October fun

Well October's come and it's almost gone. We've been having a great time enjoying the 75-85 degree fall here in California and excited that the weather stays nice enough to do things outside. I also have been very domestic and decided to can some tomatoes (yes, in October, weird huh?) since they're still in season here and I got them for pretty cheap. We decided to make a family outing out of our trip to Larry's- the cool farmers market. Kassidy had a good time exploring in the "munkin" patch and playing on their huge slide. Although she did ask me, "You smell that stunk Mom?" when she got a whiff of the many vegetables. She's such a character. We've also been to a fun kid party hosted by a ward member, so fun! Kassidy and I are making some wonderful friends here and they are always doing fun things.

In other news, not so good, our poor Montero might not make it to see another year, at least not with our family. After repeated problems we took it in and the diagnosis wasn't good--it needs a new engine. After weighing the costs of labor and the new engine, I think we've decided it's not worth it to fix it up. So we are now in the market for a new vehicle, and fast! We are pretty stranded without our only vehicle running and we've been saved by the grace of our amazing family and their willingness to share a car with us.

Since I don't want to overwhelm you all with the hundred or so pictures I know are coming for Halloween, I'd better get these pictures in now. Here are a few of the things we've been up to lately:


Little poser, saying "Cheese!" in the wrong direction

Dad and Kassidy by the giant pumpkin

Mom and Kass by the giant pumpkin

Daddy trying to convince Kass that the slide will be fun!!

Mom and Kassidy coming down the slide

Kass with her friend Wonder Woman at a Halloween party just for kids

This is our pirate/kitty/witch- isn't she cute?

Munkin Patch

Last but not least, we made our way north to my dad's house. Kassidy was given some adorable tinkerbell wings, which she didn't take off for the rest of the trip (notice she even wore them in our family pictures, a few posts down). My step-aunt took adorable family pictures for us (see below) and we took a big group family photo too.





My favorite part of the trip was going the a local pumpkin patch and spending a few hours. We had way too much fun playing with the pumpkins and gourds and Kassidy loved the hay maze. We picked out our own family pumpkin and painted them at home later. Kevin and I did Jack from the Nightmare before Christmas and his girlfriend, I can't remember her name. It turned out pretty well. Kassidy loved her 'munkin' as she called it, and carried it around like it was as fragile as an egg. She painted it with loads of sparkles, that's my girl!






Kass and her special munkin


Yeah, we were trying to get the mini pumpkins in the background, but this was just painful.


My cute brother and his wifey


Nice guns hun!




Lost in the hay maze




Painting our pumpkins






We had a great time and loved the gorgeous fall weather. Thanks Dad and Cathy, love you guys!

The Beav

Due to a really unrealiable computer, I haven't been able to finish posting about our Utah trip. Our next stop was Beaver to visit the Marchant clan. We woke up there the first morning to some beautiful, though accidental, ice trees and grass. The sprinklers went off during the freezing night and resulted in this, I thought it was really pretty:




Kassidy went to work with Grandma Marchant one day and was the cutest little secretary you ever saw :)

We also spent some time in Cedar City with Kurt and Wee-wee (as Kass calls her aunt Whitney) and went to the park with Grandpa Bruce.






We also made a quick stop at Kevin's sisters house and Kassidy and Berkley had a mini jam session.

Thanks Marchants for the fun stay, we had a great time and miss you already!

Better Blogging

My church published a great article in the Ensign (our monthly magazine) about better blogging and sharing the gospel online. I found the articles very informative and they caused me to look over my blog to make sure it's safe and appropriate. I haven't had the desire to go private with our blog, but I do try and be careful about the information I put on there. I found the advice in these articles very useful and a good reminder to be careful and courteous about what you write on your blog. Blogs are also a great way to share your beliefs and be an example for your church. I'd like to encourage you all to take a peek at the articles. Here's a URL link to copy and paste if you don't get the actual copy of the Ensign. Or you can search the title Better Blogging on www.lds.org under magazines. Enjoy!

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=931e52605a4e3210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

Moo-tah

The title of the post is how Kassidy says Utah. She's been talking about "moo-tah" ever since we got home. We had such an amazing time with family and friends and played way too hard, which is probably why we got sick.

We spent 3 days each with parents and it still wasn't enough time. Conference weekend was spent at my mom's house (Grandma Shelly) where we watched conference as a family and ate way too much food. Grandma Hicken (my grandma) hosted a girls night for all the girls while the men folk went to Priesthood session. We ate ravenously all the delicious food Grandma made and then crafted some bracelets and earrings out of beads and thread. Monday morning my sweet mom watched Kass so Kevin and I could go to the temple with my amazing grandparents. They work in the temple presidency at the Provo Temple and it happened to be their day off and they still wanted to go with us. Thanks Gram and Gramps! We had a neat experience.


For some reason, neither of them look to happy in this pic, but I promise they really love each other!




Kassidy with my cousin Whitley. I wish we lived closer because she'd make a fabulous babysitter!


Kassidy and Grandma Shelly at Wingers for lunch.

Spending a few days at mom's house was a great way to start off our vacation, and we had a great time. Thanks mom! We miss you already :)

I'll continue our vacation for anyone who cares in the next couple days since there's so much to tell and too many pictures.

Home

Wow, we had such a wonderful time in Utah with all our family! Now that we're back again it seems to be such a letdown, and to top it off our whole house is sick. I have way too many pictures and stories to tell and no motivation right now, so I'm just going to post them a little at a time. We got our family pictures taken by my aunt while we were home. She does such an amazing job and is the funnest blogger, check her out if you ever have time- http://www.mychaosmybliss.blogspot.com Here are the end results:

Utah, here we come!

There has been a serious lack of posts due to my excitement to go home!! Kevin has a week off school, so we're headed home to Utah to see our family. We are really excited and look forward to much needed break from our routines. I'm sure I'll have way too many stories and pictures after our visit. See you in a couple weeks!