Halloween

Halloween in Utah isn't quite the same as it was in North Carolina, but it is still fun. Emily & Kyle had a school Halloween concert, we carved pumpkins, and lit one on fire after a YouTube video Jeff and Aaron found and wanted to replicate. It was pretty cool.

Halloween

For probably the 3rd or 4th year in a row, Aaron is Yoda for Halloween. I mean, when you are the cutest Yoda out there, why not repeat it? Kyle was Kyle Ren and Emily made her witch costume. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of them because they were off with their friends to trick or treat. We did run into them briefly when we were taking Aaron trick or treating. 

Campfire

Jeff and the kids really wanted to go camping. I don't recall why they ended up not camping, but they still had the fun with the campfire part of the camping and made everyone a good campfire dinner. 

Arthur visit

Jeff's friend from North Carolina came out to visit this month. We had a great time catching up with him and Jeff had some great guy time. We also learned a new fact about Utah... when you are in a restaurant that serves beer (note not a bar), you may NOT stand up with said beer. You must be sitting down to drink that beer. Odd. But Utah... 

Cross Country champs

Kyle and Emily ran in the district championships and made their mark. Both have had excellent seasons and their team has been consistently awesome. Emily finished 23rd for JV girls in the district. Kyle finished 10th in the district for varsity boys. Both of their teams were the 1st place teams. Way to go!

Cross Country

Third race of the season and kids still running strong. Kyle back on varsity with his stitches out. Emily constantly improving her time and running hard. This race she FLEW at the end, passing several runners on her way in. 

Florida

My sisters and mom planned a great trip for us to Florida to celebrate my milestone birthday. It was great to get away and have the time to just enjoy each other's company without our regularly scheduled responsibilities and obligations. We hung out pool side, drank wine, slept, read, talked and had a great time. 

We also went to this great Indian restaurant where the chef had just defeated Bobby Flay on "Beat Bobby Flay". His food did not disappoint. 

Of course, I get this picture... Kyle was stung at school and his ankle swelled up like a balloon. 

Cross Country - take 2

Cross country race #2 went decidedly better than the first for Kyle. Still with his stitches in, he raced. This time in the JV race to get his legs back under him. He managed to win the race. And with stopping to take his spikes off for a portion of the race where there was too much cement. Crazy.

Emily ran a great race as well, working her way through the course and improving her time.

That night, Kyle was able to get his stitches out. The ER doc remembered him from his avocado thumb stitches from May and gave us a kit to take them out at home at the proper time. Kyle was thrilled to take them out and it was much easier than the thumb stitches. 

Cross Country Season

Cross country season kicked off in September for Kyle and Emily. 

Emily kicked her season off with a great race, finishing in the top 1/3 of JV girls. 

Kyle's first race didn't go so well. Running varsity and wearing XC spikes for the first time... Within the first 100 yards when the course narrowed to a turn, Kyle was taken down by some spikes and couldn't finish. I tried my darnedest to avoid taking him in for stitches, but no amount of bathroom doctoring could hold his wound together. Ended up with 7 stitches (numbing wore off so final 2 were skipped). Oh and this was all on Jeff's birthday. Happy birthday to Jeff. We ended up at ramen dinner at 9pm post ER. 

Little Cottonwood hikes

Taking in some great hikes here.

Back side of Snowbird. Used to seeing this full of snow and can't wait to ski this.

This is on the way to Cecrete Lake. We sped through it with a rain storm coming on but it was still pretty cool. And Jeff missed it last year when we did it right before the road closed for the season.