Horseback Riding At Antelope Island

Nate and Maria

The Crew

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Nate and I went for a fun horseback ride with my brothers, nephews, brother-in-law, friends, bishops, neighbors, etc (we would have had more people along, but ran out of horses). It was quite the group, 20 in all.

Our only complaint was that for being public lands, they do not allow the public much access. There are signs everywhere to keep you off the trails. I definitely recommend going there, although it takes longer to get there than you actually get to ride for when you are there.

One of the highlights for me was seeing several buffalo and a coyote right off the road on the way in. The weather cooperated and we enjoyed amazing views of the Great Salt Lake.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year, as we have been thinking about the things we are grateful for, we seem to always have one thing on the top of our lists, wonderful family and friends. We are grateful to you all for your examples and friendship. We are truly blessed. We wish you health and happiness on this special day.

My Terrific Kid

I am very proud of my "Terrific Kid" aka Brooklynn. The Kiwanis club for our area presented her with an award yesterday for being such a great student, being nice to everyone and always doing her best. This award is given to one student per grade, per month. She is a very sweet little lady and is such a good example for our family. If this sounds like I am bragging, I am! I feel so lucky and blessed to have such wonderful kids! Keep up the good work, Brooky!

More Fall Fun

BYU vs UNLV Football Game

The Cougars squeaked out an exciting win. We sat in a rowdy crowd of various aged BYU fans and quite enjoyed ourselves. Thanks again for inviting us to tag along, Michelle.

Fall also brought a fun visit from one of our favorite gals, Mallory. She was out visiting from Tennessee. She spent a couple of days at our house, being doted on by my girls the entire time. Mallory, we miss you already. Come back soon!

We even found a little time to go for a horseback ride

Cowgirl Brooklynn

Cowgirl Hailey

Our fall has been full of hunting, football, horseback riding, softball, volleyball, school, work, church, friends, family, etc ... for us, this all equals GOOD TIMES!

The Election

Brooklynn's kindergarten class has been talking about the elections at school. Yesterday (Election Day) she came home and told me she voted for "Bamba" and asked me who I was going to vote for. I told her McCain. She became really sad because she thought she did something really bad. She wanted to go back to school so she could change her vote. I think it is great that she felt like her vote really mattered. As adults, sometimes we forget that every vote and every choice does matter, even though we may not see the consequences of our actions until later, sometimes much later. Kudos to the elementary school for getting the kids involved in the election. I hadn't even thought about discussing it with her. Maybe in 4 years, she will decide to vote for someone else besides "Bamba," hopefully a lot of other people do the same.

Warm Fall Days...

What do you do on a warm fall day?

4 Wheeling is one of our family's favorite things to do together.

Hailey and Nate

We wouldn't even think about leaving Hailey out of the fun, she is the first one to run and grab her helmet whenever she hears a 4 wheeler or motorcycle start. On one of our last rides, I let her push the throttle. She is one crazy girl. The faster we went, the louder she laughed.

Brooklynn

Brooklynn LOVES to ride her 4 wheeler and is becoming quite good at riding it. This is one of her favorite places to ride where we live. We call it "the hole," however, it is actually a drainage basin down the street behind Grammy and Grandpa's house.

One of our favorite things about our town is getting to ride atv's anywhere in town we would like, there is also several more neat trails that we can ride to, just minutes from our house.

Halloween Fun

I think these may be the cutest little witches, if I do say so myself.

Hailey

Brooklynn
I don't know where she inherited this posing thing from... Ok, so if you have known me very long, you know where it came from...

The crew: Hailey, Cierra, Brennen, Brooklynn, Matthew

We had a great Halloween. We started out the night trunk or treating at the church. We decided to also do a little traditional trick or treating also. The trick or treating started out as just a few houses for the littlest monkies with my friend, Heather. We ended up taking them all to a few houses, then a few more, then a few more....(and no, I am not complaining, it was a blast!) We ended up on the other side of town with the Headless Horsemen (it was awesome, unfortunately I did not get a picture). The kids seemed to enjoy themselves, but were all pretty tired before the fun was over. Hailey and Matthew fell asleep before we made it home, Brooklynn fell asleep on the hardwood floor just minutes after arriving home. They were tired kids. Thanks for the great time, friends!

Pumpkin Carving 101

This was the girls' first experience carving pumpkins and it seemed to be a hit. They picked out their pumpkin designs and then watched as Nate went to work. He decided to try out some power tools for the task. In the end, he decided a sharp knife is still the way to go. I think they turned out great! Way to go Daddy!

Let Me Do It

This is Hurricane Hailey. She likes to get in to makeup, make messes and tease me. Today while I was changing Hailey's poopy diaper, she said "Mom, let me do it." So I let her open the tabs on her diaper and she proceeded to pull the stinky diaper away from her front. As I started to smell the horrid smell coming from her diaper, I unknowingly made a funny face. She laughed mischeviously. I have to question if this was her plan from the start. She is so cute but SMELLY! I love being a mom, even if it does involve the glamorous job of changing stinky diapers!