Abundant Recompense Copy

A few Saturdays ago we had the best day. The weather was amazing. And it was the one day out of a million that we somehow managed to blunder our way into balancing play time/family time/productive time just right. No pics (or recollection, frankly) of the productive time portions of the day, but here are some from a fun little family outing. There's a nursery a little ways down the road that exchanges hay rides to a pumpkin patch for canned food each fall. We had it marked on our calendar this year and loaded up a bag of food and took the scenic route to the nursery and ate sandwiches in the car on the way down. We hit it just right somehow, and there was no line for the hayrides. So we planted ourselves on bales of straw, and off we went. That tractor booked it! I was worried we'd fall off the back a couple of times, but everybody hung on tight and we all made it to the pumpkin patch in one piece. Each of the kids got a free pumpkin, and we had fun picking our way through the ...

Dad got the canyon bug last month (I'd say he picked it from me, since I had it earlier this summer, but I inherited the condition from him to begin with), and Addison and I agreed to come along with him on a three-day road trip that took us 750 miles through some of the most amazing country on God's green earth. Except in this case, the earth was red and chocolate and white and orange and dark purple and pretty much every other color of the rainbow. This was our route: View Larger Map We went down the evening of Halloween and got to go trick-or-treating with Grandma and Grandpa and Lindsey and Micah. We were scheduled to leave on our trip at 6:00 the next morning. Addison woke up at 5:00 and proceeded to puke his guts out, thanks to Halloween candy-bingeing. We had to stop twice in the predawn hours to beg grocery bags from convenience store clerks, but after tossing his tootsie rolls a couple more times he was good to go. Between heaves. Our first hike was called "The To...

There's really no denying it. Leah was a giraffe, Bryn an owl, and Addison a shark. And the cutest part was how cool they felt in their costumes. I just love it.  We did it all. Trick-or-treating at the nursing home, ward party/parade/get-tons-of-candy-fest, and trick-or-treating in St. George with Grandma and Grandpa. We carved pumpkins, watched "The Great Pumpkin," painted pumpkins, and colored on pumpkins. We had kindergarten and preschool parties. And we have all eaten more than our fair share of candy, with the possible exception of Bryn, who is very mature and careful about the amount of candy she eats. Addison, on the other hand, threw up three times the morning after Halloween. In all honesty, that makes me feel kind of good, because at least he's not used to eating that much garbage all the time. And we ended up with three gallon-sized freezer bags full of candy for leftovers. I have no idea what to do with it (except the Reese's, no problems there), so i...