Autumn Leaves

I am still trying to get in as many park days as possible before it snows. Now a lot of the park trees have dropped their leaves and given us a new activity when we play. These kids are the best to hang out with.

Frightmares at Lagoon

Mason will happily go on any ride. Brielle is a little more nervous, but she's not about to get left behind. Ava wants to go on the rides until she is on them. Eric is cute. They all liked trick or treating through the "haunted" house the most.

The family that rides bikes together

Mason didn't want a bike for his birthday. Remember that? Well, we got him one anyway and then it was too big for him. So closer to the end of summer I ran to Walmart and got him a smaller bike. It was really a little too small, but he could put his feet on the ground while sitting on the seat and that made a huge difference. I took him out one afternoon and forced that kid around the block on the new bike. Pretty soon he got the hang of the peddling. Then before long he figured out how to start going without a push from me. And then he was off!

It was so satisfying to teach him this new thing that gives him a huge new element of freedom and independence. He fought us the whole way, but once he got the hang of it he was so proud of himself. And I was so proud of him.

We decided to take all the kids to the skate park so that he could ride his bike and Brielle could ride her scooter. It has become our new weekend activity and we have visited a few different parks. Brigham City is the best. Roy wasn't too bad, either.

Brielle decided right away that she wanted to ride a bike instead of a scooter. She pretty much just hopped on and rode away. She has been fearless. She rides that bike around like it is second nature. Luckily, once Mason got the hang of his small bike, he was willing to move up to the larger one, so they both have something to ride. And he has been much more daring since we've been going to the skate parks instead of just around the block. I could watch them cruise around on those things all day.

Bear Lake Weekend

We took our annual English family trip to Bear Lake last week. I haven't had much to complain about with the basement apartment we've been staying in. I don't mind the size too much, and the location is great. I could use a bedroom door and a dishwasher, but those things haven't been the end of the world. The thing that really gets me is the light. There isn't any. It is always gloomy down there, even in the middle of a bright, sunny summer day, with all the lights on inside. Still gloomy. So I was ready to go spend a few days on a beach and in a cabin with big, bright windows. So ready.

It was wonderful. The kids were great and had fun playing with their cousins and uncles. There was a dance game on the Wii that Mason loved, and Kelson was always down to play. I caught Mason upstairs practicing more than once. Ava had kind of a hard time with Friedrich, but she showed a lot of patience for a two-year-old, because she really wanted to play. 

We were worried that the beach would be too crowded because we went a week earlier than usual, but we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We got a boat on of the days and went tubing. The next day we got a giant water trampoline at a different beach, along with a paddle board, and spent the day playing in the sand. It was a much needed trip and the kids are already asking when we can go back.

A Wall

We have had the house up for sale, off and on, for the three years we have lived here. Every time someone goes through it it seems there is just one major hang-up. One thing they don't like and they either can't change it, or they don't want to do the work. I can't blame them, because as much as I love it here, I have those hang-ups too. Mine is the backyard. It isn't kid-friendly and most of it is useless.

For a lot of other people, it has been the lack of RV parking. There is also a great garage in the back, but no good way to get there. So this fall we decided to remedy our parking problem and get an RV pad. We have gotten a few quotes over the years and they have all been so ridiculously high that we didn't really consider it a possibility. But someone gave Tim a referral for a cement guy that was desperate for work and would give us a great deal.

Enter Michael L. Smith, and his pal Jimmy. He did give us a great quote. It was to pour footings, build a 10-foot tall retaining wall, back-fill, compact, and then do flat work on an RV pad, and a ramp and large sidewalk leading to the suspended garage.

Unfortunately, he didn't build a secure form for the wall and our cement blew it out. So then we got to pay extra to have Heath Mote come and reinforce the re-bar skirt and use metal frames to pour a new wall. Then Michael came back at Tim's insistence and did the gravel back-fill and almost all the of the flat work on Halloween. We still have to hire someone ELSE to come and finish the saw cut joint lines, because Michael is MIA. As flaky as Michael has been, Tim still likes the charismatic guy.

So, a few months later, a few thousand dollars extra later, and an unbelievable amount of stress and work (and head-into-cement-mixer-chute injuries) for Tim later, the RV pad is finally finished. Now we just have to build stairs on the Wheeler's property (to replace the ones we tore out because they were halfway on our property), raise the level of the grass at the bottom, and plaster the outside of the wall and then the whole project will actually be done. Hopefully the sprinklers still work in the spring - since day number one on the job, our main line got broken.

Don't worry, Tim got to tear down most of this wall himself.

And here is a nice 5.5 yards of concrete spilling onto the lawn.

Starting over.

Bear Lake 2014

I think the last time Tim and I spent more than one night with our kids somewhere other than our own house was when Mason was 10 months old? Maybe we did two nights at Bear Lake a couple of years ago. Either way, we are kind of still rookies at the whole vacationing with children thing. One night has always seemed like enough. More than enough.

So we planned a four day getaway to Bear Lake with my family, and then realized that four days means three nights. 

We weren't super optimistic about the sleeping part. We almost went up late to avoid one extra night. I'm glad we didn't. The kids were wonderful and adjusted really well to the different sleeping arrangements. Missed naps weren't the end of the world that they sometimes are. Everyone got along, and it was so nice to spend a few days away from home with the people that I love.

We tried out North Beach at the suggestion of some friends and it made all the difference, too. There was so much wet sand for the kids to build with and shallow, warm water to play and swim in. It was a seriously dreamy 70 degrees of sunshine. The beaches were all but abandoned because everyone else had to be back in school already. I don't think we could have asked for a better little trip to end the summer.

We started out with a hike/tour through the Minnetonka Cave. I dislike caves. I watched a documentary about spelunkers with my dad when I was a kid and watching those crazy explorers crawl through tiny caverns opened a whole new world of fear for me. It was a very cool cave and I'm glad I did it, but I think it was probably my last. Mason was a total trooper and took all 888 steps like a champ. Brielle got carried the entire way and complained that it was too cold. You win some, you lose some.

Then an afternoon at the beach, followed by another afternoon at the beach the next day. We rented a boat and everyone (except Ava and Friedrich, of course) got to go tubing. Mason went several times and laughed and laughed. Ava slept on the boat for nearly two hours. Brielle went once, kept a straight face the whole time, bawled after getting dumped in the water, and declared it her favorite part of the trip.