Boating at Strawberry and Utah Lake

So I know these posts aren't at all in chronological order, but that's what happens when you get behind on blogging:). So last July we went up to Strawberry Reservoir with Jeff's step-dad.  It was a three day weekend, and we spent most of our time boating and fishing.  I've always loved the water (and boats) and it is so fun to see my boys' excitement to go boating.  We sure are thankful for Larry's generosity in taking us boating and wanting to spend time with our boys.  It means a lot.

These boys loved to ride up front and get splashed.

Lots of fishing.

I love this guy.

 Carson tried wake boarding! Its crazy that he's old enough to start doing things like this.

This is most certainly my kind of camping. Maybe its because I spent so much time camping and rafting with my dad when I was little?

We also went tubing at Utah Lake one afternoon.  Its nice to live so close to a lake.

This is Jeff's  "I got too much water in my face" look.

We can't wait for summer to get back to the lake.

Topaz Mountain

In October, Jeff's sister invited us to go to Topaz Mountain with her and her boys.  Our goal was to gather together a bunch of Topaz to give to Jeff's Dad for Christmas.  The day was perfect and the weather was mild (I couldn't imagine trying to do this in the heat of the summer, yuck). Topaz Mountain is about two hours south of our house in the middle of the Utah desert.

At first we found pieces of Topaz just laying in the road.

Kris, Mason, Alex, Jeff

Then we ventured off into the sage brush to look.  The boys saw lots of lizards and even a mud puppy. Thankfully no rattlesnakes though!

 The boys were in heaven all day long and kept asking when we could come back.  My boys love to be outdoors…have I mentioned that? Especially when they are looking for rocks.

Fall Overview

I decided it was time to get last fall blogged…even if that means a lot of blurry phone photos and un-edited photos out of my camera. To start out with, I love this little guy.  And the fact that he can rock about anything I put on him, especially skinny jeans and thermal shirts. He's gonna be a heartbreaker. 

We went hiking in Salt Lake to their dog park that is in a hollow with a bunch of pioneer ruins.  The boys (and Oliver) loved it and when the weather gets warmer, we will definitely be going back.

Porter fell in love with his Pete the Cat book.  I found him asleep like this quite a bit.

The new Lego Store opened up and the boys were in heaven.  Heaven.

We took our annual trip to Gardner Village to see the witches and get some caramel apples. I seriously love that we have made so many new traditions since moving to Utah…and that Utah has some pretty fun things to go do.

We also took our annual hike up the Mormon Trail in East Canyon. We hit it at the perfect time and the leaves were so beautiful.

Oliver came along on the hike, but his little doggy legs couldn't make it the whole way.

 I love these boys so much!

This made my heart melt.

We also spent a lot of time canning this fall and made sooo much applesauce. I was so busy I never got a picture of all that we did, but we did 26 quarts of applesauce, 15 quarts of peaches, 24 pints of plum jam, and 15 pints of peach jam. I'm already planning on doubling that for next fall as we are already out of plum jam!

We started early buying Halloween costumes. (Yes, I know you'd think with a degree in Home Ec that I would make them, but seriously, college killed any desire I have for clothing construction.)

We were able to get some nice pumpkins at our ward garden to decorate our porch with.
The boys love pumpkins!

Grandpa Larry gave the boys riding lessons.  He's done a lot of volunteer work at a Montessori school up in Park City and in exchange they let him use the facilities to teach our boys.  They absolutely loved it and Larry pointed out that Jonas has natural talent with horses.  Hopefully the boys can get some more lessons in when it gets warmer.