Fall leaves

One fall morning my girlfriend invited our family to hang out with her family up 

Hobble Creek Canyon.

Lucky for us she is also a photographer and brought her camera!

Here is her website

She is awesome!

 I am so excited about how they turned out!  

 I can't decide which ones to frame.  

(I only posted a few.... I'm saving the best for later)

 adore N's face here!

 this picture of W CRACKS me up!

It's like "hello ladies" ;)

 Joey and I snapped a few also

THanks Dan and Becca for the awesome time! 

We love being with you guys!

Pintresting II

So apparently I haven't finished my goal of 25 pintrest completions this summer.  But I did get a few more done.  Biggest one:

4. inspiration pin:

I believe that the inspiration pin is wallpaper, 

but I couldn't find a wallpaper I liked in the color I wanted.

So I went with a stencil and paint.

 Final Product!

So thankful to my mom for helping me out with this all-day painting project.

And for my hubby for doing the molding frame.

5. While we were at it, we did the bathroom too.

Inspiration pin:

my little powder room finished.

6. found a pin on fun science projects to do with kids.  

7. made Olympic ring cookies for the opening ceremonies...

but kids ate them or they broke before we frosted them

8. Printed some cute Star Wars

preschool games like matching and memory.

and I tried some yummy recipes:

9.  Oven baked loaded potato rounds.  

Kids even liked these.

10.  Cafe Rio dressing...

not as good as the original but I made it slightly

lower-fat and used cilantro from my garden!!

11.  Didn't have a trifle dish, but this inspired me

to have peach & strawberry shortcake

with real whipped cream on poundcake.

Yum!

12. Made this yummy dessert for a family party.

It was good but a little too much work for me.

I'll stick to peaches and cream I think!

Still my favorite.

13. Printed these off for kids to color during 

Sacrament Meeting at church.

okay, so I'm only about halfway to my 25 goal.

But I've got a lot of good ideas in my mind

(or rather, on my boards)

and especially for the holidays.

So hopefully I will post a few more in the near future.

(and sorry I was too lazy to post the links to the real sites. 

You could look on my pinterest boards if you really want them).

Olympic Inspiration

So I loved the Olympics.  I watched it for hours everyday and was so inspired by it.  While enjoying track and field I thought to myself... I wish I could be an olympic runner.  Ha! Obviously that ship has sailed away long ago.  So how about something attainable?  I wish/wonder if I could run a mile as fast as I did in High School.  I remember running about a 7:17 minute mile (or maybe it was 7:07, but I decided to go for the higher number).  So I made the goal to try to run a mile again that fast.

First day I took my gps on my phone (runkeeper app) and went to the nice new paved trail just outside my neigborhood and jogged a mile to mark my start and stop points.

14 august-- 8:02 first try
15 august-- 7:40 little better
20 august-- 8:02 again (I was running into the wind a bit)
24 august-- 7:19 I almost did it!
28 august-- 7:39
3 september (today)-- 7:03 I DID IT!!!  I ran so hard today because I was determined to reach this goal!!!  I started getting shin splints last week (something I also go in HS) so I wanted to be done with it and not have to do it anymore (I don't love running).  So I ran hard as I could today and reached my goal :)  I felt like I'd throw up.  To a serious runner this probably doesn't sound too impressive... a 7 minute mile. But to me and my 32 year old body that's birthed 3 children... I am so proud! Maybe next year I'll try to beat a 7 minute mile, but for now, I am happy!

this is the body I dreamed about having from the olympics.

But alas, I don't think I have the 

discipline necessary to achieve it!

I'll just dream about those abs as I eat ice cream later ;)

What I Will Miss About Summer:

So it's the last day of summer and I could almost cry!  

Back to school tomorrow.

Here are just a few things I will miss about summer:

 Parades.

Our kids got to be in our city parade with our ward's float.

Which took 3rd place overall!

Hiking!

We hiked to the Timpanogos caves with some friends.

Lazy days doing nothing but climbing trees

 and poles :)

 and collecting acorns

Time at the cabin and in the mountains.

naps outside

summer storms

Tennis & snowcones

Triathalons! 

(And exercising outside)

Swimming

(don't know why I have no photos

of us swimming this year...

but we went a lot!)

Splash pads

(and sprinklers and slip & slides)

Time with cousins

 (we had so much fun at 

"This is the Place" park.

This is our 3rd or 4th year going 

and we love it)

Hanging out in G&G B's backyard

(eating fruit & veggies from their trees & garden)

Fishing

(check out that whopper!)

Family Reunions

 We had a zip line

 and a pioneer theme

(I don't think I would have survived as a pioneer :)

Man!  We've had such a good summer.

I can't stand to see it end.

I'm not ready for the busyness and

schedule that is coming but here we go!