Happy Fall!

And here’s the new! We have had a fun October! We started with our once-a-year leaf raking for the kids to jump in. Always a good time. Crazy how much Samantha has grown!

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We went to pick apples at the local orchard. These kids are getting fast! We had 1 1/2 bushels picked in no time. Now if only I could get them to can them as fast as they pick them…Dang I love this little boy. Well hello, little devil girl. Carter took this one, I have to say he did a pretty good job. And what better to do with apples than cover them in caramel? Needless to say, this was by far the favorite part of the day. So cute with his glasses. And to finish off the festivities, we decorated Halloween cookies and carved pumpkins tonight. Ben’s favorite was the cookies. Happy Halloween!

Something old, something new…

Still recapping this last summer… 

Our big vacation this year was to Yellowstone.  We started out by driving out to Billings, MT to see some of our favorite people – our Montana cousins (I believe I mentioned our mad naming skills previously).    We went out on to the rims and did a little hiking.  It was a fabulous view and we didn’t get bitten by any rattle snakes, so that was a plus.  The kids loved hanging out with their cousins.  I mean really loved hanging out with their cousins.  Mike and I enjoyed not having to do any parenting all week because the cousins were keeping them so busy. 

 

And then on to Yellowstone!  Speaking of views, that place is a.maz.ing.  I wish I could put a cabin there.  I could give up a lot of modern conveniences to wake up to this every morning.  As you might guess, we saw a lot of wild life – tons of buffalo, an elk, moose, osprey, bald eagles, and probably more that I don’t remember now.  The highlight was the wolf that passed right by us as we were on a bridge taking pictures.  Apparently they are very rare and this one was probably the alpha male of the pack, according to the nice park ranger.  It was pretty awesome.  My personal favorite were the bears.  Ok, this one too.  We actually saw two bears, on the last day we were there.  This was the closer one of the two.  A bunch of our Utah family met us up there too.  My parents – Grandma and Paca, as Ben now affectionately refers to him.  My cute sisters – Turtle, Sarah and Michelle.  It was so fun to spend time with them!  Our Montana cousins had their bikes with them and Aunt Holly tried to teach Carter how to ride without training wheels.  He rode for 30 seconds or in all his tasseled glory until he ate it, narrowly missing a tree.  Since then, he has refused to try again.  Carter learned the art of roasting marshmallows to blackened perfection.  And got in touch with his outdoorsy side.  Ben fell in love with his “Paca”.  This kid loves finding pictures of Paca around the house, calling him, and he’s super excited for him to come out for Thanksgiving.  Here’s the man himself…All in all, it was a great time!  We’ll definitely be back. 

June in October

That’s right.  I’m going down memory lane here.  It’s been a while, but I feel like I haven’t had a lot of free time lately.  I’m not going to lie, teaching seminary is a lot more time intensive than I thought it would be.  It’s so good for me, but it’s a lot of work to prepare a lesson every day.  With that and catching up on the last 6 seasons of Friday Night Lights, blogging has fallen to the bottom of the list.  But there are things that I want included in my blog book at the end of the year, so I’m going to recap. 

 

First, the start of the summer. Carter and Samantha had such great teachers.  It was hard to say goodbye.  I teared up a little when I said goodbye to Ms. Jones.  She was Carter’s teacher for 2 years, and then Samantha’s for k3.  After seeing her everyday for 3 years, I was sad to say goodbye.  I’m just hoping she’s still around when it’s Ben’s turn to go to school.  Carter’s teacher was so good for him.  He had a great kindergarten year and he still talks about her.  Mrs. Stuppan pushed him to work harder and be better, and he did so well in her class.  They had a little graduation program for the class at the end of the year.  I didn’t realize what a big deal it was (flowers, balloons, gifts, the whole 9 yards) and forgot my camera, so I ended up with nothing but a few iPhone pictures.  I’ll do better for the real thing.  Here he is with his best friend Isaiah and another girl I had never met before that day.  Look how proud they are of their “diplomas”.  So cute.  

Apparently not much else picture-worthy happened in June.  Stay tuned for July and our Yellowstone trip.  And I promise, there will be some more entertaining posts in the near future.