The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

No, it's not Christmas yet but fall is just as wonderful! I love the colors and the cooler temperatures! I've been dying to get up to Snowbasin for a trail run but with a new baby I'm lucky if I find 30 minutes to slip out the door for a run around the neighborhood. We did enjoy a Sunday afternoon drive and walk at the Green Pond trail yesterday. The red maple leaves are gorgeous right now!

Kaitlyn loved collecting leaves. Andrew and Jared thought it was great fun to run ahead on the trail and hide from us in the trees. Their bright orange shirts were actually pretty good camouflage with the leaves right now.

How exciting Wyoming...Isn't

We decided to end summer with a big bang and go somewhere exciting for Labor Day.  We spent all summer close to home since we had Skyler.  Jason's dad lives in Kemmerer, Wyoming and for a long time Jason has said we should drive up there and take the kids to Fossil Butte National Monument.  So Labor Day was the day

Before I go any farther, I better explain my title in case I've already offended any of my readers who might be from the great state of Wyoming.  Wyoming has some absolutely breathtakingly beautiful parts.  Jason has been dreaming of a back packing trip to the Wind Rivers for years and Yellowstone is one of my favorite places.  However, I have driven on I-80 across Wyoming too many times and it is just not a place I would choose to spend much time.  Having gotten that out of the way we did have high hopes of digging up some exciting fossils or something even though I knew we weren't headed to the beautiful mountains.

We stopped in Kemmerer to pick up Jason's dad.  It's one of those blink and you'll miss it towns.  The highlight to Kemmerer is the first JC Penney store.  I'm not sure how it got started way out there but it did.  We didn't stop to tour the building though.  We'll have to save that for our next trip.  It's dreadfully cold and snowy in the winter although summer is probably quite pleasant.  Then we headed over to the National Monument that is only a few minutes away.  The visitor's center was nice and had a lot of interesting fossils to look at.  The kids had fun doing their junior ranger books and earning their badges.  We were hoping to hike to the fossil quarry where you could actually watch them dig out fossils but that was closed.  So the fun was limited to what was at the visitors center.

After a picnic lunch that involved a lot of teasing Jared about spiders, we headed to Fort Bridger.  When we got there it was swarming with people and no where to park.  I really don't think that many people even live in southwestern Wyoming.  We finally found a place to park and walked over to the fort only to find everyone cleaning up from a weekend mountain man rendezvous that had been going on.  There were hundreds of vendors there which meant the kids were constantly asking me to buy them something.  Unfortunately we got there too late to see any of the presentations that had been going on over the weekend or it probably would have been quite interesting.  Instead there were people backing up vehicles and trailers everywhere and taking down tents and I was clinging to the kids hoping they wouldn't get run over.  The fort itself looked pretty cool but we just got there at a terrible time to see it.

So even though we enjoyed spending the day with Jason's dad, next time I'm looking for an exciting day trip I'll probably head somewhere other than Wyoming...

Giggles, Cross Country and Life

Aren't baby giggles just the cutest thing in the world?  I hope this puts a smile on your face!  It sure does for me but of course my opinion doesn't count since I'm his mom.

This little guy is growing up way too fast!  The fantastic news is that he mostly sleeps through the night.  His pacifier has turned into my snooze button so when he starts to stir at around 5 am I give it to him and usually get another hour of sleep.  It is amazing how much more productive I am with a full night's sleep!

Skyler at 3 months

Andrew has been super busy since he started Jr. High.  It was quite the adjustment at first to have him gone for nine hours every day.  He's on the cross country team at Mt. Ogden and had his first meet a couple weeks ago.  It seems so crazy to me that he's old enough to be on a school team now.  When I drove up to the park and saw all the cones set up for the course it gave me the same butterflies in my stomach I used to get when I was in high school going to cross country meets.

The course was almost two miles.  Andrew ran a terrific race on a hot afternoon and looked great!  He placed 6th.  Mt. Ogden has a terrific boys team this year and placed seven runners in the top ten!

Andrew received his Life rank advancement in scouts this month.  This is a great accomplishment to be so far in scouting before he even turns 13.  I used to think boys who got their Eagle really quickly were pushed too much by their parents but he deserves all the credit.  He's worked really hard in scouting and has such a great attitude about it.  He was awarded 11 merit badges at this court of honor and is only one merit badge and his project away from his Eagle!

Summer's Over

Summer flew by so fast and now it is starting to feel like fall.  Here are a few pictures I never got around to blogging from the summer and some even from the spring.

My brother, Spencer, came to visit during his vacation from work this summer.  He loves baseball so we braved our first baseball game with Skyler and went to the Ogden Raptors game.  The game got a  little long when the Raptors were getting blown out but we made it all the way to the 8th inning before the kids were exhausted and needed to go home.

Skyler's first baseball game!  Many more to come in the years ahead!!

My sister, Rebecca, and her daughter, Laura came for a few days from Ohio.  These two cousins are so cute together!  I wish they could see each other more often.  They had a great time playing together.  Laura is nine months older than Kaitlyn but they are the same height.  Here they are chilling at the pool.  For some reason it's the only picture I got of them together.

Jason's Aunt Jane passed away in August.  Here's a picture of Jason's mom and her siblings that are still living.

Nancy, Martha, John, Liz and Pat

They are so much fun together!  Even though it was for a funeral I always love to see them.  Jason had a great time seeing cousins he hadn't seen in years.  I hate that funerals always end up being the time to see everyone you never get to see.  I guess someone needs to plan a family reunion...

These are pictures from a trip we took to Moab in the spring with our friends the Howards and the Larsens. We had a great time even though the weather didn't cooperate.  I did as much hiking as possible when I was 8 months pregnant and I watched the little kids while the older kids and adults went mountain biking.  It was a fun weekend but I can't wait to get back there when I'm not huge and pregnant and can do what I want! (I must have been forgetful at that point in pregnancy too since I kept leaving the camera in the car.  That's why there are so few picture!)

Ibantik Backpacking Trip

The kids were a little frustrated this summer that we weren't going on vacation with a new baby.  Jason had promised that he would take Jared on his first backpacking trip.  He was so excited!  He couldn't wait for it all summer.  The night before they left and the pack was all loaded I started to worry.  The pack looked so big on him!  All he was carrying was his sleeping bag, a change of clothes and his water but I really didn't know how he'd handle hiking with all of that on his back.  I also started to stress out when shortly after they left thunderstorms started rolling in.  I was sure my poor little boy was soaked and miserable and would never want to go backpacking again!  I was wrong though and he came back all smiles!  He couldn't stop talking about the trip for days and can't wait until next year!

Here are some pictures from their trip.  They hiked about two miles in from the Crystal Lake trail head to Lake Ibantik in the Uinta mountains.  It was a beautiful area and they caught lots of fun and just had fun exploring the mountains.  They were joined by two of their uncles, Vance and Sam.

Andrew and Jared couldn't stop talking about the mountain goats they saw.

School, Football, and a New Temple!

These next posts might seem a little random and out of order.  I'm just trying to get caught up on several events from the past few months.  A couple weeks ago we went to Brigham City to see the new temple for our church.  It was a beautiful building and so fun to take the kids to see the inside of it!  Temples are so important in our religion because we believe that the temple allows us to be with our families forever.  We also loved having our good friends that live across the street come with us.

I've avoided posting anything about this until now but the other day when all of the nieces and nephews were signing Jason's cast I asked permission to take pictures.  Without getting into too many details, the fancy mountain bike we gave Jason for Father's Day ended up being a little more dangerous than we anticipated!  Hopefully the cast will be off soon!

Here's a cute picture of Jared and Skyler.  I think they look a lot alike in this picture.

This little boy is loved so much! (Too much sometimes!)

Here are some pictures from Jared's first football games.  Their new Wildcat uniforms weren't in yet so they wore the old Ogden jerseys.  We couldn't resist taking some pictures by the big O.  Jared was made for football and loves blocking and tackling!  Notice in the picture he's the second one from the left on the line and doesn't seem a bit intimidated by the boy who is quite a bit bigger than him!

Here are the first day of school pictures this year.

Andrew 7th grade

Kaitlyn 1st grade

Jared 4th grade

Getting to work already!

Andrew is in 7th grade now and loving Jr. High.  I was pretty nervous for him to go but he wasn't nervous at all!  He didn't have any trouble finding his way around and thinks it is so much better than elementary school. His days are really long since he leaves over an hour earlier than the younger kids and stays for cross country practice after school.  Kaitlyn is in her first year of all day school.  It seems strange to have the house so quiet for so long.  She's done really well although she's awfully tired and hungry by the end of the day!

Boys love to get dirty

Here are some before and after pictures from Jared's football game in the rain. This boy sure loves to play rough and get dirty!