Fall Fun at the Farm

My sisters and I took our kids to Wheeler farm for some fall time fun.  They had a little corn maze that the kids could go through.  It was such a beautiful day.  70 degrees in October! 

On the Way Home Last Night

Last night about 10:00 we were driving home on the freeway when this happened.

Traffic was slowing, and I guess the guy behind us just didn't seem to notice and smashed into us at about 50 - 60 mph.  All in all it wasn't too bad considering.  The crazy part is that the driver of the other car just walked up to our car, handed Ryan his insurance card, walked back to his car, and bailed. 

It didn't make a lot of sense to me to flee the scene of an accident, but give the people all of your info...???  The first thing the cop asked after we gave him the guy's card was, "Did he smell like alcohol?"  I wonder if he had some priors.  Maybe fleeing the scene is a lesser crime than a DUI???  All I know is that the cop left us to track the dude down.  Can't run from the Utah Highway Patrol!

Hopefully we can get this all fixed soon.  Ryan doesn't dare drive it around since the entire tail light is now gone.  Does anyone know if you can get a ticket for that?

Lake Powell

We were fortunate enough to spend most of last week in the beautiful Lake Powell.  My father-in-law rented a houseboat and all of Ryan's family went down.  It was such a great time.  The weather was AWESOME!  90's during the day, 60's at night.   I feel super lucky that Ryan's father is willing to do stuff like that for us.  Here are a few pictures of our time.  Unfortunately I was too busy having fun that I only remembered to crack out the camera a few times.

This is how the kids spent the majority of their day.  Just playing on the beach.  We found a gorgeous beach with the softest sand, and the water was shallow for a really long time which made my worrying mommy brain feel so much better.

This is my newest nephew Caleb.  Isn't he a doll?  I think he's just about the cutest thing in the entire world.  He loved the kids.  Khursten had a lot of fun playing with him and getting him to erupt in full belly laughter.

This was the most gigantic sandcastle I have ever seen.  I'd like to be all impressive and make you believe that we built it, but alas that is not so.  It was here when we arrived.  What you see now is the post Audrey demolition.  You should have seen it before she got to it.  It was pretty fabu!

She took some serious pride in her work.  Can you see the concentration on her face?

I love this picture.  This is how I will forever remember my mother-in-law.  All covered up from head to toe to avoid the sun, and immersed in the joys of grandma-hood.  She spent endless hours out on the beach with the kids.  We were very grateful for the break, and I think she was really enjoying herself too. 

This is my oldest nephew Carson.  He's the smartest little guy I know.  Plus, he's got the greatest head of hair ever.  I would kill for that hair!

Audrey was my only kid who would get on the wave runners.  The other two were terrified.  Not Audrey.  I opened it up full throttle and she didn't bat an eye.  She loved the sharp turns and the out-of-control sensation as much as her mommy.  The funny thing was that if we were out on the lake by ourselves she got extremely concerned.  We had to make sure the other wave runner was out too.  As long as she had it in sight, she was fine.  If we ventured too far, she'd start to panic.  A girl after my own heart.  Reckless abandon has it's limits.  Being alone is scary!

She begged anyone and everyone to take her out.  Her favorite partner was Grandpa.  Apparently he goes even faster than I did. 

While their sister was out being adventurous on the wave runner, the other girls spent their time collecting seas shells.  There were piles and piles of them.  Made for a pretty good time!

After they wore themselves out each day, the spent the evening in their bunk playing UNO.  This made me smile.  I remember hours and hours spent at my Aunt Shirley's cabin with my cousins and a deck of card.

The men worked and worked and dug out a super-duper slip-n-slide ramp down the hill and out to the water. 

A random picture of cute Audrey running over to me to take part in the slip-n-slide fun.

The original ramp lead right out the water.  The plan was to put the kids on the inner tube and let them float right out into the lake with happy smiles on their faces, and joy in their hearts.

Unfortunately that close to the water  the ramp didn't have quite as much of a slope as desired.  They had to push again at the halfway point.... and again at the bottom.

Ryan being the brooms from Fantasia that keep on bringing buckets of water up the hill over and over again.

Despite the smiles on their faces, they were not impressed.  We had promised them a exciting thrill, and this slip and slide fell just a bit short.



So the new plan was to move the slip-n-slide up the hill where it had a steeper slope.  They would just go down and gracefully come to a stop on the sand when the slip-n-slide ends.

WRONG!  They pretty much turned it into a death trap.  As soon as they hit the sand, the flipped over and sailed the rest of the way down the hill on their heads!

Never fear!  Uncle Kevin to the rescue!  With their new 'catcher' at the bottom, the kids enjoyed hours of fun on the slip-n-slide!  What a fun idea.  I would never have thought of that!

I can't wait to go back next year!

And the Winner is...

Well it happened fast.  Thank goodness!!!  We got an answer on where we're going to live.  And the winning home is....

FRUIT HEIGHTS!

I am so happy!  When Ryan called and told me the bank had accepted our offer, I thought I was going to pass out from joy.   I can't believe it happened so fast.  This house went up for sale last Thursday and our realtor got us right up there.  We put in our offer that night, and it was accepted by the bank Friday afternoon.  I'm not sure why they didn't wait over the weekend and see if more offers would roll in.  I'm not going to complain though.

We were able to go back up and see it over the weekend (actually 3 times over the weekend due to various reasons)  We met the neighbors on either side of us.  Everyone was so friendly and had only good things to say about the neighborhood, the school, etc.  The neighbors seemed super happy to find out that the house was finally going to have someone in it who loved it.  It's a bank-owned house and it's been sitting vacant for a while.  We did learn from the neighbors that our yard has a few problems.  Apparently all of the surrounding neighbors yards run off into ours.  For a minute there we weren't sure if the flooding issues were going to be prohibitive.  Ryan  went up there with the inspector and followed him around asking questions.  He had a few good suggestions on how to maintain the overflow.  We will probably have to put a bit of money into the problem, but the house would still be worth it.

 It was kind of a roller coaster weekend actually. Happy we got the house, sad because we priced out carpet and decided that definately wasn't going to happen anytime soon, happy we met such friendly neighbors, sad again because of the flooding, happy again because the inspector said it wasn't a big concern...  I'm sure there be many more ups and downs before this thing is over, but right now I'm feeling good!

My Very Own College Graduate!

Four years ago when Ryan told me he wanted to go back to school, I hate to admit it, but it almost ended our marriage.  I didn't know how we would manage.  I'm not the easiest-going, most chill girl I know.  I don't like being alone, and the thought of spending endless nights at home alone while Ryan was at school or doing homework seemed so daunting.  How would I survive?

I remember Ryan telling me, "Sarah, the next four years are going to pass by regardless of what I do.  Either I will be just where I am right now in life, or I could get a degree.  Either way time passes."  I thought that was such a stupid thing to say at the time.  But now I've finally realized just how profound he really was.  It seems crazy that so much time has passed.  It was really tough while we were in it, but it doesn't seem like that long ago that he started. 

Anyway... all that aside.  I am so super stinkin' proud of my Ryan.  That was a lot of hard work, endless late nights, countless illnesses from lack of sleep and too much stress.  I wanted to do something really big for him and show him just how proud I was.  Certain circumstances have made it difficult to do anything too extravagant, but here's what the girls and I came up with.  When Ryan walked through the door (of our amazingly fabulous apartment) this is what he saw.

Ryan was really cute.  I think we made his day.  He said thank about a dozen times which is so not Ryan.  He woke up the girls and let them come join in his mini-celebration.  He thanked them all for their awesome job decorating the apartment.

I had taken the girls to Walmart and let them pick out whatever they wanted to give to their dad for his graduation present.  That was really fun.  I had to hold my tongue many times, but I wanted the gifts to be just from them.  Here's the result: