Changing Seasons

We have been up to many adventures. I'm going to start with a visit from Jason and his children. His wife went on a little trip, and they must have got bored and ended up at my house. We walked in (after being gone for the morning) to find a naked baby and poo all over the place. Since there was just a dad in charge, of course there were no extra clothes, so she got to wear her cozy jacket the rest of the day. I was under the impression Jason was coming over to babysit for ME, but somehow we all ended up going on a hike together. It was a lovely day for a hike, until it started raining on us. We headed back once the rain came, but we still got fairly wet.


Once we got home and had some chili for dinner the kids started begging for a sleep over. The last time Eli was here they did the same thing, but this time there was a care-free dad in charge. He was just like, "Ok!" So, Eli spent the night. He got to wear Sophie's clothes (since he hadn't brought anything to this spontaneous slumber party). He was pretty excited about that.


The next week we finally had some leaves fall off a tree. Chloe has sat and envied the neighbors with all the leaves in their yard. Yes, there have even been tears shed over it. Well, our yard finally got some and Brandon was ordered NOT to mow them. For FHE our activity was raking up what minute amount we had and burying Chloe in them. She was one happy little girl.



We squeezed in some fall traditions of carving pumpkins and making a gingerbread house. We even roasted the pumpkin seeds this year. They turned out much better than the last time I tried -- and after the girls got over their fear of them, they agreed they were pretty tasty!



I didn't have a chance to take pictures of the girls in their costumes on Halloween, but luckily they tried them on at least once a week in the months preceding so I have one to post. Chloe picked out her costume in May. She knew exactly what she wanted, and even had a coupon to the store she wanted. We weren't going to go trick-or-treating this year, but then Sophie's orthodontist mentioned how they buy Halloween candy from the kids (which got the girls all excited), and I decided that wouldn't be such a bad idea. Still let them participate in the act, get some cash out of it, and not have to ingest all that junk food. It was a win-win situation.


As promised, I took Chloe out for another photo shoot. She needed some pictures with leaves! I don't think my photography skills quite match up with her artistic vision, but I know she had a good time just being out in nature and enjoying the colors. There was one point where we were just hiking along and we came to this clearing of tons of leaves on the ground. I wish I could have captured the gasp Chloe let out. It was a pretty site. The girls just sat and threw leaves up in the air, trying to catch as many as they could in their hair.




Fall quickly turned to winter. We got a little bit of snow yesterday, but we actually got some to accumulate today. Sophie was worried that it would melt by the time they got out to play in it, so I let them have an early recess this morning. And I'm so glad I did, the snow was all gone by lunch time. But we had two nice looking snowmen to show for it.

Black Island Farms

Our field trip for October was going to Black Island Farms. We went there three years ago, but haven't been back for a while. Not much had changed. It was still fun. I think it made the girls even more excited to get our farm. I kept showing them all the great things we can do. I don't know if we want to turn ours into an "agri-tourism" business like Black Island has, but it's an option! Of course, we enjoyed a tractor ride out to the field to choose a pumpkin; then there was feeding the donkeys, lamas, and goats; sliding down the haystack slides a bazillion times; riding the cow train, which had a short technical difficulty, but they got it running again; playing in the corn box; swinging, etc. For once, the girls were actually excited to hang out with our group. They're usually begging to go off by ourselves, but this time they were anxious to keep up with our teacher and did NOT want to be left alone. Sorry for all my collages lately, but I just have too many pictures I want to include and I find this the least overbearing way of displaying them.



And while I have your attention, I'm going to make another plug. If you count going to the adult session of stake conference (which I don't, but the girls do), then Brandon and I have had two dates in the last week. Whoa! Last night we got to go to a screening of "Waiting for Superman." It's a documentary about the mess our educational system is in. I'm finding these documentaries quite enjoyable, and have realized that I don't like being ignorant. I used to. It was quite comfortable, but lately I feel that there is too much for me to do to sit around and live my life just like everyone else.

Here's one more quick story before I sign off: The girls were sitting in the living room today doing their work while I was in the basement for a minute, when I heard screams and running. I knew that could only mean one thing -- a spider. They came running to tell me how huge this spider was. Then Sophie got up the courage for just a second to run back upstairs and when she came back she said, "I got some stuff to survive with -- Math, to make ourselves intelligent." Moral of the story: when creating your emergency preparedness plan don't forget the intelligence. I guess a math book won't hurt.

Birthday, Ghosts & Corn

First of all, I need to thank everyone who made my birthday a special day. It was pretty quiet, being a Sunday and all but we had home teachers and visiting teachers come. The home teachers were just making their monthly rounds, the visiting teachers actually knew it was my birthday and stopped by to see me. They had actually brought me something a month ago, thinking my birthday was Sep. 10th but that's ok. Two presents never hurt! Jason and Eli also surprised us with a visit. He seems to always know when we're about to serve cheesecake. This was not the first time he showed up unannounced just as it was about to come out of the fridge. So, thanks to all for the phone calls, cards, and gifts! Now I need to go find some time to do some reading.


I also had my book club this week, but let me back up a couple days. Every year about this time a little "ghost" comes creeping through the neighborhood delivering goodies to our porch. We are then asked to do the same to 3 other homes. So, I decided to whip up a batch of cookies that we could use to deliver to 3 houses and I could also take some to my book club. Then I put the girls in charge of getting them delivered while I was gone. After I got home Brandon showed me the pictures on the camera he had taken of them. Apparently they thought they needed to camouflage themselves to deliver the goodies. I don't know why Sophie looks like she's about to attack, though.


Our latest conquest in becoming self-sufficient was to make cornmeal. The corn we grew in our garden this year didn't turn out too great. So, we just let it get old, dried the kernels, and then milled them. We got to enjoy some cornbread for dinner the other night. Have you heard of "farm to table" dinners that are catching on these days? Well, this is our "garden to table" dinner.

Lastly, we received some good news today. Sophie's expander is working! So she doesn't have to turn it anymore -- except one turn per week to keep it from collapsing. She was pretty excited when she got the news. We don't have to go back for a whole month!

Conference Weekend

A few days ago Chloe emailed me asking if I would do a photo shoot of her and Sophie with their friends. I thought that was such a cute idea, and rather sad I didn't come up with it myself. So, after getting the go-ahead from their friend's mother we scheduled to go do it during the Priesthood session of conference. Chloe picked this fun park, appropriately named Nicholls Park, in Fruit Heights. It's always so crowded there, but we worked around it. I decided to haul my video camera along as well and see if I could make a movie out of it. You'll get to see the video I put together, but I just have to say that it's much easier having someone else run the video camera while I take pictures. Too bad my videographer was in the pictures.

Then right after we got back from the photo shoot the girls had a campout with Brandon in the backyard. They had the tent all set up and ready to go. They started a fire and I joined them for a bit, while they roasted marshmallows. Marshmallows are on my list of non-food items, but somehow Brandon got talked into buying some for them. This morning we ate breakfast outside, which Brandon cooked on his camping stove, and Chloe asked me to take some photos for her to scrapbook. I'm borrowing them for my "scrapbook."




We spent the day watching the rest of conference, and now it is time to get out of the house! I'm going for a walk....

Quick Update

We've been doing a lot lately. Not too much to go crazy, but enough so I haven't had a chance to update the blog for a while. Here's a quick run down of our recent happenings:

Orthodontist
We've had a few appointments at an orthodontist. Sophie has to have her mouth widened. She's been in a bit of pain. Makes me sad for her. But it was a good excuse to go for a Smoochies run -- she just couldn't eat anything for dinner, so I treated her to a smoothie.

Solar Tour
We spent our Saturday at this amazing tour of homes built with all kinds of energy efficient models. We just picked the passive solar homes because there were way too many to see in one afternoon. I don't know about Brandon, but it was really good for me to see what we can do. This is another one of those dreams-in-progress for us.

Bowling
Chloe wanted to go bowling for FHE. Brandon decided his back was well enough he might be able to handle it. He did fine. My bowling skills did not. Apparently it's been too long. Yes, the girls got to use bumpers but it was still sad that I came in dead last. It was still pretty fun.

Invictus
My brother (Jason) handed me this movie and told us to watch it. I was obedient. It was a pretty good story. But I felt inspired to have the girls and I memorize the poem. Chloe had it done in two days. She was kind enough to let me record her (while we were babysitting Eli and Elsie -- another of our great adventures).

Hike
Another field trip. We have two a month, which is quite a bit when you're used to two a year. This time we went on a hike. I was excited to see some new places around here. It was a pretty hot day, though. I need to go exploring some more when it cools off just a bit. This is the best shot I got (I only took two pictures the whole hike).

Logan
Yesterday we got to go to a surprise birthday party for Ross. When we got there it was dark and nobody else was there. We were a little worried. But it turned out ok. More people showed up. We wished Ross a happy birthday and headed home. We also got took a detour on the way up so we could drive by Clarkston. Just wanted to check that part of the country out, and we saw Martin Harris's tombstone but that picture is on my phone at the moment.

Photo Shoot
Chloe begged for a photo shoot. She really wants one with all the fall colors, but we're just not quite there yet. We'll have to do another one soon.

Civil War Field Trip

On Friday we got to go on a field trip. We went to Heber for a Civil War day. They had several different stations that taught about different aspects of the war. We learned some artillery marches, what the soldiers wore, what the civilians wore, some music, the medicines used to treat soldiers, and some other stuff. They shot a cannon off, which the kids all seemed to enjoy. It was a beautiful drive over. The leaves are changing colors, which Chloe especially liked. She had taken this set of books I bought years ago and was sharing everything she read as we drove. She's somewhat of a science buff -- which is not my area of expertise. But my favorite part of the day was after she had shared something she learned she then said, "But I need to get back to reading. There's so much to learn!" Thank you, Chloe, for that glimpse.

We Are Going to Zion

Actually we went to Zion's -- for Labor Day weekend. The real occasion was for Shane's 40th birthday. We tried to have a surprise party for him, and it was just nice enough that his birthday fell on a holiday weekend. Now I say tried because I don't think it was much of a surprise by the time he got there.

We had left a day early so we could do some gallivanting. We stopped in Manti to take a break and hung out at the temple, and then got a hotel in Richfield for the night, where we got no sleep thanks to another guest who left their car lights on all night and never bothered to stop their alarm from going off. Needless to say, I got a very good nights sleep the next night as I was pretty exhausted. Just before getting to Zion's we stopped in Orderville to have lunch at a park. To make a long story short, we are now really good friends with the Valley High School class of 1950. We got to set up for their reunion, meet some classmates, hear all about them and the town. In addition to that, this was the town Deputy Brian Harris was from, who had just been shot by an escaped convict from Arizona the week before, so we got to hear about all that had been done for him and the funeral.

We got to Zion's on Saturday afternoon and got to hang out with Jason & Shalee while we waited for the rest of the crew. My mom had rented a "mountain home" for all of us to stay in. Luckily, we were able to get in a little early so we had a place to hang out while we waited. Yeah, they got lost/went the wrong way -- ran into Shane on the way, drug him the wrong way with them -- all through the one-lane construction which moved very slow. They finally showed up and Rick & Amy treated us to dinner. Rick is Shane's friend from way back when who came along for the party. After dinner we took the girls to swim in the dark. I got terrible pictures of that, but like I said, it was dark.

Sunday Jason & Shalee treated us to breakfast, and then we drove back to Orderville to go to church. You can imagine how excited we were when we ran into our old friends from the class of 1950. After church we finally got to go explore Zion's. Chloe didn't want to go hiking (she's a swimmer), so Amy was kind enough to let Chloe stay and swim with them. Chloe had a lot of fun with Britney, and Rick wasn't up to hiking after his run-in with a chain saw. Sophie tagged along with Brandon and I, and she was a great hiker! We did the Emerald Pools loop. It was pretty hot at first, but after we got back into the canyon it was really nice and a great little hike. After dinner that night we had the birthday celebration. Lark planned a game for us, and I was in charge of creating a slideshow.

Monday Brandon and I got to make breakfast. We tried to be on top of things knowing we had to check out that morning, but things got sped along when we realized the sewer system was backed up. Not a pretty sight, but it was a good motivator to get everyone packed up and out of there! Not to mention, it was good for me to see that my house is not the only one that has issues -- even brand new, expensive homes fall apart. So, after loading up we went over and watch all those interested do the zip line. I thought Chloe might do it for a minute, but then she decided not. We made it home Monday night, and motivated the kids to get everything put away with the promise of going out for a FHE treat. That was a good end to our vacation.