McAlister Matters

  Happy Easter Everyone! It was a nice Spring day here. Kahlan and I got to sing in the choir at church. We sang 4 numbers including " Were You There? ". We've been enjoying some good weather along with the occasional snow or rain storm. Paul had a birthday last week. It's hard to believe he's 7! We went to the West Bountiful Park and had pizza with his Utah cousins. Paul is such a good kid. He gets up every morning and practices his piano and rarely has to be reminded about anything. He loves Legos, Minecraft, now StarCraft and playing with Penny and the older kids. He's top of his class at reading and loves books about Star Wars and animals and facts. He's still the master puzzler. I recently started working full-time at my job. So far it's been good. We've been having fun using ChatGPT to turn some of our recent pictures into Studio Gibli drawings. The kids have gotten a kick out of it. We were really into watching Studio Gibli movies last year....

  We celebrated Penny's 5th birthday last week. The Utah cousins came over on Monday night for cake and ice cream. Penny was very excited to be 5 years old. Now she can stay up until 8pm and play the Nintendo Switch with the other kids. She got a new backpack for her birthday and a new Lego set. We took her out to Penny Anne's Cafe for her birthday lunch. She wanted sourdough pizza for her b-day dinner. On Saturday for Spring break we left on our epic journey to Nauvoo, IL. The weather was nice when we left. It took about 5 hours to get to Martin's Cove in Wyoming. It's a remote spot where there is now a cattle ranch that the church owns. We got to pull some handcarts and some nice senior missionaries showed us around. There was a visitors center there with artifacts and exhibits and a video about the Willey / Martin handcart rescue . We went on a hike to the Devil's Gate landmark pictured in the background. It was a pretty landscape.  Most of Wyoming along I-80 is ...

  It's been a cold winter since the start of 2025. We've just been staying warm inside. This year we've been studying the D&C and church history . To go along with that we planned a Spring break trip to Nauvoo, IL. We leave this Saturday. It will be a lot of driving but we'll see a bunch of sites along the way. Sarah finished writing her fantasy novel! It's a fun read and she's working on getting it published.  The kids have been awesome. They've been into Legos a lot. We have dozens of sets and they can spend hours working on their assemblies. They are also all great singers and artists. Recently they've been into the Matilda (Netflix) and Zombies (Disney) soundtracks. They also did a funny rendition of Moana together one day, kind of like a little play. They've also been having fun playing a video game called Vampire Survivors on the Switch.  Kahlan participated in her school play this year Alice in Wonderland. She was part of the ensemble and ...

  Merry Christmas everyone! The kids were very excited for Christmas Sunday. Paul even said thank you in his prayers last night that there was 14 and a half hours until the Christmas program. Kahlan was especially excited to sing in the choir and do a solo singing Star Bright. She did a great job! Paul had his own class program on Friday. He did a good job as the Mexican child. They sang songs from around the world. Rockin Around Christmas 2024 Sarah and I worked for several evenings together with the kids on another 'Christmas jam'. We had Kahlan and Juniper sing some solos and I got to work in a blues part. Hope you enjoy it! Click for pics! Bonus Video!

  The day before we left for California for Thanksgiving week Sarah took the van to the car wash. The attendant there mentioned that the radiator was making a bubbling sound so she took it to a shop. We needed to get the whole water pump replaced so we had to delay our drive out by a day. It was kind of a bummer to lose a day but since being stuck on the road somewhere was a real possibility we considered it a tender mercy. We had to take the southern route since I-80 was closed over the Sierras. We missed McAlister Fest because the drive took 15 hours to drive there but traffic was not bad and the weather was clear. We did make it to Milo's birthday celebration on Sunday. There were a couple pinatas! We went to Berkeley one day and enjoyed some delicious Cheeseboard pizza. We took the kids to a small farm and went for a hike. It was nice to see everyone this time. We had dinner at Julie's. We spent Thanksgiving at Mimi's house and had lots of wonderful food. Sarah and I ma...

  Halloween came and went and it was great! The kids had a trunk or treat night at their school and a costume parade. Penny was Snow White. Paul was Darth Vader. Juni was Ember from Elemental, hence the flames on her head. Kahlan went as the 80s pop singer Belinda Carlisle (a recent family favorite). We did the annual pumpkin carving and the kids made their own original designs. We did some trick-or-treating and they got lots of candy. It was super cold as usual so they had to wear coats. It was a very warm October and is finally getting colder. We were able to go on a fun hike up to Willow Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon with Heather and Sebastian. The fall colors were amazing. We also did a campfire with them in MillCreek Canyon and hiked to the Farmington pond. We harvested our grapes last week. The kids helped quite a bit with de-stemming the grapes. Sarah made close to 100 jars of jelly!  The kids got their school pictures taken. They are all doing well in school and enjoyi...

  Fall is here and we've been enjoying the great weather. We took the kids to Cross-E Ranch this week. It's a big farm where you can see animals and do fun activities like swim in corn kernels. The kids loved watching pig races, rock wall climbing and a corn maze. Of course we all enjoyed the amazing apple cider donuts! We took the kids on a bike ride on the legacy trail yesterday. It was a bit warm but we went almost 6 miles. It was the first time we've all been able to ride our own bikes. Penny road the whole time wearing this fake mustache. It was pretty awesome! She was able to keep up most of the time which is pretty good considering the small bike. Also she still needs help getting on the bike. It was pear season again. We spent a few days canning pears and this delicious pear tart. I made quite a few batches of tomato sauce from roasted vegies. Sarah finished the Pacific Coast Trail virtual race. It was over 2K miles! Now she's working on the Harry Potter medals....