::out my kitchen window::

I was feeding the boys breakfast a few mornings ago, and when I looked out the little window over my sink, the sun was shining into my little tree there. I realized it had finally changed color, and it was just as orange as could be. Gorgeous. And with the angle of the sun, the leaves were glowing like fire.
So of course I grabbed my camera and tried to capture it. I mean, 1. it was so gorgeous I couldn't help it and 2. I wanted to prove to all you skeptics out there that not only do we have leaves and trees and stuff out here in the desert, but we have fall and pretty changing colors!

But the window screen kept getting in my way when I was shooting from the window.

Argh.
And it didn't look quite right when I stepped outside to try to shoot it--besides my feet got freezing cold on the bricks.

So if these photos look pretty to you, imagine them glowing with a lovely morning light, and then know what I was trying to show you.
Happy end of fall!

::chiles::

On Saturday we took some crazy kids to lunch.
Then Blake wanted some roasted chiles. And since Santa Fe is crazy with the smell of roasted chiles in the fall Kris was easily convinced to find a spot where we could procure some.
So first you go in and pay the big bucks for a bag of Hatch chiles. And the checker, who barely speaks english tells you a bunch of times that only the HOT chiles are left.
Then you go out and give the guy your receipt and he hauls a huge bag over to the roaster.


Then the roaster turns on and the chiles roll around and around the barrel, dumping spicy seeds everywhere.

When you stand and watch, chile ash lands on your clothes and face and it smells so darn good.


Grace and Kris decided to get the baby out of the smoke.
Evie found a red chile. Luckily she didn't taste it or anything.


There were red and green chiles on the ground everywhere.

And there they are:

And if you think that's a LOT of roasted chile you'd be right.

When weighed at home they came out to be about 20 pounds. Yikes.
But to put the finishing touch on buying chiles, you must dig into the bag after you get home and pull out a big red chile. Definitely don't get the seeds out or cut it up, just stick it straight in your mouth and take a huge bite. Then after saying how darn spicy it is, keep taking bites.
Then when the real spiciness hits, cry.
Drink milk, hold ice against your lips and get your just deserts.
I'm glad I'm married to a crazy man that eats straight red chiles, he wouldn't be my man if he didn't do goofy things like that. But he sure is silly.
And roasted chiles sure do smell like fall.

::boston adventure pt 2::

Tthis is long overdue.
When Kris's mom was here we went up to Boston to see a cool historical cemetery--as you might remember since I posted about it forever ago.

When we got there we realized that the cemetery was on the Freedom Trail, which is a walking path through Boston that takes you by historical sites.

So we kept on walkin'!

Right up the hill from the cemetery is the famous church where Paul Revere hung his lanterns (you know, one if by land, two if by sea). The Old North Church.


Isn't that a pretty steeple? The church has been refurbished relatively recently I think.


The inside was really interesting. There are all these little compartments down on the main floor. Each family I guess had their own little compartment and could set it up however they wanted. The guide telling us about it said that some people would decorate their spot like a little living room.
Sounds pretty comfy to me. I'm about ready to adopt the practice in our church! It would make things a lot easier.


We enjoyed looking around until Max started making himself a little too much at home--opening and closing all those little doors was way too much fun.

Since Kris's mom was there we actually have a photo with all three of us in it! Yay.

Small part three to come eventually.....

::special::

As we were driving up to our campsite in Vermont we realized we drove right past Sharon, VT. This is important to us as members of our church because it's Joseph Smith's birthplace.
So we decided that on sunday when we were on our way home we would stop in and see what there was to see.
First of all the landscape there is totally amazing. Vermont may well be one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and this area is definitely high on the list of beautiful Vermont. As soon as we got off the freeway we could see the rolling wooded hills and the granite rocks. The White river runs right next to the road for some of the way and it has big granite shelves sticking out from the river bed. Hard to describe, but so dang pretty!
It was rainy and chilly on sunday, but the rain just seemed to intensify the leaves that have already changed colors.

We didn't know what to expect at this site. We knew that the church had something there, but not the details.
Driving up was kind of like driving into the temple grounds. Lovely landscaping and flowers--very well maintained. It looks like the stake center for the area is on that property. It was cool because the building is made in the new england style, with white boarded sides and a straight steeple. It's fun to see chapels built in different styles.

When we got out of the car the view was beautiful! And they have a sound system throughout the area with music from the mormon tabernacle choir playing. That had the potential to be a little cheesy and over the top, but it was actually nice. It added to the peaceful feeling there.

There's a big monument to Joseph that was set up in like 1905. It's supposed to be the biggest single piece of granite in the US or something like that. The story of how they got the stone there was pretty amazing. It involved lots of teams of horses, many weeks and a lot of prayers.

The monument looks like it could've been made yesterday, the cuts all look really fresh. It's hard to believe that it's been there for over 100 years.

The landscape around is beautiful and peaceful. Behind the monument there are some dirt roads where you can go back and see the ruins of the foundation of Lucy Smith's parents' home and some of the remnants of the old roads and bridges. The main road from canada to Boston at the time ran basically right in front of the Smith's gate. It sure would be interesting to see what it would really be like to live back then.
The view from the hill is gorgeous too. The house on the left is where they have a lot of paintings and info about Joseph and where the senior missionaries give tours. We're not sure what the house on the right is for.

The tour was really nice and well given. They had recovered the hearthstone from the house where Joseph was born and installed it there. There was also a rocking chair which Joseph had made at some point.
We enjoyed it. And even Max listened for a while.
I was a little embarrassed because we were pretty yucky from camping for three days, but oh well. The senior sister missionary from Reno took our picture anyway and told us to come back for their christmas light show. So we must not have smelled that bad, right?

I'm so glad we stopped. The feeling there was so nice. So peaceful and happy. It's my favorite of all the church sites I've visited. I'd love to go back.
As we were driving out Max said, "I sure wish we could stay here." I asked him why and he said, "Well, Joseph Smith was born there, whaddaya think?"

::found::

I found the coolest leaf ever on our camping trip.  I picked it up because of it's amazing colors and then I realized it had a hidden surprise.

Can you see it?

I've never seen a heart that's grown a leaf before, have you? It made me happy.
The fallen leaves were so amazing and colorful on our trip. I had a hard time tearing my eyes from the ground to look up. Yellow, orange, red, brown, and all of those mixed together. Just amazing. It's such a blessing to have such beauty in our lives!

::::

Go BYU!  Beat Oklahoma!  Or else, just don't get slaughtered, ok?

We have friends coming over to enjoy the game.  We're glad to have cable this year (unlike last year) so we can actually enjoy games that are broadcast nationally--although of course the nationally broadcast ones are the dangerous ones.  I mean, Oklahoma?  Yikes.

Go cougs.

This really isn't a great photo of anybody but Max, but that's not the point, right?

other attempts:

really cute:

just kind of weird:

::november::

I can't believe it's already November. Seems like it was just yesterday we were hanging out at the beach.
I can't believe that Murphy has already served almost a quarter of his mission. Wow.

We found out a couple of days ago that our poor red Land Rover didn't make it through the accident. The insurance company declared it a total loss. It looked like there wasn't really that much damage in the pictures, but there was some underlying non-obvious stuff that wasn't in good shape. And the cost of Rover repairs is high, and since our "value" was relatively low because of tons of miles and the age of the car it was a lost cause.

So we're car shopping. Against our wills. We loved that car and we didn't want to have to get rid of it. But oh well. C'est la vie, right? What happens happens, and at least we were ok. That's the important stuff.

The bummer is in all this is that we only have our rental car for a very limited period of time--through this weekend. So our car shopping is very rushed. But hopefully we can find something that works, and not completely stress ourselves out in the process.

In other news, we now have a:

not too far from our house. Can you read that? If not it says Trader Joe's. For those of you that don't know, Trader Joe's is a well priced grocery store with a lot of healthy food. Max likes it. We've been a couple of times and gotten some yummy frozen dinners that were pretty easy to cook up.
Do you see the little sad faces there in the drawing? Those are there to represent how Max acted at Trader Joe's today. Yeah, he was bad. Bad enough that he knew he was being bad. Anyway, I thought those little sad faces were pretty funny. He copied the letters from the bag in the car. He's getting really good at writing his letters.

And to finish off tonight, I have a little teaser. Melissa and I took the boys out on a walk yesterday and parked them in somebody's leaves to take some fall pictures. They turned out awesome.
Like this:

and this:

and this:

I have lots of other good ones. Tons. I'll show you all some later. But that's all for now.
Happy thursday!

Punkin Patch

On Saturday we headed out to the pumpkin patch by our old house to get some punkins we could carve. There weren't very many big pumpkins left out in the fields, but we went out searching anyway. There were a lot of little ones lying around and Max enjoyed picking out a few for us to take home. We ended up with some great pumpkiny pumpkins. Here are some photos for everybody to enjoy if they choose to do so.
Max wasn't too keen about riding in the wheelbarrow at first, but he got used to it after a while. Kris didn't dump him out, although for a while it was touch and go.You can't really see too well in this picture, but max is holding a "beebee (baby) pumpkin" It was teeny weeny and green. There were lots of cool weird gourds there too, like the one Kris is holding. The patch was so fun looking. I love these pictures.We got a tiny one, a small one and a funny green one for Max. And here Kris is holding ours. Isn't he tough? I found one with the coolest curlicues coming out of the stem, but of course on the way home the stem broke off. Oh well, isn't that how it always goes?
Long live the pumpkin patch. It's so fun that Max is finally getting old enough to catch on to what's going on and to participate.