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!

Blueberry picking

Last weekend while we visited Shaun's family we went blueberry picking. I was really excited to take Cecilia. I thought she would really get it this year. Last year she kept trying to eat them off the ground. She took right to it and I only had to tell her once to pick the dark ones and she got it. She definitely got her fill of blueberries though because we went back later in the day to pick more and she didn't want to eat any. Between the two pickings we had 26 pounds. I know we are crazy, but they were 86 cents a pound! That is practically giving them away! Which we did lots of after we picked 26 pounds of berries.

Summer dinner

I've been meaning to take a picture of every dinner we've made this
week and blog about it but I've been too hungry to do it before I
scarf it down. We've had all quintessential summer meals, grilled
twice, lots of corn on the cob from my parents garden, blueberries
that we picked in Oregon (I'll tell you about that next). Just plain
old yummy summer meals. It has been wonderful! Last night we made
beat salad with beats from my parents garden, and mushroom pasta with
mushrooms we bought at the farmers market. Yay for summer!

Carrousel

I took Cecilia to the zoo last week. It was a scorcher of a day. So we tried to cool off with a ride on the carrousel. "Tried" being the operative word. I was surprised she picked the rhino to ride, but she insisted and never wavered. Cecilia enjoyed it so much she didn't want to get off, we were the last ones out.