I love Fall. It's by far the BEST time of year. Cooler weather, college football, new school years, sweaters, dazzling colors on the trees and mountain side. There's just something about this time of year that really speaks to me. Love it! Here are some things that we've been up to in the last little while.
I like to paint. I know it's jumping the gun doing Christmas stuff, but I really like to paint and had a bored afternoon. Andrew's school had a "Fun Run" race. The younger grades just ran around the back field, while the older grades had a course marked out to run around town. Andrew did great and kept up with the pack in the lead. Enjoying the dessert instead of his meal at a restaurant.. Fun at Grandma's house in Idaho. Jumping with cousin Jocelyn on the trampoline. Half time at BYU's first home game. Honoring past QBs and Coach LaVell Edwards. The guys in blue way down there are Steve Young, Ty Detmer, Coach Edwards, Robbie Bosco, Jim McMahon, and some others. I don't remember all. Steve Sarkisian was also honored and was there, but coaching the opposite team currently in the locker room. Quite a neat event. More painting. Rolling down the hill in front of BYU's underground library. Hiking Bridal Veil Falls up Provo Canyon.
Before I went to bed last night I stuck my head in Nathan and David's room to check on them like I do every night. I saw this: My mind immediately jumped to all sorts of conclusions. Beds empty...door slightly ajar...must be kidnappers...or kids escaped to be out wandering the neighborhood at 11pm... But I found Nathan snuggled up in my bed across the hall. David took some searching, but I found him here: Silly boys. Stay in yer dang beds!
School is here! My boys were so excited to start the new school year. Can you just remember that excited, nervous, funny feeling you'd get before each new school year? I hope my boys will always be excited about school and love to start a new year. Andrew is in second grade and has a sweet teacher named Mrs. Winkel. And Nathan is starting Kindergarten with Mrs. Miner. Kindergarten started a week later than the older grades, so Andrew just finished his first week while Nathan left today for his first day. Nathan has always been a clingy Mama's boy and I was worried about him all day. But he came home so excited and bursting to tell me all, I quickly lost my worries for him. He's going to be fine. And Andrew has so wonderfully stepped into the role of protective older brother. He has explained all the ins and outs of the school and what certain procedures are. He loves having this moment of superiority to show off his knowledge and skills with his little brother. He's being super sweet about it, though. I love to see my kids chatter excitedly to each other and help each other out.
My afternoon was disrupted by a quick trip to the Instacare Saturday, when Nathan ran into the house bleeding like you wouldn't believe. He had fallen off his brother's back as they were trying to give each other piggy backs and hit his head on some stone steps we have in our back yard. I was amazed at how much a head wound can bleed. It was a steady stream of blood pouring from the relatively small gash. But we loaded up and rushed to the Instacare. The sweet doctor was very good with a hysterical little boy and got it cleaned and disinfected before she put the little staple gun to his head and got it in place. Both of my older boys have an absolute horror of blood which brings on massive panic attacks. Especially Nathan. So to see so much blood on his hands and clothes about sent him over the edge. We'll go back in a couple days to have a doctor remove the staple. I guess staples are easier than making them sit still longer for stitches. Looks sort of gruesome, though. I tried to hide it when we went off to church by combing his hair differently over it.
I can't believe school starts in less than two weeks. It's gone by fast. We got the boys all registered for school and they are excited about their teachers and upcoming year. I am also looking forward to the start of the school year. It's been a tough summer for Mom.... I took the boys up to Idaho this past week to attend a funeral of my aunt and to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa. We drove up the mountain to Lake Cleveland and spent a while throwing rocks in the lake and hiking around a bit. We brought a picnic and had a good time. Believe it or not, it was pretty cold up in the mountains and the boys were chilly and complaining most of the time. So we didn't stay long up there. Today the BYU football team was holding a scrimmage in the stadium so we took our boys to go check out this year's upcoming team. They look pretty good and we're hopeful they have a good year despite losing some star seniors last year.
Beautiful scenic over look up Mt. Harrison in Idaho. Getting this cute kid ready for a lifetime of sports ahead of him.. We ran into our friends, Brevin and Spencer, at the game! Poor Nathan got stung by a bee on his calf just as the scrimmage was ending and we were packing up to go. Not fun. He didn't appreciate me making him hold still and let me take a picture of it, but he'll survive. I didn't find a stinger, so I think he's okay.
Nathan has never outgrown his infant nickname. Greg has given each of our children on the spot nicknames at the hospital right when they were born. Nathan was Bean from the first moment. It's morphed into Beanie, Beanie-Bean, Beaner, etc. Anyway, he had a birthday on Monday and he has been counting down the days for months now. He and his big brother have lately been obsessed with all things Lego. Funny how these boys go through fads. So Lego Indiana Jones for Wii was high on his wish list. We also thought he'd appreciate an actual bin of Lego pieces to play with, rather than just play them on the Wii. We had a family dinner then went bowling at Fat Cats. Sorry for some blurry pictures. Not great photos from the cell phone in a dark bowling alley.
Andrew can't resist having his moment in the limelight as well, even on his little brother's birthday.
Yes, his presents are under that blanket. Yes, I'm a lazy gift wrapper. David in the arcade room of the bowling alley.
Check out the form of Andrew as he launches his ball down the lane.
What a trip we've had! We've put over 2,000 miles on the van this last week and have been many wonderful places. Last Sunday after church and work we drove to St. George and stayed the night there at our favorite family hotel. The next day we got up and made the rest of the drive to California. We first stopped at our friend's house, the Jones'. We used to live down in southern CA and made some wonderful friends there. It was hard to move away and we miss them so much! We had a nice visit with them and then decided to drive around our neighborhood and visit our old haunts. Much to our dismay we found that our favorite restaurant went out of business. (That was half the excitement of the whole trip, getting to eat at our place again). So we were bummed about that. But we found another one several miles out of our way and decided to go there instead. It wasn't quite as good, but oh well. We stayed in Anaheim that night. The next day we got up bright and early (thanks to David) and made our way down to Huntington Beach. It also happened to be Greg and my anniversary, so that was a fun way to spend it. Huntington Beach was our favorite beach while we lived there and spent many weekends down there enjoying the sand and surf. When we got there it was very over cast with a stiff ocean breeze blowing. We decided we weren't quite ready to dress down and get wet so we went for a long walk up and down the board walk and out onto the pier. We saw lots of dolphins and even more surfers. We happened to be there on the day they were holding a huge surfing competition. So we watch hundreds of people sitting on on their boards in wetsuits out in the water waiting for their perfect wave. We finally got in the water and spent the whole rest of the day playing on the beach. So much fun! That night after the beach we checked in to the Disneyland Hotel and met up with the rest of our family. Greg's mom was celebrating her birthday and she decided to have her party with all of us at Disneyland. So we spent the next two days enjoying Disneyland and it's many delights. Oh how we love Disneyland! Such a fun, happy place. It was pretty crowded, but we were able to do everything we wanted without too much waiting in line. And the best part of all (for Andrew) was that he was chosen from the crowd for Jedi Training. Nathan sat on his hands and did NOT want to participate, so Andrew got the moment all to himself. We had lots of adults around this time at Disneyland, so Greg and I were able to leave the kids with grandparents and aunts and uncles to go do some adult rides. I have to say my favorite is still the Tower of Terror in California Adventure. After Disneyland we said good bye to the rest of the family and drove up I-5 to Capitola, CA right on Monterrey Bay. My 82 year old grandma lives there in a beautiful ocean front condo. She has not met my 2 youngest boys. She doesn't get out much and we so rarely get to California anymore. So this was such a special treat to be with her. It also happened to be Andrew's 7th birthday that day. She had birthday cake and ice cream and presents waiting for us when we got there. We spent a couple hours with her and then said goodbye because we still had to go another 3 hours up the road to Sacramento to where our hotel was waiting for us. The next day was nothing but driving and driving and driving. We went to Idaho from Sacramento and stopped in with my parents, then drove home 2 days later. We had such a fun trip, despite all the time we spent in the car. Such fun memories and what a great way to spend anniversaries and birthdays!
Huntington Beach and Pier
Grandma's birthday dinner at Rainforest Cafe. Look at that brownie volcano! Yumm! We didn't want to buy the pictures on Tower of Terror, so we just snatched pictures of the pictures with our camera. Love Greg's face! Reading new birthday books with Great grandma Shelly!
