Festival of Witches

Festival of Witches has become a tradition at Halloween. Gardner Village is a favorite anytime of year, but at Halloween it is quite "spooktacular" {hehehe}. We love to go hunt for witches & end the trip with a delicious caramel apple.

This year as we sat to eat our apple by the pond and watched the ducks, I had to laugh at the different personalities of each child. Kimball grabbed the apple gave me the wax paper it came on and took off for the ducks, eating it upside down

.

Josie sat with her legs together wax paper pressed open and neatly ate her apple, very lady like.

After 10 minutes McKay handed me his apple to operate on. He had squashed the wax paper into the caramel. I had to rip it piece by piece to get it off, in some places I had to even scrap into the caramel.

Abby was enjoying the magical world of Disney with Grandma, & we missed her terribly. {Watch for her post. Coming soon.}

Our New Favorite Place

We have lived in our home for 7 years. Up the street from our home is Dry Canyon.

We have often driven up there and looked over the valley and been amazed at our little corner of the world. We have always talked of hiking up the trails but just haven't done it. So last week for FHE we put dinner in the oven & went for a quick hike up one of the trails. Amazing! And I was kicking myself the entire time for two reasons 1. I forgot my camera! 2. we hadn't done this before! We all loved it so much we took a picnic up for Fun Friday. It was still absolutely amazing but not quite as breathtaking. Within those few day most of the fall leaves had fallen. But as i said still amazing. The kids asked if we could do it every week. We'll see, but I agree with them, it's one of my new favorite places too.

Job Change

This past summer has been absolutely insane! For the past two years Craig has been not only the Women's Tennis Coach @ BYU but one of the athletic dept. Sport Psychology Consultants. It's been a ton of work and too much travel time. {I think this one of the main reasons why Kimball dislikes me so much & favors Craig~although, my hubby is totally awesome and full of fun!} He felt it was time to make the switch to full time Sport Psychology Consultant. After a summer of unknowns, we finally negotiated the week before school went back a part time contract @ BYU. He is still up at the US Olympic Ski Team once a week. He is loving working with all types of athletes & helping them perform better.

Totally shallow as it seems, one of our concerns with the change was the kids & what they thought. McKay especially has always loved that Craig is a coach at BYU. He's always been very proud of it and the girls. He's checking who won, who's doing well, where there from, wanting to know more about their culture etc. But they have embraced this change. Craig has been working on a book for the last two years. When a publisher wanted to pick it up, McKay couldn't have been prouder. Either could I! {Don't worry, as soon as it comes out, I'll let you all know!}

Wedding Day

"Goin' to the Temple & their

goin' to get married"

On the 11th of September Cyd & Brayden got married! We are all so excited. They truly love each other. We started off the celebrations with a fabulous dinner at Magelby's. The sealing ceremony was beautiful and the reception was great fun, filled with flowers, pictures, friends, Costa Vita, dancing and great people.

Photo by Lauren Jones Photography

Lauren did the pictures. She was fabulous as always! {If you need family pix for Christmas or anything you have to call her! Not only is she great & puts a ton into it, she's very well priced!}

{Oh, and Ashley you'll have to link over she's got one of your cute kids posted.}

The book signing had a bit of a twist: a photo booth. You took your pix, kept one strip and the other went in the book next to your name. It was supper fun!

We love you guys!

ScHoOl

Another school year is well underway!

McKay loves that his teacher is a boy. This year we decided to mix it up a bit. I'm home schooling him for Math and Language Arts, he then goes for Art, Science, Social Studies and P.E.. It's been really fun I think for both of us.

Abby didn't think she could ever find a teacher she liked half as much as Mrs. Nelson, but she has. Mrs. Nelson's really good friend works at the school and Abby has her this year. Her classroom is "western". Right up Abby's ally with the horses. This girl loves school and everything that goes with it.

Josie, oh Josie. She's in Kindergarten now! I can't believe it, and either can she. She still, shall I say, strongly dislikes school. She's "too little" to go to school, or read, or clean her room. First thing in the morning she asks "do I have to go to school today?". I think it's going to be a long 13 years. A few weeks ago we had some cute neighbors over for the afternoon. It was time to take Josie to school, so I loaded everyone in! We got to school, I opened the door to kiss and send her off to school, and she doesn't have shoes! "Josie I told you to grab your shoes. You can't go to school without shoes." "So that means I don't have to go today right?!"

Kimball throws a fit to go to school. And so do we. If you ask him how old he is, he'll tell you "four". I told him at the beginning of the year he can go to preschool when he's four, so you know, now he is.

FiRsT DaY oF ScHoOl 2009

George

I've got a ton of catch up posting to do; back to school, birthdays, activities, job change & an amazing baptism! But before I get to that I promised Sierra I'd blog about George. George is the sock monkey that was sent to the burn unit preschool camp in Cali. It was project #4 for Craft Hope. {It's this really fun blog site that puts together handmade craft projects with those less fortunate.}

my new birds.

You can see in september 2008 3rd I had bindy. But then she died and that night my Mom came in and i asked her if i can get another bird. she sad yes!

A year later I have been begging each day to get a bird. And one day my mom and dad could not take any more. So we went to petsmart and I got 3 finches. One is brown and blackish.

her name is Jessica. one is all white her name is named after my other birds name bindy.

one other is light brown and white and her name is Kit. And here is a picture I drew for you!