Shane & Alicia ~ Autumn Update

Lindon Westra Update 9/12/21

 Hey family!

Congrats to Derek on running his half marathon yesterday and to Jaiden on getting the lead part in her school musical! It’s also so exciting that Janelle will be able to go to the MTC in Provo for most of her training. We haven’t been running races or learning Chinese or becoming SpongeBob, but we do have a few updates if you all are interested:

• New office for SimpleNexus — When Covid numbers were not as high, SN decided to find a new office space and resume having people come into the office. On Sept 1 they took occupancy of a building on the Thanksgiving Point campus. They had the annual summer party on Aug 31, so Shane, Rella, Calder, and I all went to that. Adria stayed home to do homework after her soccer game was done. They had a BBQ dinner, bounce houses, a rock climbing wall, face painting, balloon animals, shave ice, and a t-shirt station. It was good to meet many of Shane's employees and coworkers who were hired while the company was all remote. Some of them Shane hadn't even met in person until the day before the party!  
• Soccer season underway — Adria has been enjoying the soccer season, especially since her team has won most of their games! She had two games that were canceled due to lightning. They were both away games up in Sandy (Jordan & Alta). My dad and Julie had come down from Layton to watch Adria's team play Jordan, so after the game was canceled we took them out to dinner instead. She just has 5 games left for the regular season, so if anyone wants to come to a game, let us know! 
• Dancing Queen — Rella calculates that she spends over 12 hours a week in dance classes either at the school (for the Contemporary Dance Team) or at the studio where she takes dance outside of school. She also has a kind of job cleaning the dance studio in exchange for tuition credit. She just cleans for an hour a week, but it helps with her tuition, which certainly adds up with the number of classes she takes. Her school team will be attending a competition at the Shakespearean Festival at the end of the month, so she is excited about that. 
• House Update — the basement is shaping up with part of the basement slab poured and the rest will be poured tomorrow. Our builder is hoping to get some steel and framing done this coming week. Shane and I met with a designer who we have hired to help us with the kitchen and several of the bathrooms. We're looking forward to seeing what she comes up with. We get to design the kids' bathrooms ourselves, so I've been playing with cabinet designs and thinking a lot about tile. It's pretty fun, but it's nice to only have to do 2 bathrooms instead of all of the bathrooms. 
• Homecoming Ask and Answer — We were hanging out at home one evening a couple weeks ago when there was a loud knock on the door. When we answered we found a large branch from a tree and a poster asking "Will you STICK by my side at Homecoming?" It was from a friend of Adria's (Alex Cheney). So Adria, Rella, and I headed to WalMart for poster board and tissue paper to make a cute answer. We put the poster together in the car and then took it right to his house. Adria's excited to be in the same Homecoming group as her friend Lilly. We found her a dress and Rella is experimenting with hairstyles on Adria for the big day. Homecoming is on Sept 25.
• Rella's first impressions of high school —Rella has decided that high school is much more fun than junior high. She has lots of friends (old and new) and there are more opportunities to socialize. One of her friends is even more social than Rella (if you can imagine) and just includes everyone around her in whatever is going on. That means that Rella has been pulled along to some fun events...a football game, the back to school stomp, movie nights, and the sophomore picnic. 
• California Reunion — after being back in Utah for over 2 years, we finally organized a reunion picnic for the people who have moved from the Redwood City Ward to Utah. It was crazy to see how many of us there were. Some had moved well before the pandemic, but others moved during the pandemic since they could work remotely and needed more space to accommodate their families during remote school. It was fun to catch. up with so many of our friends! We've also been so excited to have one of our favorite families from CA (the Clarks) move to a nice house in Alpine. We've checked the drive from their new house to our new house and it is about 8 minutes. That will be the closest we've ever lived to each other! 
• Calder and the life of the youngest child —Calder gets dragged around a lot of places. He goes to soccer games, drops Rella off at dance with me, and sometimes even gets to go places that he wants to go to. He is taking a parkour class at a local gymnastics center and his activity days group is starting up again, which he is excited about. At school he likes his teacher and classmates, but is still getting used to the idea that he has to do the stuff that he doesn't want to do. Writing is his least favorite subject, but he is working on it and getting better all the time.
• Shane and Rella's New Toy — we heard a rumor that one of our neighbors was looking for a buyer for their upright bass, so we jumped on it. Shane and Rella went to check it out and then brought it home. They both love plucking away at it and have already figured out a few of their favorite songs.
• Rella’s learner permit — Rella decided the best way to spend her birthday afternoon was to go get her learner permit. We had an appointment at 4. When we made it through all the paperwork, the lady informed us that there was probably only enough time for Rella to take the test once, so she would probably need to come back the next day for her additional two tries. Good thing Rella had been studying…she passed on the first try!
• Adria’s AP Adventure — Adria started the year with 4 AP classes, but is now down to 3. AP US History and AP Calculus do not play well together, so she decided to drop AP US History so she could get some sleep at night. She is also taking AP French and AP English Language. 
• Released — I was released from my calling in the YW program (I was the advisor for Adria’s class) but haven’t gotten a new calling yet. I did put in a request to be the ward chorister (ours just moved), but we will see what happens.

We’re attaching some pics below for your viewing pleasure. Have a good week!

The Lindon Westra Fam