Fun, fun, fun!

I'm still here. It's been a busy past few months and I've really fallen out of the habit of blogging. Something about having a new baby and then starting the school year-- I haven't had much time to call my own. But I miss you, dear readers. I miss interacting with you and I miss following you on your blogs. I finally just cleared out my Google Reader to start fresh this morning because I had over 600 unread posts and every time I opened it I felt too overwhelmed to read. I have been busy with important things, but I feel that as long as I don't let it consume me, blogging is important, too. We need each other, don't you think?

It has been hard to get my momentum up, too, because I have so much I can write about and yet nothing seems good enough after letting myself get rusty. So I'll just catch you up on some of what we've been doing without trying to cover everything. And hopefully tomorrow I'll feel like blogging again!:)

One of the lines from The Family: A Proclamation to the World that we have studied and memorized as a family is this one:

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

We had a summer without many of the "wholesome recreational activities," due to having a new baby and a c-section.

If it hadn't been for the amazing grandparents, our kids would have probably done nothing all summer but watch television. So we have been making up for lost time in the past month or so.

We took an amazing family reunion vacation to Lake Tahoe in mid-September. The weather was perfect, it felt like we had the lake to ourselves, and the kids had a blast with all their cousins from Jared's side of the family.


We had a family outing last week with grandparents to Apple Hill, a favorite destination in the Sierra foothills. We tried out a few new farms there this year, including one with a pond and paddleboat and a big U-pick orchard; a "fudge farm" where we got to do a little tour and see where they grow the nuts and berries that they use in their candy, as well as decorate our own fudge-covered apples; and a visit to our favorite farm for fresh-pressed cider and apple donuts.


Ian and I also went to the pumpkin farm with his kindergarten class this week. The kids whose parents had come got to choose a buddy from the class for the field trip--Ian chose Julian, and I knew why immediately. That's the name of a royal lemur on his favorite cartoon, so Ian thinks Julian is pretty cool.:)


And here is where we are headed with the boys tomorrow afternoon. It should pretty much be a nerd fest. We can't wait!

What "wholesome recreational activities" is your family doing this fall?