I love going back through each month's pictures to post them on the blog. I am always reminded of how blessed we are as a family. We have so many opportunities to learn and grow and enjoy this wonderful life we have been given. We have big adventures and small daily experiences that enrich our lives.
We filled up our Labor Day Weekend with fun and work. We of course had to be at church on Sunday, so we went Friday afternoon to Saturday evening to our friend's cabin at Flaming Gorge. It was so much fun even though a short stay!
We got up to the cabin before our friends and enjoyed watching the boys do some pretty crazy stunts on the seesaw.
Everyone arrived that night and we went exploring the next day to see the gorge.
At the visitor center we arrived as a man was handing out homing pigeons for the kids to let fly.
Our boys got right in there and got themselves a pigeon. They were thrilled!
The views of the gorge were amazing!
We fed some fish a a small lake.
And played and played with friends.
Here is Mark showing his displeasure at losing at mahjong.
We drove home Saturday evening so that we could fulfill our duties at church on Sunday. On Monday Mark stayed home to do some work in the yard and I took the boys to Oakley to enjoy a day at the ranch celebrating my mom's birthday. My mom and I went for a very lovely horse ride up above the ranch and valley.
Then we ate and she opened her presents. My dad got her a shotgun! So funny!
Back at our house I have been trying trying to train Chip to stand better while tied, so he gets to spend lots of time at the barn with me tied up.
We are loving all the eggs!
This is how I found Timmy's toothpaste one evening. I don't even know how it gets like this. He and Brian have their own toothpaste and I have to help Timmy with a massive toothpaste cleanup job every once in a while. He just can't seem to keep it clean, but we still think he is the cutest, despite his inability to keep toothpaste from getting everywhere. One day I found it stuck in his hair on the back of his head.
One Saturday we went with Mark's parents up to Strawberry Reservoir to fish for crayfish! We stopped and saw the salmon run by the visitor center. It was very cool!
We got to the lake and Timmy immediately found a bunch of baby snakes. He was in heaven and had to be convinced to let the snakes go before they got mauled to death. Timmy is definitely a reptile lover like his Grandpa Tim.
Mark and Brian immediately got started catching crayfish. Mark tied string to pieces of raw chicken and threw them in the water. After waiting a few minutes he would gently pull in the string and one of the boys would get the net under to catch an crayfish hanging on to the chicken.
These are the first few they caught. In a few hours they had that entire five gallon bucket full! Daniel counted at the end and we caught over 200!
Brian was very into catching the crayfish and he worked the entire time helping Mark and Ye Ye.
Timmy helped when he wasn't catching snakes, eating snacks or riding with me on the kayak.
I probably should have been more help in catching our dinner, but I was having so much fun paddling around on the kayak that I didn't help much until the end.
I did finally come to shore and I got up the courage to help pull the heads/bodies off of the crayfish tails and devein them. Brian taught me how to do this and we put the tails in a cooler of ice to take them home to eat.
When we got home we boiled the tails and everyone helped shell them while I got the soup cooking on the stove.
I was putting them into the soup as soon as they were shelled, so I didn't get a picture of all the tails, just these.
I made this Crawfish and Corn Bisque recipe from Our Best Bites. They asked for frozen crayfish, but we used as fresh as you can get! I was COMPLETELY AMAZED at the deliciousness of our freshly caught crayfish. I was not expecting it to be so amazing! The fresh crayfish alone were delicious and in that soup it was unbeatable. I am ready to go catch more just to eat it again! It was a real treat to spend the time with Daniel and Alice and to enjoy such a delicious reward for our labor!
The boys and I have been diligently reading the Book of Mormon together in the mornings. It has seriously been a highlight of our year. We are on track to finish by the end of the year. During September we must have started Heleman, because I took this picture.
Brian finally took the time to write his testimony in his baptism book. He did it all by himself and then shared it with me. Reading his testimony strengthens mine. I too know those things are true by the feeling I get in my heart when I think about my testimony and hear or read other's testimonies.
One weekend in September we had a ward and neighborhood barn dance and activity in our backyard barnyard. I don't have many pictures but here are a few of setting up for it. This is the photo booth partially set up.
We had steer roping, a photo booth, ping pong, a sawdust dig for prizes, a pie bake-off, corn hole, soccer in the field, bocce ball, chicken feeding, pony rides, rooster chasing and dancing!
It was really a fun evening and no one wanted to leave! My mom was so so nice to come and lead Chip through all those pony rides. I could not have done it without her. Mark was very busy running the party and making it so fun while I gave pony rides and I really have no idea what these boys were doing until the very end. They said they enjoyed themselves.
This is a picture from my jury deliberation room in the Salt Lake courthouse. I was selected for jury duty and actually ended up on the jury for a case. Luckily it was only one day, but it did go all day long. It was an interesting experience, but also stressful in many ways. I felt the weight of jury responsibility more than I expected. I still think about that man on trial and wonder what has happened to him. I also felt bad Mark had to take over my job at home in addition to his job that day. He went late to work and left work very early because he had to take the kids to cello lessons in the morning, take them to school, pick them up from school, help them with their homework and then take them to piano lessons and get them dinner. Then after I got home we had to help with pack meeting that night. It was a very long day, but we all made it through and I got paid a grand total of $18.50!
I love going in the back yard and all the chickens come running to greet me. Really they are coming to see if I brought them any scraps, but I like to think they want to see me.
Mark found a great deal on two new bigger cellos for the boys as Brian is ready for the next size up. Mark made new bridges and put new strings on them. They sound wonderful and Brian started on this new 1/4 size just after his book one recital in October.
This was eating out with Nai Nai and Ye Ye. Brian eats so much for such a little guy!
The end of the month I took some pictures of Brian and Timmy with their cellos to make an invitation for their book one cello recital coming in October.
We have had a few sad things happen to us too over the last few months. Some things are so personal and tender that we share them only with close loved ones. Other things can be recorded here for us to remember. This month Brian's fish, Bubbles died one night. He stopped eating for a few weeks and we tried different food but we didn't know what else to do. Brian was sad to say goodbye to Bubbles and he is not ready to get another fish yet. This reminds me that I never posted back in July about Pete the cat passing away. Pete got a bad eye injury and the vet said he was probably too old to go through eye removal, so we said goodbye to Pete, our loyal black barn cat that came with our barn. Having pets can sometimes be very emotionally hard. We were very very sad when my mom had to put her horse Frankie down in June because he foundered beyond healing. All these experiences with losing pets brings back memories of the many wonderful best pet friends that I had growing up and as hard as it is to lose them, I am so grateful they were a part of my life.
September is over and we are well into October. Every post makes me feel how fast time is going! I want to keep writing at least a monthly record here, because I don't want to forget the things we are doing, the blessings we have, the animals we take care of, and most of all the people we love!