"Oh Look, A Princess!"

'Tis the season when the crisp autumn breeze sends colored leaves racing across your lawn, as if the ghosts of halloween are practicing their scares out on them. Spookables are hung up in windows, and pumpkins belong anywhere but in your garden. And when you step outside at dusk you get a whiff of the smoke unfurling from a lone chimney somewhere mixing with spices and scents leaking out from a cozy indoors, and there couldn't be a better smell in the world.

We went and had lunch up at Cascade Springs. Ella was so excited, I think she feels the same as me about this time of year. She said, "You could tell I was excited because I

was running, hu?" Yes. That and the fact that she jabbered on and on and looked at every single sign they had posted and pointed out every single "pink" colored leaf!

And just in case you are wondering, yes, Zoe is wearing a Cinderella dress. She just got it for Halloween, but we'll see if it makes it that long because she has to wear it every single day starting from the second she wakes up. It's so much easier to just let her wear it!

It was beautiful up there. We copped a squat on a log and had sandwiches, making chit chat with all the old couples walking by enjoying the gorgeous weather. It's funny, EVERY single group had at least one person that had to say, "Oh look, a princess!" I guess, because, hey, what else are they going to say? It was a gorgeous day. Thanks to Andy for taking us!

I never knew

Why they're called wolf spiders. Little pigs, little pigs, let me in.

Props to the misses for the precise photographic angle. Cascade Springs.

Mama's girl

Sarah reads herself to sleep pretty much every night. Looks like Zoe is on the same path.

Warning

There is a threat out there called trail running. If you attempt to run 14 miles round trip with just over 4000 feet of elevation in 3 and a half hours, this could happen to you.

In addition, you could have similar wounds on your bum/thigh, you could jam your right middle finger, and bruise your left thumb meat. Not to mention your ego.

You probably still wont be as ripped as the picture though.

FEZZARI!!!

Even though there really is no end to the triathlon "season", it does seem to finally be slowing down. Last weekend we went down south to Yuba Reservoir for Andy's last "big" race of the year. (Note I did not say LAST race, unfortunately for me.) It was also the second race on his new bike, which, as an inside joke that I have to continue despite my hatred of inside jokes, we will heretofore refer to as FEZZARI. I have to put in my two cents, going to his races are usually pretty hard to take the girls to, keeping them entertained and fed and at the same time be at all the right places at the right time to cheer Andy on. And in between seeing him, there usually isn't a whole lot to do or a whole lot of places to sit! With two kids, its tough!! So this trip we dropped them off with Grammy and Poppy's (my parents)and headed off just the two of us, unheard of!! We camped in the back of the new minivan (yes, we're minivan people now, shut up!) which was awesome not having to take down a tent and a lot warmer. Doing this we were able to wake up and go straight to the race.

Yuba was extremely low, and the morning was extremely cold, probably 50 degrees. This meant two things: One, Andy would be swimming in frigid water in the frosty morning, FUN. And two, the low water meant a very long, very steep boat ramp to run up in a wet suit in order to get to the bike area. But hey, he's an Iron Man, right? No sweat.

He came out of the water smiling, in about 25-30th place. Then he was in the new "Alien" helmet and jumped on FEZZARI and zoomed away before I could get a decent picture of the hair-do flowing under the helmet. Too bad you can't see it, it was beautiful to behold! So, he started the bike in 25-30th place, right. Well, it wasn't long before he and the FEZZARI were in 2nd! That's right folks. He's awesome. He was flying on that FEZZARI and it wasn't long before he and the FEZZARI were done and he took off running. He's amazing!

So, this is where I rant some more about these races. They have two races going on at the same time, the olympic distance, which is the real distance, and a sprint distance, which is half of that. Andy, of course, was doing the olympic race. I still admire the people that do the sprints, because I did one once, and I about died! What ticks me off is that the sprinters get done first, naturally, because it's shorter, but because they're done first, they think they WON. So there were all these people done with their little "trot" before Andy came in, bragging and complaining about how hard it was and talking about how awesome they are, when, hey, the real athletes who are racing whole lot more than them, and doing better than them, and are actually coming in FIRST place, deserve some attention when crossing the finish line. For this reason, sprinters suck.

Andy came skipping in (literally) with a great time of ... well, we'll never know since the time keepers totally failed at their one and only job, but he and the FEZZARI were first place in his division of clydsdale and 5th out of the entire race. And this is without any training from a month ago! He's holding up six fingers in the picture, meaning 6th place, but one guy cheated, the jerk. Andy was 5th! FEZZARI!!!!!!

Way too relaxed for just racing 2 hours and 26 minutes (maybe.)

Ella Starts Kindergarten

Can you believe our Ella is off to Kindergarten already! You know, we seriously thought about letting her jump a few grades, just to the 9th or 10th, somewhere that she could start studying astro-physics and begin writing her thesis on nuclear power sources, but hey, she's only a kid once, right? She has been so excited, she even made a countdown chain for the last few weeks leading up to the first day of school. It was so exciting and so sad at the same time. Zoe cried harder than anyone, now who is she going to discuss Tolstoy with?



Packing up to head out the door, and then the official drop off!!!

What I Did For Summer Vacation

Because we're are just getting started with this blog, I thought I would fill everyone in on what we've been getting ourselves into. As if moving weren't enough, we had quite a fun filled, busy summer. This is us fishing at Jenny Lake. It was soggy but beautiful.

After we moved in, we loaded up the motor home and headed up the Mirror Lake Highway. It wasn't too long before we hit snow, in June no less, which we were expecting. Trying to get some serious fishing in with two kids and a crazy dog doesn't exactly work out. Good thing we brought food to microwave in case we didn't catch dinner. What wasn't so good was that the microwave was broken! On top of that, when taking a two year old camping, diapers should be on the top of your list of necessities, but somehow I seemed to have lost that list. Thank goodness we ran into some friendly campers with toddlers who sold us a few diapers for a dollar! (Hey, that's all the cash I carry.)

Here's a clip of Zoe fishing. There's a bumble bee fly on the line and she had been singing, "Fishy, eat the bumble bee" as she reeled it in, but here she got mixed up and is saying, "Bumble bee, eat the fishy." Course, give her a few years and she'll be reeling in a marlin or something.

After this adventure, we quickly headed on to our next. In July we went to Bear Lake with the Beardall's (Sarah's family), which, if you watch the news was a risky choice this year. It's lucky we made it back alive!

Ashlyn Wright, Zoe and Ella.
You don't get much sexier than this!

Laura holding Charly, me, Ashlyn, Emily, Jenny and Zoe sleeping.

What's a few third degree sun burns as long as your having fun, right!?

Caution: New Bloggers Ahead

So we have finally decided to join the rest of you in the world of blogging. I know, it's hard to believe we are doing this with NO professional training. Don't feel bad that our blog is so awesome, we are just naturally perfect at everything we do! We do ask for your patience as we attempt to wend our way through this new fangled notion called "the internet".


So the reason we have decided to do this now, besides wanting to show off our incredibly gorgeous children, is because this has been and continues to be a huge year for us. We sold our house in Orem after much sweat and tears (literally sweat and literally tears). We had the nightmare of having to put on a new roof to sell it. Then we thought we'd put in new carpet, because, hey, we didn't have enough stress. And we have now officially moved to Heber City, Utah. We miss being closer to friends and family, but who coulda thunk we'd be happy amongst the folk of Heber? We love our new home and the girls are making friends quickly in the new, quieter, neighborhood.

On top of all that excitement, we are expecting another baby! Our little boy is due on November 6th and we are extremely excited. It has taken Ella and Zoe a while to get used to the idea, but now they talk about the baby like he is already here.

So we are in a continual state of adjustment this year and want to keep everyone updated. Hopefully I'll get the hang of doing this blog thing, feel free to laugh at me as I try!