::::

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!

::morning buddies::

Kris and I have been trying to train ourselves into runners. It's not that easy. We're training for DisneyWorld's marathon weekend in early Jan. I'm going to do the half marathon and Kris will do the full. We're hoping that next Sept we'll get to do the Berlin Marathon with Kris's Uncle Richard, if all goes well. (I'm still not committing to ever really running a marathon, but I can at least train for it!)

So this entails running (or run/walking in my case) at least three times a week. Most times Kris and I end up switching off days and going out first thing in the morning--about 6:15 is when we have to go in order to get kids to school and people to work on time.

The other morning Max happened to be awake when Kris was getting ready to go. This is so very unusual, most of the time we're dragging him kicking and screaming (figuratively--usually) out of bed at seven or later.

But he was awake, and he begged Kris to let him ride along on his bike. Kris is already a good dad and has been taking Sultan along. Poor Sultan is just dying for exercise and fun and loves to go. It makes things way too complicated for me, but Kris is sweet and takes him along.
So there he was, with a boy on a bike and a dog on a leash, both ready for fun and adventure. And he was supposed to be actually getting a workout in.

It went alright, so I hear. It's happened three times since I think. Today Max had a rough time getting up, but he still did it. And Kris took some documentary style pictures as they trundled along.

(It's cold and dark in the morning!!)

(Fabulous cactus flowers.)

I think they make look a bit speedier than they truly are in this photo. They look like they're just zooming along the trails.

Kris says he's not really getting too good of a work out, but the guys are way too excited and enthused about it and he would feel terrible just sneaking out without them.
Isn't he a sweet dad?
I love that Max is excited to go with him and work hard, and I love that he's seeing how we're working and trying hard to be fit and have fun. Hopefully it'll all rub off well on him and he'll be able to see that anything (well, almost anything) is possible if you work hard enough!

::::

Babies just love to explore and do fun stuff. They love to play with toys and get tickled. They love to reach for things that they shouldn't touch.

They love these things and beg to do them all day long. They insist that they're not tired and it's not bedtime. Ever.
BUT.
They give themselves away.

This morning at about 8AM I was thinking that our Sandy looked a little sleepy. But he was convinced that he needed to be playing and having fun.

But then he spied his pacifier across the room.

Once he had that he saw his blanket.


The rest is pretty-much history. He tried to tell me he really didn't need a nap, but luckily I know better.

He went right to sleep, the cute little stinker.

::max swims::

Max has always loved to swim. He's been basically a fish for a long time. I had him take a couple of rounds of swimming lessons at the Y when we lived in Providence. Those were basically a joke. They started with about 100 floaties on, and then if the kids were wimpy the teachers would let them put even more floaties on. I think all they did in those classes that was worth anything was blow bubbles into the water and kick.
Anyway, it turned me off swimming lessons.

But when Sandy was born I realized that I was going to need Max to be a solid swimmer if we were going to go swimming in the summertime with just Max Sand and I. So I got him into some private swimming lessons at the beginning of the summer, and it's been amazing. The teacher is the nicest old retired guy. He's jolly and kind, but not afraid to push and ask a lot.

Max went from refusing to even try to roll on his back to floating on his back quite well. He's also doing the backstroke along with freestyle strokes, the butterfly and all sorts of other things that I haven't a clue what they're called.

I just have these pictures because the other day Kris asked me to bring my camera and take some video so that he could see how Max is doing, since the lessons are always during work hours. I felt like a dope, dragging my huge camera to document every little thing my kid was doing, but as always the photos made up for it. They're just so fun to have!
And my mother would be interested to know, these are straight out of the camera. I really should probably have lightened them up a bit, but I think they're pretty great.


Hopefully Max can continue to improve, and most importantly continue to love swimming and it can be something he can enjoy doing for a long long time. We're proud of our little fish!

::fun run::

(Max is on the very far right in this photo.)
Today was Max's school's biggest fund raiser, the "Fun Run."
They have a 5k race at 8AM then a 1 mile run at 9AM.
Last year we sponsored the race and it was really fun to do, so we did it again.

Last year we came in dead last in the 1 mile run. Cammon & Lorri were visiting us, which was awesome. But we were late in getting there and as we were running up there the main field took off, way too far away for us to have a hope of catching up. So we walked and Max wimped out and we were the very last. Well, except little Scooter who decided to run the whole way. But the rest of us were pretty slow. No big deal.

But this year, we wanted to be faster.

I've been running a bunch, working towards doing a half marathon in January 2012. This is amazing for me because I've always hated to run. I've always been the slowest worst runner. So working on this is hugely tough and challenging for me. But as of today I've run (and when I say run I mean a combo of running and walking) 70 miles! That's in about the last month and a half to two months. So I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Though I'm slow slow slow, I'm at least getting some miles in and I have to be getting better, however slightly.

So I did the 5K. It was my first official race and it was tough. Some fat ladies passed me and stayed ahead and I couldn't keep up with some kids--BUT I finished and I wasn't last. There were slower people than me, somehow. And I didn't wimp out. It got kind of warm and I got tired on the hills, but I made it.

Now for Max.

(There he goes, tongue out of his mouth as usual and feet not even touching the ground! This picture was taken by my friend Mandy, thanks Mandy!!)
We've been trying to get Max into getting more active and having more fun with it. Running and biking have been the things we've been encouraging. So we've been talking up the Fun Run here. He was ready to try hard because one of the prizes was a toy store gift certificate.

He took off pretty quickly and Kris says he definitely walked a bunch, but he did it. He didn't wimp out and he was running when he started and running when they came up to the finish! I'm really pleased with the progress since last year. We're both quite improved. And our attitudes are better.

Max didn't win anything of course, but I did take him to the store and get him a prize. As far as I'm concerned he was awesome.

Judy from the office came and joined us and did super well. It was fun to have her there! I was excited when I saw her at the finish line cheering me on when I was done.

IT's pretty fun that we have a great event like this we can sponsor and get involved in right down the street from our house!
And we're pretty proud of ourselves--and tired tonight.