Fall 2008

Fall always comes and goes pretty fast, it seems to me.  I love it.  It's a beautiful season.  We were able to get in one last camping trip with Jaron's brother's family.  We went up to Henrey's Lake in Island Park and on into Montana.  There is a lake called "Quake Lake" which was formed when an earthquake caused a dam in a river.  The earth quake also caused houses to slide into the existing reservoir (we are sitting on one).  My friend Millie and I took our older kids on a hike out in Kilgore to Aldous Lake, led by a friend from my ward.  It was beautiful.  Hudson Turned 2 in September.  That is a picture of his "Roarie cake" (you know, the dinosaur says "roar").  The last 2 pics are of a little nature trail I took my kids for a walk on last week.  It's about 3 miles from my house.  Earlier in the summer a friend of mine took me kayaking down the river you see in the background--something I'd like to get into a little more.  The kids and I had a little picnic after our walk.  It is such a blessing just to enjoy the precious moments of life.  I'm grateful to live in this free land of opportunity and I'm most thankful for the gospel that teaches me what the most important things in this life are.

Our Summer 2008

2008 has probably been the most fun-packed season we've had since we've had kids.  Now that our house is finished and we are settled, we've been able to do a little playing.  We went to Portland for the 4th of July.  We did a lot of swimming there and went to a really fun little local amusement park called "The Enchanted Forest."  We took our kids bowling for the first time and Savannah took swimming lessons while we were out there.  The 24th of July parade in Saint Anthony is always big.  There's a pic of my kids with Jaron's brother's kids (their only cousins) at the parade.  I put a couple of pictures of my kids with the beautiful "amber waves of grain."  This is what surrounds our house in the summer.  Jaron and I took the kids up to an old abandoned railway tunnel up above Ashton for a little "hike."  Did you see the pic of Hudson naked?  He reminds me of Adam in the Garden!  A very big part of the summer for my kids was catching frogs in our back yard.  That container was filled in about an hour's time!  Savannah did nothing else, but look for more frogs.  They were just hopping around in our grass!  I hope it is like that every year!  We were so lucky to be able to plant grass in our back yard this year and that made for such a nice summer.  The thing Hudson loved was the sand box Jaron made for the kids.  It was actually more of a gravel box (pea gravel is much cleaner and the cats don't poop in it).  Over all we had an awesome summer and we were sad to see it go!