My Pooh bear and hers.

Happy Halloween! This is probably the last year we will get away with a non-princess costume for a while so we had to take advantage of it. Isn't she so cute? Daddy got to take her trick-or-treating and she got a "couple" of pieces of candy which was more than mom would have let her eat. She loved it so much didn't want to stop. She knocked on our door and after it was answered wanted to leave again.

Engagement!

Shaun's brother Mike came to visit us two weeks ago and I've been meaning to write a long post about the excitement we had while he was here. But then I noticed he did it for me, and better than I could do it. So head over to his blog and read all about it, it's worth your time.

http://ritchierambler.blogspot.com/2011/10/so-big-news-is-that-on-october-8th-i.html

Cecilia on the 80 yr old carrousel

Shaun had free tickets to lagoon so we decided to invite my parents and go. Saturday was the perfect day to do it too. The sun was shining, and warm. I'm sure it was the last short sleeve and flip flop day of the year. We really couldn't ask for a better day and tried to take advantage of it. Ceessa got to ride every ride she wanted to, include her favorite, the carrousel. The adults got to ride several rides too and fun was had by all. Couldn't ask for a better mid-October day!

Albuquerque

I almost forgot to tell you about our trip to Albuquerque. We went down to see the balloon festival. It was the most fun I've had getting up at 4:30 in the morning. They were trying to set a world record for the most hot air balloons set off in an hour. I don't know if they made it or not but I heard there were about 500 balloons that took off in two hours. It was so much fun and I went crazy taking pictures. Here are a few.

The next day Shaun, his mom, his brother, and his girlfriend (now fiancee) went on a balloon ride. They said it was really cool and got to touch the river with the bottom of the basket. Here are a few of their pictures.

It was another sleepless weekend with the Ritchie's, but again so fun.

Pumpkin patch

It was freezing the other day but I took Cecilia to a pumpkin patch that had a free corn maze for the kids. I'm trying to embrace fall even though I'm really having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that summer is over. She surprisingly really liked the corn maze so we did it twice. Then grabbed a few pumpkins and headed over to an apple orchard to get cider, which they didn't have. So we picked a few apples for the horses down the road. We were both frozen by the end and I couldn't thaw out all night. I miss summer.

Little Red Riding Hood

Cecilia showing off her new winter coat. Isn't she so cute?

Jungle Jims

We were planning on going to Lagoon on Saturday because Shaun's company had tickets. But it was cold and rainy so we decided to put it off until next week and hope it will be nicer. We told Cecilia about it and needed to deliver on some fun rides. I remembered a friend once posting about a place here in SLC with indoor rides so I called her and found Jungle Jim's. It was just the thing we needed. Perfect for an hour or two, but not more because the grownups get sick of riding the spinny rides after that. There is a carousel, swings, tea pots (what put Shaun over the edge, good thing it was the last ride), bumper cars, a train, and the airplane ride featured below. Cecilia loved everything except the bumper cars. I did it once with her and then let her ride by herself, which was a mistake. She wasn't quite old enough to get the steering thing and rammed right in the side full speed. Much wailing but a quick ride on the swings and she was right as wind again. When we left we asked her which ride was her favorite and she said "all of them."

Catch up

Has it seriously been since August since I last posted? How embarrassing. I guess we were so caught up in enjoying the summer that I really let it slack. I didn't really even finish our Oregon trip. We got to see Shaun's grandma, and two of his aunts (one of which we stayed with, Thanks again Barbara) and a cousin (who we also stayed with, thanks Cherice). It was so much fun and is one of our favorite yearly trips. In fact, the other day I took Cecilia apple picking at a U-pick orchard here and she said "We're not picking blueberries, we're picking apples." It made me sad. I'd much rather go blueberry picking than apple picking. But I'll just have to wait until next year.

Well let me catch you up a bit. At the end of August we did another yearly trip to Island Park with Shaun's parents. It is also fun, although Cecilia got cold the last night we were there and didn't sleep after 4am. I think everybody was glad we were going home so we could all get some sleep (including Shaun's parents who didn't get any sleep either). I don't seem to have any pictures of the trip though...

In September I took Cecilia to the State Fair. We had great Fair food (see picture) and Cecilia loved the Little Hands exhibit where she got to be a farmer for a day and do chores and then get "paid" at the end with a small box of sugar cereal. Something she never gets around here. It was a fun afternoon activity and we'll have to do it again next year.

Also in September Shaun and I went to the Inc 500 conference. This is the second year in a row he has made the list and it was fun to have a vacation sans Cecilia to attend the gala. I am so proud of what Shaun and his partner Dan have accomplished, and they keep going! Here is a picture of Shaun at the Air and Space Museum we attended in our downtime. And one with Dan at the gala.

That catches up on the most of what I should have been posting for the last 6 weeks. I'll do a couple of separate posts about our adventures this week. Happy Fall!