Fall Catchup

Blogging has just not been on my to-do list lately. It's not that we haven't been doing anything, we've been so busy that I haven't had time, and when I do have downtime, there are so many other things I need/want to do.

I got crafty one day and pulled out the tissue paper and printed some pumpkins up online. The kids had fun making Halloween pictures. We also made bats to hang in near our door entrance. Cole is fascinated by them and will sit and stare at them.

We've had fun hanging out with friends. Mike and Leah and their girls came over one evening and Addy and my kids ran wild and finally settled down for some ice cream. Then, it was back to running and playing.

We went up to the cabin a couple weekends in a row to help my Grandpa install a new staircase. My brother's family came up one of the weekends and the kids had fun playing in the trees.

The "girl" cousins.

Building the stairs. For those of you that have been to the cabin before, you know how bad the stairs were. They were 40 years old and rotted railroad ties. These new stairs will be awesome and a lot safer!

Tucker had his first field trip to Hee Haw Farms. Here, Aubrey and Tucker's cute classmate and our neighbor, Kali, are going down the big slide.

We went on a hayride - and just happened to get on with 5 other families from our ward.

Each kid was able to pick out a pumpkin from their pumpkin patch.

Tucker didn't want to cooperate at the end and pose on the pumpkins. Oh well, these are the cute neighbor kids we live by.

This past Saturday we drove up to Logan for the day to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday. They live by Utah State and the roads are covered in leaves. We don't have a yard, and only 1 little tree, so Tucker and Aubrey had a blast running around on the grass and playing in the leaves.

Aubrey always wants to dance and asks me constantly "Dance with me Mom". It's really cute!My parents came up as well. Aubrey is wrapped around my Dad's finger and he showers her with love and attention.

Cody and Dan spent the day doing just what they wanted. Watching football. It was fine with me cuz I had my Mom and sister to hangout with.

Heather bought Tucker goldfish for his birthday and he loves them.

Well, I think that's about it for now. We are happy and healthy at the moment. The kids had a 24 hour bug last week but are doing well. Cody's practice is picking up and we are actually finding ourselves with some extra money! I was accepted to do a booth/craft table for Swiss Christmas with my friends and so I've been busy making things to sell. Cole is 9 months today - still has no teeth, but is as cute as ever. He pulls himself up on everything and sometimes pulls everything down on top of him. I think he'll be an early walker like Tucker was. Life is great - enjoy fall!

Clarification from Elder Oaks

Elder Dallin H. Oaks recently gave a wonderful address about free exercise of religion. I urge you to click on the link and read the entire address. It is a wonderful read. After he gave this speech, a storm of complaints rained down from critics of the church. He does a wonderful job in this short video of answering many of the unfounded criticisms of his talk and explaining his position. Thanks Deon for the video!

Hopefully as Americans we can look past our differences and above all else be respectful. As he said in this video, there is no place in a democratic society for intimidation and trying to silence the opposition.

Elk Hunt '09

This past Friday we headed up to go elk hunting with my parents. I love being back in Utah and around the awesome fall colors. I also was really looking forward to being able to hunt for more than one day before flying back home like the previous 5 years.
We got a beautiful campsite in some pines and aspens and the kids were in heaven. We had several mule deer that kept wandering through our camp.

That night we built a fire and let the kids roast marshmallows and make smores. Again, heaven for the kids.

The chocolate all over Tuckers face says it all. Cole was such a happy little baby all bundled up in grandmas arms.

These next two were actually taken before the evening fire, so, sorry they are out of order. Anyway, Friday evening my dad, Tucker and I went back up to where we were going to hunt to scout it out a little bit more. The views were gorgeous and really made me grateful for living in such a beautiful state.

When we got there and got out of the truck, we told Tucker he had to whisper so we didn't scare off the animals. He was hilarious because he began whispering and continued whispering even once we got back to camp.

The next morning we got up and went out to our site. To make a long story short, on opening morning my dad essentially shot and killed a spike after a group of road-hunting red necks were firing at us trying to hit an elk that ran between us and them. They made it over to the elk first and were claiming it as their own. My dad and I decided it wasn't worth the fight and to let the morons keep it. After that, the rest of the day was very slow and quiet.

We headed back down to Midway to go to the priesthood session at conference. My cousin Jaron met up with us there. He and my parents went back up that night while Lisa and I stayed home with the kids.

Lisa and I headed back up on Sunday afternoon to continue the hunt. Jaron and I went out that evening and hiked through some amazing country, but didn't see any elk. We did hear a bull bugling, but a huge snow storm rolled in and caused all the animals to hunker down. As we hiked back to Jarons truck the snow was flying horizontally and it was a white out.

The next morning we got up, it was FREEZING! The storm had left a few inches of snow on the ground and we mentally prepared ourselves for the cold.

As the sun was coming up, we heard several bugles. What a sound that is by the way. For anyone who has never heard a bull elk bugle in the wild, you need to experience it at least once in your life.

We had a hillside full of elk and we ended up killing a spike.

You'll notice in this photo that the spike is still in velvet. I thought it odd that he hadn't shed the velvet this late in the year, but I guess it's common for spikes.

We gutted him out, quartered him, and the began the arduous task of packing him out from the bottom of that canyon back up to where we could bring the four wheeler. I quickly realized how out of shape I was as I huffed and puffed up that steep hillside. Jaron was a beast and actually did most of the hauling as I couldn't keep up with his speed.

Here is a photo of me hauling the spikes hind quarters. The hardest part though was the rib cage. At least I got covered in blood from that and looked very hard core afterward.

Once we had hauled all the meat up and taken it up to the truck with the 4 wheeler, my dad drove me and Jaron up an dout. For any of you who have seen the movie Red Dawn, the saying, "Wolverines!" was going through my head at this moment.

Back at camp Tucker was so excited that we got an elk. When we went to take this picture, he wasn't so excited about touching it, thus the grimmace on his face. He did tell me though that he thought the elk was too big, and that he wanted a smaller elk.

It was a fun trip this year and I really enjoyed being up there with Lisa and the kids, my parents, and Jaron. Oh yeah, and the colors weren't quite as vibrant as in years past, but it was still a beautiful weekend.

Odds and Ends

No, I'm not talking about a practice involving a psychologist and proctologist. I am talking about some more photos from my cell phone. We don't have a pocket sized camera, so there are times I have to use my cell phone to capture some pictures.
Back in August we went to a mustang show on Main Street in Park City with my parents. There were some sweet cars there.

Here we are outside of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory eating some of treats.

Over Labor Day weekend I was busy, busy, busy with Swiss Days. Here is a view from inside the pavillion where we were making the Swiss Tacos. You can see the many crazy people lined up waiting for their plate of their weeks supply of calories.

This is inside the pavillion with several of the ward members working the assembly line. I think we sold around 10,000 tacos in two days. It's insane.

On Labor Day we went behind our house with my parents to do some dutch oven cooking. It was a tasty lunch and a fun afternoon in the mountains. Tucker loved climbing that tree by the way.

This is the view I see out the front windows of my dental office. Not too shabby. Its the North end of the Park City Mountain Resort.

Party on in PC

Last Friday we were able to go out to dinner with some of our dental school friends, the Jergensens. They moved to San Diego the year before we graduated. We ate at Squatters, which is right by Cody's work.Carly and Aubrey became instant friends and it made me miss living in Maryland with all of our friends. Us mom's were always getting together and our kids played all the time. It's just too bad that most of us moved from there with kids too little to really remember any of it.

Cole and Tyler are our babies. Tyler just turned 1 and Cole is 8 months.

Oh and to document the day - I turned 28 last Thursday. My friend Karen dropped me off a cupcake with a candle in it, so Tucker was my photographer and Aubrey helped me blow my candle out. Cody received 4 caramel apples from an Oral Surgeon the day before my birthday, so those became my birthday treat. They were delicious and we didn't have to make a cake! I was spoiled with breakfast in bed and flowers.

I bought my birthday present from Swiss Days and I love it! It looks great on our huge walls and came in an awesome frame. The best part is we got the 2nd print below for only a few dollars more. Now I can switch it out around the holidays.

Preschool and Party

Tucker had his first day of preschool last week. He loves it, I love it - nuf said. Tucker made a killing for his birthday this year. Not in money, but in animals. He is obsessed with them. He loves to line them up and play with them. Here he is with his loot.

His party was fun. We had the relatives over and he received more animals and a fishing pole. It was great because this was the first birthday party that we've actually had family around for.

Opening presents.

Here is the giraffe cake. I decided I wasn't going to attempt to really make a giraffe shaped cake, so I left it to Cody to do the artistic work. He drew an awesome giraffe in church, so we thought that would transfer over with frosting. We'll let you be the judge of that. Personally we think it looks like the lochness monster. Tucker didn't seem to care and it still tasted good.

Tucker is 4!!!

Tucker has been counting down the days until his birthday for quite some time now. Thursday finally arrived and he's 4! We love this boy. He wanted to wear his favorite outfit - his Colorado shirt and his navy blue sweatpants that are size 18months. Silly boy. I did make him change his pants when we went out during the day. I'm a lame Mom and didn't have 4 candles in the house. We had 2 pink ones. He blew them out in his waffle. When I asked him what he wanted for breakfast on his birthday he told me "green waffles". I made our waffles green on St. Patrick's Day and he asks for them that way every time we eat waffles. We also decided to dye his milk blue. Love the mustache.

Tucker got a sweet razor scooter for his birthday. Funny story with this - I actually won this 6 years ago, after we were first married. We've lugged it all over the country wondering who we would give it to. Luckily scooters are still in style and he loves it!

If you know Tucker, you know he is obsessed with animals. He LOVES them and asks for more every day. He has informed me that he wants to build a boat and be like Noah. He is always lining his animals up on the ground and telling me his needs more. I have a feeling he won't be completely satisfied until every inch of our floor is covered in them. : ) We bought him this huge animal poster for his bedroom.

We had an awesome rainstorm on his birthday and a double rainbow appeared across the street.

We set up our backpacking tent in the living room for Tucker and Aubrey to sleep in that night. They giggled and had fun playing together. I'd say Tucker had a great birthday! We celebrate with extended family tomorrow and I get to attempt to make a giraffe cake. Hopefully it turns out!