Month: September 2014

The boys enjoyed scooting around on our lovely back patio in September.

And on September 12, they got to meet their newest nephew, Natalie’s first son, Graham. Both Jonah and Declan just LOVE holding him.

At the end of September we went to a giant pumpkin weigh off at Thanksgiving point. It almost inspired me to grow one next year…but then I thought about how much space these things would take. Our new yard is big, but not that big.

 

Me and the boys went for a hike in American Fork canyon. We were hoping to see some fall leaves, but it has been such a warm fall that they are not changing yet. Declan picked up a rock and carried it in the folds of his neck for most of the hike, not sure why, but it was cute.

We watched a caterpillar that Jonah and his friends found turn into a cocoon and then a butterfly. We learned the hard way that if the butterfly does not have enough room to spread it’s wings in the first hour or so, they will dry curled. And since our butterfly hatched in the middle of the night, it was too late when we found him. Bigger container next time!

 

We took Grandma Lloyd along for a hike up to Battle Creek falls. We found a lot of strange yellow rocks that looked a lot like Jonah…

In September, my parents came to visit. My brother Cody and his wife live here in Utah so we all hung out. My parents were kind enough to take us all to Park City for the weekends (THANKS Mom and Dad!!!) We did lot’s of fun stuff. We biked all over Park City (pulling Jonah and Declan up a hill is not for the faint of heart),

Did the Alpine slide (Declan was not a fan at all),

Went to a hot air balloon festival (early in the morning and it was COLD! but very beautiful), Declan was scared of the fire that was blowing up the balloons (are we sensing a theme here? this boys has some fears…)

 

rode a funicular up the mountain to a fancy hotel to see the view.

 

Went to Olympic Park and watched the ski jumpers practicing their flips into the swimming pool. Jonah decided he wants to be a ski jumper.

 

And I even managed to sneak in a mountain bike ride while Nick watched kiddos (Thanks Nick!)

 

Outside of Park City, we did a few fun things such as check out the witches for Halloween at Gardner Village (Declan was not a fan…”Witches, Scawey!”).

 

The kids and I took my parents and Cody to the kids’ museum. They all played at had fun. Even though the photo does not look like it…it’s the best photo I got.

Thanks for coming to visit, Mama and Papa Woodbury!

For labor day weekend, Nick and I decided to take the kids on a backpacking trip. While we did have fun, let me inform you of two things that we learned: #1: we will not be taking kids backpacking again until all of said children can walk on their own two legs. #2 It would also be very helpful if those children could help carry all the extra stuff required to have them along. Yeah…kids and backpacking…I just don’t know if it’s enjoyable. But flaming gorge was beautiful.

We did a hike to some dinosaur prints, which was pretty cool. Jonah swore every branch he saw on the ground was a dinosaur bone.

We hiked a few miles along the rim of the gorge and then set up camp. Nobody got much sleep that night as we were in mountain lion territory. We saw a bunch of deer which was really neat. But Nick saw a mountain lion on our hike and we both heard rustling all night. In the morning there was a track right between our tent and the string of the rain fly. And the leftovers of a fresh kill not too far from our camp. YIKES!