Pickin punkins

We had fun picking out and painting punkins with our friends the Cannings.  We headed over to a little local farm on a beautiful fall Saturday.

 Pretty much impossible getting all five of them to look at the camera.

 These three love each other!

 Tiffany and Justin had us over to their brand new house to paint punkins on their back porch. Brave!

New Adventures in Moab

We had a great trip to Moab for fall break.  We decided to try something different and stayed in this little cabin way up the canyon near the river.  It was awesome.  It was so peaceful up there - no wifi, hardly any cell service, and just all of us together.  I had originally planned to run a half marathon down there, but after three straight weeks of illness, I made the decision not to run.  Which was fine - it left more time for fun adventures.

We ended up having some great company down there because Brett was camping with his kids, and my parents were down there as well for the first real trip to Moab.  We were only able to meet up with Steve and Bubba for dinner one night, but it was fun talking about our day's adventures.

When we first got there, we had fun exploring around the ranch where we were saying.  The cabin was on the Hauer River Ranch, which is a real working ranch with horses.  We took the dogs down by the river and Cash decided there was no way he wasn't going for a swim. All was fine and good until the current starting taking him away and we all freaked out.  Luckily, he's a lab and dude can swim, so he eventually made his way back to the shore.

The next morning, the Naisbitts came up the canyon and met us for a hike up to Fisher Towers, which was right across the road from where we were staying.  It was a beautiful day and the kids and dogs had a great time.

 I couldn't help but snap this picture of the happy couple.

Our dogs have never been to Moab before.  They were hot and happy.

 We met up for dinner that evening at Eddie McStiff's.  The girls always love playing with Leah.

The next day, we decided to try something different and go on a little raft adventure down the river. The river is pretty low key and perfect for kids.  Our guide was great, although I'm not sure how much the other people on our boat appreciated all the kids.  Oh well!

The next morning was supposed to be the race day...we had to be out of the canyon by 7 a.m. in order to avoid being trapped up there when they closed the road for the race.  This was great because we got going early, had breakfast at Love Muffin, and went on another hike, this time to Corona Arch.  This was 3 miles round trip with a few tricky spots where they have ropes placed to assist you.  That didn't help the dogs much, so we ended up boosting them up some of the trickier places.

 There was a sea of cairns about halfway up the trail.

 Family pics in front of Corona Arch.

 The girls made their own cairns to contribute to the selection.

 We hopped right in our car and headed right home.  We be headed down there one more time this fall before winter sets in.

Park City North Face Endurance Challenge and Birthdays

 A few weeks ago, we spent a weekend in Park City.  I ran in the North Face Endurance Challenge at Park City Mountain Resort and we spent some time in town doing other stuff.  Saturday we found ourselves at a local park - a local dude set up a slack line and all the kids lined up for a try.  The girls needed a little help across, but their gymnastics balance beam skills came in handy.

On race day, Josie and Piper actually ran their first race.  It was one kilometer and there were some characters that ran with them - Sponge Bob, Cinderella, etc.  Piper had a bit of a freak out at the start when Sponge Bob tried to give her five and ended up bailing on most of the race (she forgot to "run" with her baby), and while Josh and I were dealing with her drama, Josie took off and ran her little heart out.  I had to sprint to catch up to her.  They both got medals for their participation and had fun getting their faces painted too.

We also had my family over for dinner for Bubba's birthday.  Side note, Josh has become our official family cake baker.  He is now tasked with making a cake for every person's birthday party and he is getting quite creative.  Bubba's cake had part lemon, part vanilla, with raspberry jam in the middle, and cream cheese frosting.  She loved it.

We also celebrated Josh's birthday.  He didn't have to make his own cake, we had ice cream cake instead and Bubba made her special meatloaf.