September

The boys are in a new phase: nerf guns and battles.  Nearly every night we have to battle, inside or outside, and the boys will often conspire together and build forts, and then leave a note for David to come join them..."For Dad: Come on up Take the nerf gun!!!"

This month the boys both started extracurricular fun: Pace is in hip hop dance, and Max is doing piano.  Pace loves to use his body, and being active is really working for him.  Max has always loved music, and I'm excited for him to finally get behind the keys and express himself with this new language.  He's loving it so far, and always practices without my nagging.

My diploma came in the mail! I may have cried a little bit.  We had a huge celebration party with our good friends: flying pig piñata, glass-smashing station, swimming, burgers on the grill.  The boys and I went to DI and filled a shopping cart full of glass items to smash, they were so excited!  David and Josh built a "safety structure", and we made the kiddos wear goggles.  A friend of mine sent me a gif of a girl smashing a punch bowl, and for some reason, that really resonated with me--it seemed like the perfect stress-reliever and celebratory party necessity.  

Pace wanted to sell something to make money, so we set a goal for him to have an art show at the end of the summer.  He worked on art projects all summer long, and he did indeed sell a number of art pieces at his show!  It was fun to watch him interact with people that came to buy an art piece, explaining what he was thinking, or what it meant to him.  

We had a sad summer of fires.  First was the Coal Hollow Fire, which shut down Diamond Fork.  Then there were two more fires, the Pole Creek and Bald Mountain Fires, on the east and south mountain ranges south of us, respectively.  The Pole Creek fire was started from a lightning strike, and the fire rangers were "keeping and eye" on things, but then we had a huge wind storm that sparked it and sent the fires on a rampage, eventually joining and burning the entire mountain range from east to south.  It was so sad to watch from our backyard--communities were evacuated, ranchers lost a lot of their cattle they couldn't round up in time, and my trails were all lost.

East of us:

South of us:

Watching this mountain range burn over the course of weeks was so hard, especially at night, when the flames were visible.  Helicopters and planes flew over our house all day long for weeks, dropping water, fire retardant, and thousands of firemen to try and get the fire under control.  The winds blew northeast everyday, and the fire went from a couple hundred acres to over 100,000 acres in just a few days.

David did Salt to Saint again this year, the boys and I stayed home and I made them do chores.  I think they actually started helping each other on this day, so I had to document it.

A rock and mineral museum came down our way, so we took the boys to check it out.  We actually had a lot of the specimens they had on display, thanks to David's rockhounding adventures with the boys.

We like to keep family night entertaining (as well as hopefully teaching the boys something...).  This night was David's invention of a nerf gun scripture hunt.  Not sure if Bishka approved (haha), but the boys sure had fun!

Pace brought home a story he wrote for school about our cruise trip.  I was so impressed with his writing and illustrations!--He was very accurate!

"One day my family went to the cruise.  It took ten hours.  We stayed for a week.  And we went to explore next we went to eat lunch then ten minutes later we had dinner and then it was time for bed.

It took til night fall til til the cruise started moving.  Then we started to explore the ship."

"Then it was time to go to bed.  The next morning we went to have breakfast.  We were in the middle fo the Pacific Ocean.

Then we explored the cruise ship again after that.  We were hungry then we ate lunch."

"After we went to play gold when we were done we went to Catalina Island.  After we went back to our room.

Then on the last day the cruise ship was back at our start, and we had to go home.  The End."

David found a great deal on nerf guns on ksl, and got a bunch for Pace's birthday.  He felt like an arms dealer driving around with this cache hidden in his trunk for a couple weeks until Pace's birthday.

Finally, my running adventures...all in the name of training for the Moab Trail Marathon!  My first run was right after we'd gotten back from the cruise, and those 18 miles were hard--I felt the elevation after being at sea level and running on a tiny boat track for a week, and it hit hard about 10-11 miles in.  I was good along Sheep Creek road, and down the hot pots trail, but then I had to head back up 2nd water to get back to my car.  There was a lot of hiking because of elevation, and also because of the rock and mudslides that hit Diamond Fork.  After the Coal Hollow Fire, we got a lot of rain, which caused awful mud and rock slides in the Diamond Fork trail system.  

On a side note, I got a really fun call at the end of the month from a local rancher, a friend of one of our neighbor's (a long-time rancher in the area).  The rancher who called me wanted to know the condition of the Diamond Fork trails so he'd know where to send his cowboys out for his cattle round up.

Another day I met a friend at the temple in Provo, and then hit up Squaw Peak.  September is definitely the month to be in the mountains, the sky in blue, the leaves are gorgeous, and the trails are dry and perfect.  It was hard getting to the top, and seeing Nebo burning in the south.

After the fires started, the smoke filled the valley, and it was hard to decide where to run.  The winds would pick up in the afternoon and blow the smoke northeast, but then would die down and fill the valley at night.  Ac couple friends and I were hoping going southwest would work, and keep us out of the smoke, so we hit up West Mountain.  Our gamble paid off, the winds were on that morning, and kept the smoke northeast of us until the last few miles.  It's been really, really fun getting melded into the running community--I have found so many different women to run with, and they have all become such wonderful friends.

Another Saturday run was a big loop with lots of vert to train our climbing legs.  We ran along the flat BST first, then climbed up Slate Canyon, then over the Slide Canyon, then down Rock Canyon.  All that climbing was hard, but looking back, made Moab so much more doable.  And the weather that day was perfect.  We even whipped out our happy dance because the running was so delicious.

Had to throw a night run in there with some friends!

Ended up the month with more climbing, on a trail I'd never done before and wanted to explore.  We went up to Cascade Saddle, above Squaw Peak, and then found a trail we were hoping was there to connect us to the Great Western Trail to take us back to Cascade Springs.  Another great climbing day, and the leaves were stunning.

And then hammered out some flat miles on the Provo River Trail, and found a couple cute spots for photos with my running buddies.