::family::

Today I'm in UT for a quick quick little visit.

I thought these pictures turned out great, besides the fact that Kris is missing. It happens a lot so we're resigned to it by now.

Silliness.

::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.

::oktoberfest::

More fun with the Wilde family from this weekend!
Kids playing made up pool games--sometimes getting along, sometimes arguing, but always having fun.



Kris always likes to have a German Oktoberfest celebration at some point in October. There's always one happening in some little town not too far away and then we miss it.  So we have to do our own.

This was a perfect time to do it. Blake and Kris went to the same mission in Germany, so they were very excited to make some delicious german food for us.
They went shopping together in the afternoon and got all the supplies, then put it all together while Brooke and I watched (and watched the kids.)


Sandy watching the process while eating two of his favorite foods, pancakes and cheerios:

Girls also watching and entertaining themselves.

They made sauerkraut, bratwurst and knoedel with gravy.
They also bought some delicious german chocolates to finish off the meal.

It turned out delicious, albeit a trifle heavy. Some of us girls had complaining stomaches after, but don't tell the boys.

It's always fun to hear Kris and Blake remember their old mission stories. Some of them are so outrageous.  The food inspired lots of good stories.

It was a very fun night!

::::

Our good friends from college, the Wildes came to visit us this week so that we could all go down to Albuquerque's ultra-famous balloon fiesta.
We were headed out this morning. To go to this thing you have to get up super early in the morning, because the first balloons go up at around 5:45.
Weather hasn't been great here the last couple of days, which is totally unusual for this area. It's been cold and cloudy and rainy. I guess we don't have it that bad though, since I did hear that Utah got SNOW! Crazy!
Anyway, the balloons didn't go up yesterday morning because of winds. We were worried that might happen again, but we rolled the dice and went for it. I mean, the Wildes came all the way from Tucson--how could we not try?

The adults were up at 3:30, and by slightly after 4AM we had all the kids in the car and were driving south.

As we drove south the rain started to fall. And it didn't stop.
We got down there and waited for a while in the dark to see if it would stop. It let up a bit, but not much. We got everybody bundled up and went in to see what was happening. All that happened was that we got wet.

After that we went back to the car to give things one more chance. The kids watched a movie and I think there's a good chance that all the adults fell asleep for a least a tiny bit.

By 7AM it was pretty clear nothing was going to happen so we drove off to get some fast food breakfast and head back.

Bummer for sure, but an adventure nonetheless. And at least we tried. It would've been pretty sad if the balloons had gone up without us there to see them!!

::youch & cinnamon rolls::

Yesterday when Max was out adventuring he had an unfortunate incident. He had a brush with death (i.e. a bumblebee). The bumblebee was flying at him as he was riding his bike on the trail behind our house. This bumblebee may or may not have existed, and it may or may not have stung him on the cheek (it didn't.) But this supposed bumblebee startled him enough that he ran into a cactus. YOUCH.
This really isn't surprising because the man NEVER watches where he's going while riding his bike. It drives me crazy. He's talking and swerving and having close calls all the time he's riding.

So anyway, he was out for just a few minutes riding by himself when the horrific event happened. I heard him come in and I said, "How was your ride, Max?" He said, "BAD!" But since he's the little stoic, he couldn't just tell us what had happened. Instead he lay down on the floor and pulled his pants down and there were the spikes.

(Post spike removal.)
He really didn't get spiked too bad--not as many spikes as he could've ended up with. But the big one in the middle must've really hurt. It left a big purple bruise.
Kris got his loupes and tweezers and a headlamp, and I held his head while we pulled them out.
Once they were out he was pretty cool about it. He got a long warm bath and then all was ok.
Would you like to run into one of these?

I don't want to, but I'm sure I'll have my turn at some point. These spikey things are everywhere!! There's even a story involving the Land Rover and cactuses that I'll save for Kris to tell another day. It's just too good to waste.

(Dramatic re-inactment. This one is right on our driveway!)

And the next item here in today's post is cinnamon rolls.
I figure it's always fun to have something yummy to eat during conference, and on conference sunday sometimes I actually have time to do something like make food, which doesn't happen a lot.
So anyway, I decided to make real cinnamon rolls from scratch for the first time in my life. They turned out really good!

I was pretty worried the dough wouldn't rise at first, but after I waited a bit (left the room, took a shower, stopped checking on it) it did fine.

Cute little rolls.


Done!
It took forever, that was the only problem. I started on them at probably about 8AM and they were finally ready to eat at about 11:30. Max almost didn't have enough patience to survive. He was asking me if he could "have one" before I had even finished mixing the yeast into the dough!

And he was very happy when he finally got to eat one. Picture him whispering reverently "From scratch..." as he munched.

And Sandy insisted on heating most of mine, though I tried hard to convinve him that cheerios were a better idea.

And that's all for now. Happy conference sunday. Wish it would come more often that twice a year. How about once a month?

::stripey mcstriperton::

So here are some more adorable baby pictures to celebrate the first day of October!
I just can't help it, he's so darn cute.
He was ultra stripey this day--not his fault. The poor guy has to go with whatever I dress him in. So he might be embarrassed of the stripes, but I love them. The little train conductor overalls just kill me.


The stripey effect is especially nice when he's crawling away. He looks like some sort of an optical illusion.


And that's all for now. Thanks for buying Sand his stripey socks, mom!!

::new tiger & max takes the bus::

We have a lot of fun toys at the office, but some of the funnest have got to be the big lion and tiger that live in the back operatories. They're gigantic. One of our little four years even asked recently if the lion was real or not. It was awesome.
So when I found a new and different great big tiger online of course I had to add him to our menagerie.
He came in the mail today, in a gigantic box, and Sandy and I got to check him out since we were working at the time.
This really isn't that newsworthy, but the baby is so so darn cute. And the tiger almost looks real...



Sandy wasn't sure about riding the tiger, but after a bit he felt pretty darn cool.


I didn't realize quite how realistic looking the tiger was until I saw these picture. He's almost a bit scary!
So that's all our tiger news.

In other news, Max took the bus home from school for the first time today. It was rather heavenly and he seemed to really enjoy it.
I didn't realize that the bus would stop as close to our house as it does--it's just a few houses away at the intersection. Once I realized that, and that a couple of boys from the ward ride home often, I thought we should give it a try.
It was so nice today that I could leave the baby snoozing and go up in the driveway and watch out for Max's bus to arrive. So much nicer than waking poor Sand right in the middle of his afternoon nap (which is what has happened every other school day of his life) and dragging him to the school.

The only goofy part was when Max started walking in the opposite direction from our house--I think the way the bus came got him turned around. But finally he saw me waving and calling and headed the right direction.


(The car behind him belongs to our friends from the ward.)

Here he is, once again caught in a moment with no feet touching the ground. Maybe he floats in real life and I just don't realize it?


Gooooooooooooooooofy.
I think we'll be doing bus rides any days we don't have lessons or karate right after school. It takes a little pressure off of my day's schedule, which is awesome, and it gives Max a small measure of independence, which he desperately craves. It's nice because he can feel independent in such a controlled safe way.
So anyway, it was a great thing to have happen today and I'm so glad it went well.
That's all for now, good night!

::::

Fall is coming. It's coming quickly and I'm afraid I'm going to blink and it'll be gone.
And, as you can see, we do have lovely trees to enjoy. Hooray!