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This sweet and adorable photo is from the day we left to UT for the BYU game.  I was working hard on packing the car and cleaning up and Max was entertaining Lucy.

I don't think anything could possibly be any cuter than this scene.  She was so dang excited to get to play the piano.



Honestly I don't have a clue what day I took the two photos below, but it's such a crazy thing to have her asleep in the carseat I guess I thought documenting it would be a good idea.  She's so cute with her little lip sticking out.



And then the close up was so I could remember how much I enjoy dressing this little poop in fun girly clothes.  I like how much a peach polka dot sweater and cream and pink polka dot pants go together.  The bummer is that you can't see her little dress.  It has hot air balloons on it.  And I saved it from a couple of terrible poop episodes so I'm rather attached to it now.



And there's my little darling baby with her big smile.  She has the cutest little personality.  She just loves attention and watches people's faces like a hawk.  She doesn't ever want me to be out of her sight.  She's my adorable little barnacle.

And do you spy the little dimple on her right cheek?  I'm pretty sure that comes from her cute daddy.

::football::

So the whole point of our trip, besides having fun seeing family of course, was to attend a BYU home game. We chose this weekend purely because the dates worked best. BYU was playing Utah State. When we first decided to go and set aside the time, we didn't realize it was a late game. Friday night at 8:15PM. Not a great thing for Sandy who regularly goes to bed at seven.

But there was no way we were leaving Sandy out of the family fun, so we just manned up and went for it.  You can tell in these photos that he's already tired.
It was so fun to be in the stadium but it was weird to sit on the west side.  I don't think we've ever been on that side before.  We got there nice and early, in just enough time to get a great parking spot (free?!) and claim our seats before our bench filled up.  Kris was nice enough to get me a special BYU stadium chair at the bookstore and that helped me to be so much more comfortable than normal--super important when one is holding a heavy baby all night.

"C'mon Max!!"  This is something we're always saying.



Yay Sandy says--sort of.  We had Dad & Mom on standby to come and pick him up when it all got too much and too late.  But he was having a lot more fun than he looks like here.



And Lucy was having fun.  She was all dressed in her warm footies and she was taking it all in.


I had Lucy in my lap and Sandy lying on top of me most of the time--I'm used to that, it's my normal state in life.  I have to say I'm lucky.  I love both these guys so much.

Max sat over by Kris and seemed to actually be following what was happening in the game from time to time which was awesome.  He feels invested in the team because of his sports camps spending time in the stadium, but mostly I think it was the awesome fireside that we got to go to last year in Indiana where Taysom Hill spoke about Nephi that really hooked him.  He was able to really connect with some of the guys and Bronco, and that's pretty cool.


Anyway, the temps were good and it was a clear night.  Lucy wore her little fuzzy bear hat and mittens.  Super cute, and super funny because as soon as I got the mittens on her, all she wanted to do was touch stuff with her little paws.  Especially Sandy's head and face.  She was leaning totally out of my arms reaching and reaching to try to pat Sandy's face.


The fireworks were fun and the skydivers were pretty nifty.  But.........the game was sad.  Poor Hill got seriously injured--a broken leg--and was out of the game (and the season) before half time.


Just before half time we summoned our backups to come and pick up Sandy.  Kris took him down to the corner and the grandparents came and picked him right up.  But not before he had part of a DOUBLE CHURRO.  Mmmm.  It was pretty good.

Sadly though Sandy was pretty disappointed to get shipped off.  I'm told he didn't say a word the whole time from pick-up to bed besides a pitiful, "mommy....mommy...."  Guilt?



Anyway, Kris left to take Sandy down for pick up.  The team was winning.  In the 10 minutes that he was gone, Hill went out and suddenly the team was losing.  It all went downhill from there and the worst thing was that I didn't even realize that Hill was out!  It was pretty hard to follow what was going on, but it was obvious that something bad had happened and then I noticed it wasn't Hill down there throwing the ball.

So the game was a bust--unfortunate considering it had been a winning season and BYU was predicted to go undefeated.  Who wants to lose to UT state?

BUT it's always fun to go to games and cheer for your team, even at a losing game.  And we have a lot of experience with that.

Lucy slept in my baby holder the whole night after a little convincing and we finally got back from the game at about midnight if I'm remembering right.  Boy were we tired.  I hope we get to go to a winning game sometime soon, but even if not we'll keep taking the kids and having fun.

::hiking the Y::

One of the things I thought would be really fun to do while we were on our football visit was to hike the Y.  It'd been quite a long time since I had done it and Kris too.  In fact I can't even remember if we ever did it together or not.

Mom was very skeptical because the last time she had hiked the Y she didn't make it.  But that was a long stinking time ago, so it seemed like it might be a different experience now.  And it was.



Leave it to Max to be hanging on the other side of the gate like a monkey in a cage.  Everybody is all dressed up in their football shirts because it was game day!



Sandy is way too big for that backpack, but it was nice to have him in there so we didn't have to worry about him walking the whole way.

Everybody was pretty enthusiastic when we started out.  I had the baby in the front carrier and I was doing just fine for about the first 20 feet, and then as the path went straight up I started to get really tired.  And honestly, the path goes straight up the whole dang way.

So Grandpa took the baby and he sure seemed to enjoy having her snuggled in.  As he said when he saw this picture it looks like he's wearing some sort of strange baby holding overalls.  Pretty awesome.  Lucy slept about half the way up and the whole way down.  It was probably the best nap she had for the entire trip.



The views from that high up were pretty spectacular.  I'm always surprised at how huge the lake is.



Poor Max struggled with the steep steep grade and he got really tired.  Lucky Sandy got to ride in the backpack for most of the way up and then wakl himself up to the top.








What was really funny was this.  Max, tired as he was got slower and slower as we got higher.  My mom went to help him out and she pushed and pulled him up higher and higher.  In fact, they got ahead of us because Max got a second wind when we got to a point where we could see the bottom of the Y.



Anyway, Kris and I had decided we'd just go to the bottom of the Y and be happy with it, but by the time we got there, Mom and Max were so far ahead that they had already passed the path to the bottom and were on their way up to the top!  So we went to the top.



It was tough to get in position for a good photo and the sun was sooooo bright.



Mostly it's just tough to get everybody even looking in the same direction.



I loved the view of the rocky cliffs from where we were, and all the fall leaves changing were gorgeous too.  Those Provo mountains are pretty magnificent.





A nice lady offered to get us all in a photo, so there you go.



I think we'll hike that Y lots more times in the next few years as we visit.  We need to build up some stamina.

We went down the trail slowly but carefully.  On the way down Sandy discovered he could make a Chewbacca sound and that made him happier than anything in the world.

Our reward for our hard work and fun was lunch at Burger's Supreme.  And from the table we were sitting at we could see the Y high up on the moutain.  We all felt pretty amazed that we had just been up there.

::bowling at byu::

The other night I realized that not only had Sandy never been bowling, but he didn't even know what bowling was.  We were in the midst of a big mountain thunderstorm and poor Sandy had already been put to bed.  He was lying in bed all sad and scared and Kris and I were taking turns trying to comfort him and settle him down.  I tried to have him imagine the clouds bowling and the thunder was the pins falling down but he had no idea what I was talking about.

We actually don't have a bowling alley in Santa Fe at all.  There's one about 30 min north, and I'm sure there are plenty in ABQ but we have none here.  So when Kris and I talked about running up to the BYU bookstore while we were in UT for the game, I thought how fun it would be to take the kids to the BYU Games Center to bowl on the same trip.

The games center was a little smaller and older than I remembered, but isn't everything like that when it exists in memory for many years?  We had Parker with us for the afternoon, and Kris had put the boys to work at Mom & Dad's house picking up dog poop so they could earn money for the video games.  They were pretty excited about that, and kept trying to go and play games in between turns.


Sandy was excited but also nervous, which is pretty much how he always deals with new things.  You can see Max down below immediately taking advantage of the bumpers.  But I can't be too rude about that.  I may have ended up bouncing off the bumpers just about every single turn myself.



We had everybody playing, so getting shoes on and balls selected and names put in the computer took a long time, and by the time we actually got playing we only had about 30 minutes before we had to leave to get ready for Charlotte's birthday party.  Grandpa had to go home and cook for us all.



Lucy enjoyed being handed around between some of her favorite people.  She always looks really confused when she gets tangled up in Grandpa's beard though.  It's pretty funny.



I love Sandy's sympathy position here.  He's a pretty intense guy.



So cute.




We only played about half the game, but that was really all we needed.  Now Sandy will know what I'm talking about next time he's scared of thunder, and the kids all got to see the place I got kicked out of back when I was fourteen because my shorts were too short.  Family history right there.

::zippy quick trip to UT::

We zipped out to UT for the weekend to attend our traditional yearly BYU football game and as a side perk, to spend some time with the family.



Kris's mom was out of town but we got to see Kari on our way through Spanish Fork, and Max got a little Parker time in.

This was a super quick trip.  We started driving in weds night after work and then arrived at my parent's house Thursday at about 2PM.  We left for home on Saturday morning after a big pancake breakfast (mmmm) and got home at about 2PM Sunday.  Quick quick quick.

We had lots of fun playing around with the family.  At one point on Friday morning I was busy doing something and when I looked up there was Grandpa and Sandy pulling eaching other's beards.  It was quite the scene.  Lucy got distressed.  Can you see how desperately she's looking at me?  She can't understand why I won't save her from the family drama.







We were eating breakfast that same morning when Sandy started fuzzing Grandpa's beard.  He still loves to do that.  But then he started pushing his hand up into the beard and he said, "oooooh, it's SPIKEY in there!"  Then he started pulling on it and said, "What happens if you take it off?"

I said, SANDY!  I've been wondering that for almost 35 years!


Mom and I were out taking pictures of Lucy in the cute little overalls with the pumpkin applique from when I was tiny.  She was a good sport and so I thought for a reward I would teach her how to take excellent selfies.



A 3 generation selfie is someting special, but honestly Lucy was pretty unimpressed.



It was a fun trip.  We got to be there for a bday party for Charlotte with all the other siblings, we had pancakes with Cammon's family another morning, we got to spend some quality time with mom and Dad, and a picture of the family was taken where Kris was actually present.
It was a great quick trip with lots of family fun.

::picture face::

I found these photos on my camera after Cammon came to visit--looks like he was checking it out.


Sandy's picture face is so dang hilarious.  He is so weird.  And I love his pirate shorts plus pirate shirt.  And by the way, no, he's not supposed to go outside with just his socks on....

::one more uncle cammon::

The place we went to dinner has a really scenic setting.  Right out of the back of the patio where we were eating was this gorgeous view.

So we thought we'd better take a photo or two.



Smoldering.



Sandy brought a table knife out with him.  He has a thing about table knives and it drives Max crazy. "What does he need a knife for!!!?"




I don't have much to say about this one.........does it define our relationship??



And finally just a nice photo, but here comes little Mr Photobomber with his table knife.  Mom, you were wondering what a photobomb was?  Well here you go.  It's somebody that sneaks into a picture that isn't supposed to be there and changes the whole thing.  Little stinker.