October

Oh October...busy month. Here we go...

 

The girls had the first couple days of the month off of school, I forget why. I told the girls we were going to spend one of those days mowing Grandpa and Grandma's lawn, but instead Grandma came and took us on an outing. We started off at the aquarium in Boise.

It was itty bitty. The girls were asking where the whale sharks were. Okinawa has ruined all other aquariums for them. BUT, they all really, really liked petting the stingrays.

They also liked the random animals some of the staff brought out. Like this snake:

When we had gotten sufficiently wet, we had lunch then headed to Camelsback Park. The girls wanted to do some hiking.

There are a couple different ways to get to the top of Camelsback. Kimberlee, Keira and Kassie chose the road less traveled - going straight up. I had to walk behind Kassie with my hand on her bum to keep her from sliding back down. But Keira made it...

and Kassie made it...

and eventually Krista made it (she had gone around the side with Grandma and Karoline)...

and Kimberlee and Kassie ran back down to encourage Grandma and Karoline to keep trekking.

And then most of them chose to slide down the steep part. Silly girls.

After our day of fun, we really did have to get to work. My mom had decided that my kitchen was perfect for canning, so she brought all her supplies and all her apples and we canned applesauce.

Kim made apple pie

And then practiced her photography skills on Karoline and Reagan

Stephen kept little ones out of the way with video games

And we all enjoyed the fruits of our labors

We watched General Conference. My 2 favorite weekends of the year, hands down.

Keira finished up cross country with the district meet.

I could not be more proud of that girl. She finished 75th (out of 185 JV girls) with a time of 12:02 (for 1.5 miles), and is probably the youngest on the team. But more importantly she worked hard and had a great time. I think she's found a new love. She can't wait to do it again next fall.

Our friend Alan Carver was killed in a plane crash in Cedar City, Utah. My mom stayed with the kids and Ed and I flew down to Cedar for Alan's funeral. It was a sad and sobering occasion, but it was good for us to be there to see his wife Janet and to reconnect with old friends from pilot training. We had some time before the funeral so we rented a car and drove up the canyon. Ed has much better pictures on his phone, but you can see a glimpse of the amazing aspens that covered the mountain. It was beautiful. We came home wanting to be more cheerful and faithful like Alan.

One of these girls had a birthday (and it's not the one that's crying)...

Krista Mae turned 9!

Grandpa and Grandma came over for cake and ice cream. Gosh we love living by family.

She had a tough time getting all those candles blown out. It could have had something to do with the fact that she couldn't stop giggling.

Oh our Krista Mae. I'm having a hard time with this one growing up. She's trying so hard to show me that she's becoming a big girl, but I just expect her to be 5 forever. Krista is sweet and silly and quiet and smart. She has made HUGE strides to control her anger this year and has become one of Karoline's favorites. Not too long after her birthday she tested into the Challenger program (Gifted & Talented) at school. She is in 3rd grade and reading at a 6th grade level. She also was elected onto her class council (not mayor, which she was bummed about, but she's cool with council). She is always willing to play with anyone, but can also keep herself busy for hours. We adore this sweet 9-year-old!

Krista had a little movie party with a friend from school and our cute neighbor girls. Lots of giggling and squealing. Perfect.

It's October. There was pumpkin carving.

It was stressful for some.

But everyone was happy in the end.

Our ward trunk-or-treat was a madhouse (which we added to of course). The costumes didn't look like this once we were done so its a good thing we got this picture beforehand.

Kimberlee - "smarty pants" (all the smarties came off, so on Halloween she changed her costume to Dora)
Keira - the Tardis (from Dr. Who)
Krista - a witch
Kassie - a butterfly
Karoline - a jack-o-lantern
and Ed went as a Top Gun pilot, but it was too dark for his sunglasses :(

We had Nancy snap a family picture for our Christmas card. Thanks Nancy!

And we finished up the month with the real Halloween. Ed was flying and Kimberlee had a party and Keira had a party, but lucky us, we got to take cousins trick-or-treating with us. Fun times!

Whew! Let the holiday madness begin!