waiting

This is Matthew's favorite waiting place while he watches for his brothers to come home from school on a warm fall afternoon.
(I had to put both pictures in because the smiles are so darn cute!)

33 miners

I have a soft spot in my heart for coal miners because I served my mission in coal country. Last week, I watched and listened with hope and amazement of the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners who were rescued from 1/2 a mile underground after something like 79 days of being trapped inside their collapsed mine. Wow! Miracles do happen. I love that the world celebrated with them. An awesome "feel good" news story for a change. Then reality hit. I read an article yesterday that reminded me that even though their rescue was miraculous, they will be facing great challenges as they get back to real life. Most of them lived a life of poverty before the entrapment. Now, they will return to that life of poverty -- possibly even more so now that they are faced with the task of searching for new employment because the mine has been closed. Not to mention the psychological and emotional issues they must have to face in healing from the whole ordeal. I wonder how many will choose to ride the "celebrity" route -- book deals, movies, appearances, etc. I hate to admit it, but I think their story is fascinating and I would probably consider reading a book about it. And for those who choose to pursue a private life, I wonder how long it will take the media to leave them alone. I wonder how many will choose to go back into the mines, IF a job is available. I hope more miracles are sent their way.

stewart falls

Mark took the day off Friday, and the kids were out for UEA, so we decided to hike up to Stewart Falls. We called GayLynn and Spencer and invited them to join us. The trailhead starts just past Aspen Grove. It's about a 4 mile hike, roundtrip. It was perfect fall hiking weather, and with good company along too, we had a fabulous afternoon. The kids loved playing in the COLD water and we all managed to get our feet a little bit wet!
I didn't need to go under the waterfall, I was getting sprayed just standing here waiting for the picture to be snapped!
Ryan and Jacob venturing under the falls.
Jared perched atop a huge rock that overlooks the falls.
Testing out the water.

Spencer and Ryan about mid-falls.
On the way out, I caught a couple photos of the gorgeous fall colors in the mountains.
Seems like yellow is mother nature's color of choice this year -- it was so vibrant!

when life gives you plums...

make plum jelly! LOTS of plum jelly. Last year, I gave a ton of plums to a friend and she turned them into delicious plum jelly. I decided to give it a try this year. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's a beautiful deep red color and it tastes great! I made 5 batches. Who would have ever thought that those nuisance plums could turn into something so delicious? (Just for the record, the plums really are yummy right off the tree, but really -- you can only eat so many plums! And the tree produces tons!)

My second new canning adventure this year was apple pie filling. It tastes great, but the presentation isn't quite where it should be. I know what to do differently next year. And I WILL try again! I only did 7 quarts since we don't normally use a lot of pie filling.

forced remodeling

Over Labor Day weekend, we realized that we had a leaky shower pipe upstairs. We discovered the leak when the ceiling in the family room downstairs started raining. We ended up tearing out 1/2 the ceiling. We are now in the process of fixing the ceiling and of course we'll have to do some painting to get things back in order. To go along with that, we will be replacing the banisters, since two of the spindles are broken out. We're hoping to go with a natural wood instead of the painted variety that is currently in place. Most likely we'll also replace the kitchen floor in hopes of making things look a little nicer. The fireplace has issues and since it isn't manufactured anymore, we can't get replacement parts, so we're considering installing a new one of those as well. We've looked at a bazillion samples of this and that, made our choices (or so we think!) and I can officially say, we're tired of it. It's not so very fun anymore. We wish it all were done already. However, the guy who is helping us with these odd jobs is currently booked on a huge remodeling project, so he is only able to work at our house on a very infrequent basis until sometime in December. Nothing like prolonging the agony!

sports and more sports

Ryan started basketball practice a couple weeks ago and had his first game this week. They opened by playing the toughest team in the league and got crushed. If they could have just erased the first quarter of the game, the score would have been about tied at the end. The game simply got away with them at the git-go. Ryan wasn't too happy about his playing time and he didn't seem to have the ball much either. That's a hard thing when you're used to playing point and being the starter. I'm glad he had lots of ball-handling experience last year, because it might be a different scenario this year since he's playing with a more talented team.

Moving on to football. We had cheap tickets for the BYU vs. Nevada game a couple weeks ago. The weather was perfect, maybe a tad warm but definitely enjoyable. The stadium and crowd, as usual, loud and exciting. The actual game -- HORRIBLE! Let's just say BYU is definitely struggling this year.

Now for the good stuff. Jacob's soccer team has been AWESOME this season. I'm pretty darn sure they've won every single game (no one keeps official score)! About 1/2 the kids (including Jacob) played together last year and its amazing to see how much they have improved. Its been a fun team because Jacob has several good friends playing with him. He has discovered that playing goalie isn't too bad and that he's actually pretty good at it too. The highlight of his goalie experience was a couple weeks ago when a kid kicked the ball high and Jacob jumped up to catch it. If he was 1/4 inch taller, he would have had it! As it turned out however, he had enough hand on it to block it and keep the ball out of the goal!! Wahoo!

This is Jacob kicking a goal!
And of course, the high-5 after the goal with his buddy, Colman.
Soccer is over till spring now. It's been a very fun season.

teeth on the move

Count those teeth -- yep, 4. Jared had all those pulled out last week. Four in a row on the upper right side. He cannot chew on that side of his mouth, of course. The good news is, 2 teeth are already on their way in and hopefully that's the end of the baby teeth. We'll check it out with the ortho at the end of the month.

Ryan got braces on his front teeth this week. He refused picture taking. Obviously, this new hardware makes his teeth sore and limits his biting and food choices. Combine both factors and you get one very grumpy kid. As for me, the chief cook and bottle-washer, I think I'll just start mushing all meals into a fine paste.