes. We all dressed up and went to the Harmony Club for the Oktoberfestivus. This was our first time participating and it was actually pretty fun. We were expecting the Murray's to be there, so we were a little bummed when they didn't show up, but it was still fun. The kids all got to carve pumpkins and enjoy Apple Cider, Pie, Ice Cream and hot dogs. The little ones really loved playing with some other children. We took some fun family photos and we had a great time. I included some photos below.

After the Oktoberfestivus, we came home to get some things done. We all felt like we had wasted a ton of time today and we needed to make some things happen. So, I blew out the sprinklers and fixed the basketball goal - the YM had broken the handle to adjust the height. I also played basketball with Jantzen for about 2 hours. He really enjoyed spending time with me. It took about 3 hours to blow out the entire sprinkler system, but I'm so glad it's done. One more mowing season is almost over! Yeah!!

We needed to make one more trip into town, so Alyssa and I decided to make our first run to Costco. However, Costco was closed, so we spontaneously decided to have a "date" night and we went to go see a movie. We saw "Alexander and the really, horribly, bad day". (That's probably not the actual title, but it's something like that). Anyway - great little movie! Super fun to sit with Alyssa and enjoy that movie together. So - in 1.5 days, I was able to go on "dates" with all three girls and since I spent 2 hours playing basketball with Jantzen, I technically had a "date" with him as well. I would call that a very successful weekend of "Daddy time"!!

Fixing the basketball hoop: