Cornbelly's and Carving Pumpkins

We went with Micah, Rachel, and Kaylyn to Cornbelly's this year. Eric and I had never been there but I had heard good reviews. It is like Disneyland, but cheaper, and probably colder. Definitely wonderland for mom's of energy filled kids - that is, if you can keep up with them running from one fun thing to the next. Reese was in heaven with jump houses, slides, wooden trains/tractors,etc that you could climb in and on, electronic animals performing songs (while Reese watched super intently - maybe she thought they were real? - and clapped her hands and kicked her legs excitedly, LOVE this age!), and all the room in the world to run free.

 Princess land was a HIT. I was honestly shocked at how Reese reacted. She ran into the dress up room and picked out a pink princess dress, smiled from ear to ear while looking in a mirror the entire time I was getting her dressed in it, and then ran onto the stage and danced to the princess music....like not for just a minute either. She was SO into it. I thought she'd be bashful since it was only her on stage with us adults just watching her. But no, she was beaming and danced her little heart out. I wish I had had my video camera with me.

 Last week we had the Christensens and David and Nicole up for pumpkin soup and pumpkin carving. Kaylyn is such a good baby - she just chilled and didn't mind Reese's constant doting.

 The sawzall was the best idea of the night. Made short work of cutting the tops off of the pumpkins!

 Wal-mart didn't disappoint once again. ANY pumpkin for $1.80?? Yes please!

 4 of the 6 finished pumpkins. Eric's is the 2nd one from the left - the Grim Reaper. Mine is the one on the right - hello kitty.

September - 1st week in October

Eric went glassing with Taylor prior to the elk hunt. I hear it was bitter cold - sounds like fun ;)

 My sister Aubrey had her 3rd baby. A baby boy named Micah. Reese loves him! It is funny how much she loves babies. She is definitely a born nurturer.

 Speaking of....whenever Ivan is crying hard (due to a reason other than something inflicted purposefully by Reese) Reese wants to hold and comfort him. It is so cute. This picture is of when they were playing next to each other and I hear "Yook mom, I hold Ivan" Sure enough, she had gotten him in front of her and layed him down on her lap.

 Talented Eric made an art easel for Reese. I love when he makes things because we get to design it how we want it. I still haven't put the roll of paper on it, simply because I keep forgetting to order it, but Reese is enjoying drawing, coloring, and painting on it (and me too, since she usually invites me to join her)!

Overhaul

Usually I don't blog unless I have pictures to show but by the time I upload pictures I've forgotten details that I would've liked to remember. So....I'm going to start blogging even if I don't have the pictures ready and then upload the pictures later. Annoying? Maybe. But I have a bad memory so I'm going to do it anyway.

The last 3 days + 1 day last week were spent up at our house in Heber. Our tenants decided that they were going to move out, even though their contract goes til next July. As you may imagine, we were worried. Worried about finding new renters, especially finding them with such short notice, etc. Then to throw a wrench in it all, our current renters decided that not only were they going to move out prior to their contract ending, they would also leave the place a disaster, not refill the propane, or replace all the wood pellets that they went through. Let me tell you....AWESOME! Thank goodness for my goal of trying to be Christlike, or else they would've gotten 2 ear fulls from me.

The 2 dog contract turned into 3 (maybe 4) dogs, so the place was nasty. With all the fires that apparently took place on the stove top, in the oven, and in the microwave, I'm just thankful the place was still standing. We scrubbed the place from top to bottom - walls, floors, cupboards, furniture, appliances, etc., re-painted the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, put in new kitchen countertops, fixed dog scratches all over the doors and walls, and did the normal maintenence stuff like re-varnishing furniture, walls, decks, and patios, cleaning windows, etc.

The kids were so good, considering the lack of attention they were getting while mom and dad worked. Reese calls the place her "baby house" since it was the house she lived in as a baby. She was so excited to be up there, play with the neighbor girls, and run free through the yard. We were so grateful for all the help too. My dad and mom came up one evening to play with the kids, dad and Camla came up to help install the countertops and play with kids, and then Camla stayed over with us one night and helped with kids and cleaned a ton. Thanks to them it only took us 4 full days, rather than the 5 or 6 it may have. I wish that others could appreciate the place as much as we do since we put in all the hard working hours to make it nice again. Hopefully future renters will at least appreciate it's niceness and cleanliness.

There are a few more things to do. Carpets need to be professionally cleaned, hot tub needs to be drained and wiped out, and we will need to move some of the furniture out. We have been so blessed in this whole stressful process. Eric and I had a great time working HARD side by side, day after day - it really was rewarding to work non-stop and then at night lay down with completely exhausted bodies thinking about all you got done that day. We got multiple calls to see the place the day we put the ad on KSL and found what seem to be some great renters that will be moving in 1/2 way through November.

Evening

Reese is in love with 'baby bottle pop' candy, and it never fails to make her mouth a lovely shade of blue (or red, but usually blue since that is the one she picks out most often since it seems to be her favorite color).

 Now that the weather is cooling down we can go on more evening bike rides. It was just too flippin' hot too late into the evening during the summer months. Eric caught this cool picture from the overpass we drive over on the way to "Sugar Park" (as Reese calls it).

Life is full of uncertainty but God is constant. I'm glad we have him to hold onto and look to. This rings in my mind almost constantly these days :)

Caineville

Our friends, the Kennedys, invited us to their annual friend dirt bike get together in Caineville, UT. Holy! I haven't ever seen such dirt bike enthusiasts. I love dirt biking, but I didn't realize there were other people, like Eric, who LOVE love it and could and would dirt bike all day every day if possible. Eric was in heaven!

We only went for Friday and Saturday, but it was still awesome and we got a lot of riding in. We camped at the "meet up" spot and enjoyed an incredible wind storm during the night. BLAH! I hate wind storms while camping - they seriously freak me out!

 Sadly I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of Eric since I was with the kids when he was riding, or riding along with him once while our friends watched the kids.

The riding is like riding the sand dunes but the ground is hard. Meaning that you can ride up and down most anything, not only on set single track trails. There are tons of places to ride and unlike the sand dunes, can be ridden by all skill levels and all types of bikes. Pretty much the perfect place to take anyone.

 I rode Daniel's bike, since it is faster and more powerful than the bike I normally ride. Daniel, if you read this, your bike worked great, nothing is broken, and don't worry, Eric will insist on taking you dirt biking here the second, ok maybe hour, you get home :)

Eric made us dutch oven biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Stupid me moved the dutch oven at some point in the afternoon and didn't cover all the briquettes with dirt. Reese stepped on them with her bare foot and burned the arch of her left foot (and her pinky finger a bit when she confusedly tried to semi-crawl away) and was out of commission the rest of the day. Standing in the cooler, sitting on chairs with a can of cold soda on her foot, etc. Then, unfortunately, a guy - not with us - cased a double bad! The ambulance came because the guy had a big gash in his head and broke his collar bone, but then he ended up being air lifted out of there. Hillary Kennedy asked the EMTs for burn cream for Reese and brought it back. That made her feel lots better and she was active the last 15 minutes before we had to leave. Poor girl!

Near sighted

Right now I'm looking down from my computer chair at Reese, wearing her backwards foam filled fluorescent pink and purple swimsuit, sitting right next to Ivan on the floor pretend eating his hands while he laughs hysterically at her with his little squinty eyes and w-i-d-e toothy smile. I must always remember to love the here and now, and not be wishing for the next great thing, because really - right now is amazing!

I've felt so inspired by Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk from this last weekend's General Relief Society Conference. I'm sure you've seen lots of links to this talk. Why? Because it is THAT good! Listen to it and life will become much more beautiful!

Donut Falls

We hiked to Donut Falls a while back while the river was still so high that you couldn't get to the regular base of the falls and there was so much water volume that you couldn't tell there was a "donut" in the rock formation of the falls.

So we went back last month once the water had eased and it looked like a totally different place. It was a beautiful cooler day, perfect for a hike!

 Eric is the only one who ventured to the top, which ended up being a great idea since you have to free climb some areas, and that just doesn't work when you're holding kids :) Plus, Reese enjoyed sitting at the bottom of the falls throwing rock after rock into the river.

 The "donut".

We found a little bird by the side of the trail on the way back down. We stopped for a while to observe it.

And the moose that ran in front of us as we were driving from the trailhead to the main road. All that searching in Yellowstone for Moose paid off when we spotted one in our backyard mountains. Ha ha, that scenario seems to play out all too frequently:)

Dew Tour

The night before the Dew Tour, we went to The Gateway to check out a couple stores. We noticed something going on at the Energy Solutions Arena, it was a pre-show for the Dew Tour. By the time we did our Gateway excursion and headed to the arena, the show was over. But.....they did still have free Mountain Dews and tickets to the Dew Tour for the next day.

Eric has 2 favorite sodas, at least that we stock up on regularly. Orange and Mountain Dew. So, of course Eric and I each grabbed a can, and of course Reese had to have a swig (or fifteen) of Eric's in front of the Dew Tour sign...since she doesn't get soda very frequently, but LOVES it!

We got 5 tickets so we invited who else but the two we know are up for most things, even last minute or semi-unorganized things....Micah and Rachel. Rachel was such a good sport walking around so much in the heat with her overdue baby in her belly, which she had 2 days ago! We LOVE that baby!!!!!! I'm afraid I might become annoying with how much I want to see and hold that sweet little thing!

Reese got her first temporary tattoo, ha ha. I don't know that I'm a fan of those these days. I used to buy bazooka bubblegum ALL the time at Day's market, when I was young, so I could get the temporary tattoos inside and put them all over myself. These days permanent tattoos are so "in". We believe that our bodies are special gifts to us from our father in heaven and the leaders of my church have discouraged us from tattooing them. So... I don't want Reese thinking it is ok to ink her body all up. So....this may not only be her first but her last temporary tattoo - we'll see, call me a prude if you must.

 Ivan doing his tricks!

I'm goin' to Jackson...

Eric's mom was in Utah for a couple weeks. At the conclusion of her stay we all (Eric, me, Ivan, Reese, David, Nicole, Amber, Eric's mom) met up with Jackson (Eric's dad) in Jackson, WY - yep this post might get confusing with all the "Jackson"s in it. Jackson and Jill's purpose in going was to see the Bar J Wranglers concert. Eric and I decided that the kids might get a little crazy at a long concert, where you are seated the entire time, so we explored Jackson and enjoyed a free concert in the park (I know - typical us and our free entertainment - I LOVE it!!)

This bear was gigantic! I can't even imagine coming face to face with one of these beasts. I could curl up in a ball and fit inside it's head.

 There were lots of cool little shops and allies.

Johnny Cash and June Carter's "Jackson" was in my head the entire time we were on vacation. No worries though, I love that song, and still love that song - not really the story line of the song, but the tune and the voices of both Johnny Cash and June Carter reeling through my mind.

The next morning we headed to Yellowstone. I have always wanted to go to Yellowstone, and this was my first time. Eric guided in Yellowstone for one summer so he was excited to be with me for my first trip there. It did NOT disappoint. I didn't even know how cool it would be. What with all the colorful hot pots, gorgeous forests, fantastic mountain scenes, and Old Faithful. How did I not at least know of all the things Yellowstone was going to offer me?? We definitely need to take another trip there but devote a week or more so we can do some of the hikes.

Oh the Tetons! Fondly reminded me of our week long adventurous journey along the Teton Crest Trail with little Reese in a backpack. While reminiscing, I frequently thought how glad I am that she didn't weigh as much as Ivan did at the same age. Ivan swam with sharks at 6 months, Reese hiked the Teton Crest Trail at 6 months - no big deal :) We have a lot to live up to with any additional kids.

 Some of these pots were boiling! What in the world!! One had even cooked up a nice little mouse - yum.

 Old Faithful. I know I've heard stuff about it, but to be honest, my memory isn't the greatest, because I couldn't remember what exactly it was. I was AMAZED that the geyser, and the predictable nature of it, is all natural. SO neat!

While waiting for Old Faithful, we walked around and hung out in the lodge. It is so intricate - Swiss Family Robinson on major steroids.

There she blows!!

Reese was without a nap and NOT wanting to stand at the edge of the walkway to get her picture taken. You'll thank us one day Reese ;)

The Grand Prismatic Spring - again, super neat, mineral colored, hot pots, though so totally different than the ones we saw earlier.

If real estate wasn't so darn expensive, I think I'd be pushing to move to Jackson - or to Yellowstone - if that was a possibility.

East Canyon

We like to drive. Or rather I like to sit in the seat next to Eric while he drives, and he rather enjoys driving. So, when we have nothing else to do in the evenings we drive. A couple weeks ago we drove up East Canyon. Have you seen the town of Coalville? It is darling! As is Porterville, where we found this gem of an old building - a church, built in 1898.

 East Canyon Reservoir. We didn't get in the evening we drove up, I regret it. Eric, however, drove up here on his motorcycle a couple days later while me and the kids were at Amy's bridal shower. He went for a swim and reported back that the water is rather nice.

 Reese is SO into being a big girl and doesn't want help with anything. She was stressing me out the whole time climbing on the rocks, but kept reassuring me, "mom, I be careful, mom, I be careful".

We sure do live in a beautiful state!