UEA WEEKEND

Since we had a few days off, we had to have some fun.  Anthony Jay went camping with the scouts at Goblin Valley where his highlight was catching a frog.  Me, Andrew and Elli went with my mom and dad to St. George to see Russ and DanaLee.  We hung out and had a good time.  Elli said the best part of going to St. George on a little trip is "not cooking".  I would have to agree with her.  Anth's big highlight of the weekend was staying home and working at his new job.  It sure is good to see him happy.  However, he had us take him somewhere "fun" and cheap when we got back because he missed out on all fun.  So we drove up to Gardner Village and checked out the witches there.  What a cool place!

DAD

After many years dealing with CADASIL, Dad had a very bad stroke.  He's been in the hospital all week, but today seems to be coming out of it.  I spent an exciting and long night at the hospital with mom. (broken hospital bed, buying Snickers bars, waiting for the Valium to work)  About 2am he woke up and was able to speak and read.  He remembers the stroke starting and wants to go home very badly.  We are hoping Monday we can bring him home, then we we'll see how he is and where to go from there.  The best part of this experience is that Erick's mission president gave him permission to call home as much as he needs and gave Mom his number.  It was very touching to listen to Dad talk to him this morning.  We are taking the kids up tomorrow and Dad will walk to the waiting room and see them.  The last thing the doctors want to do is the lumbar puncture with x-ray assistance- that is supposed to happen Sunday.  We are grateful he is still with us and we're so blessed that we all live close and can work together to support him and mom.

Fall Drive

We took a Sunday drive through Alpine loop.  It rained most of the trip, but we were able to stop at one point to take some pics.  

CUTE ELLI

We still love having a little girl at our house. Although, she sure isn't little any more. Hard to believe she will be 5 soon.

Flag Football

Since Andrew is now in 3rd grade he started flag football. Unfortunately, they have named themselves the Broncos, which is almost a cuss word at our house. But we just call them the orange team. His good friend Marcus is on the same team and my favorite thing to watch is how they congratulate each other after good plays (like hugs, and chest bumps). His favorite thing to play is defense. He loves the glory of pulling off those flags!

My First 10k

I did it!! If anyone would have told me even 5 years ago that I would run in a 10K I would have told them they were mad. I have done a few 5k races and wanted to stretch myself a little. So I started training and ran in the "Love Your Body" race for women only. It was a bit more hilly than I'd hoped, but I did it. And I finished 1 minute faster than my goal. (I also won a free sports bra!)

Camping

Our super summer vacation was a weekend camping.

We drove for about an hour on a dirt road near Strawberry Reservoir looking for the "perfect" spot.... didn't think it would ever come.... but we found it. No one was anywhere close to us and it was just about perfect. My only request for camping in the back country was for a private facility to use the potty. So Anthony dug a hole and hung up a sheet. It was not quite what I was hoping for . Next year he said he'd buy a port-a-potty for camping. It wasn't actually me who had as much trouble as Elli- it's hard to teach a little girl how to squat properly.

It wasn't expensive or fancy, but it was just what we needed-time together.