A Minnesota Fall

What a beautiful Fall we enjoyed here in Minnesota.  The weather was perfect, the colors were perfect, the activities were perfect, and by golly, my kids were perfect.  OK, I was exaggerating on that last one.  But, we did enjoy Fall this year!

Minnesota State Fair!
A bus trip to a nearby apple orchard
"Two-mungus" for Carter
Carving pumpkins at a friends' annual Halloween party
Trick or Treating
Candy for breakfast
Volleyball for Mom
Joy School for Faye
Kindergarten for Edmund
Same ole' for Dad

Fun at the 2012 Minnesota State Fair.

My favorite part of the day is the cream puffs for breakfast! m...mm

Carter at the "Oink" Booth

Faye's first day of Joy School.

Edmund's first day of Kindergarten and his celebratory three-layered cake!

Faye and Audrey

 Peek-a-boo!

I taught Joy School for the first rotation and Tedi taught the second.  When I picked Faye up after her first day at Tedi's, Tedi handed me a plastic bag filled with the underwear above.  "What's this?" I said.  She said something like, "In the morning Faye was complaining that her underwear was uncomfortable.  And, after she used the bathroom and asked for help, I found all of the underwear on the floor."  I asked Faye about it, and she said, "Just in case I had an accident."  She wore six pairs of underwear to Joy School on her own accord.  I had absolutely no idea!

Dad's 31st!

A homemade German Chocolate Cake from scratch.  Four hours.  That is love!

Carter tasting the batter of his cake.

Carter's 2nd!

We rode our bikes a couple of times from our house to the Stone Arch Bridge.  Above are some of the remains of the flour mill now part of the Mill City Museum. 

Happy Halloween!  2 Darth Vaders and a frog.

A Fun Summer!

We love our summers!  The kids and I spent a month on vacation and had a wonderful time.  Our whole family drove down to Chicago to visit the Carters.  We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone.  I visited with most of my cousins (all but Abbey and Chris).  It had been a long time since everyone was together like that.  We are planning our next reunion up here in MN next year!

Devon flew back to Minneapolis on Sunday, and Mom, Bek and the kids and I took two days to drive to UT.  With the exception of the ignition tumbling cylinder in our car deciding to give out and us having to replace it in Des Moines, IA, our trip went very well.  (Faye's comment when we passed by an exceptionally stinky farm, "I think the cows just went poop," was a great laugh.  As was Carter's "Uh, oh," when he tipped over his chocolate shake and dumped half of the contents onto himself.

While in UT, we had a great time.  We went swimming in Deer Creek, swimming at the Scera Pool a couple times compliments of Rachel, Hogle Zoo, play time with Maddie, Cameron and Jameson, Liberty Park with Aunt Sue, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Rob, Tracy Aviary with Uncle Pete, and fun outside at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  The kids loved building the snake habitat with Nicole.

Nicole came home with us to Minneapolis and we had a fun few days showing her around town.

Faye

Carter

Edmund

Fun with Nicole

We took Grandma on a nature walk up American Fork Canyon.  Edmund, Nicole and I hiked up to Timpanogos Cave the day before.  My dad used to take us kids on the hike, and it became a tradition to go to the Purple Turtle afterwards for a shake.  

Faye waiting patiently with Devon for a ride on the Ferris wheel at Liberty Park in Salt Lake.

Carter waiting patiently for a ride on the cars.

Carter and Uncle Pete.

Carter and Aunt Bek.

Grandpa gets really excited about teaching math!

Rachel and I ran the Pioneer Day 5K.

Back home in Minneapolis.  Devon took the kids to the transportation museum while I got organized at home.