Fall Fun

Aaron won another fancy award at work! This time it was Technical Honors. Once you are in a senior enough position, you are eligible for this award. This was the first year Aaron was eligible. It's based on peer nominations and is only awarded to about 5% of engineers. His boss told him that he had by far the most nominations than anyone else in the department. For the award, we got to go to a fancy dinner at a fancy resort. The food was delicious but also pretentious. One of the items on the menu had "micro cilantro." We realized it was just cilantro picked as a seedling. It was fairly tasteless and overall underwhelming.

Aaron in the distance receiving an award from some important people

Our Stake had a fall festival this year. They broke it up with dinner at the Las Quintas Pavilion and activities at the Anamax park with a hayride connecting the two locations. Elliot was all about the inflatable obstacle courses, and we enjoyed chatting with friends and sipping hot chocolate. Annie was mostly excited about the unlimited watermelon. She soaked her bib and shirt, so we took it off and had just her jacket on. There wasn't anything we could do about the watermelon juice pants, so she was pretty chilly by the time we left. They had a pumpkin patch where anyone who wanted to could paint a pumpkin or just take one home. I went to grab one because I wanted to experiment with cooking them. Elliot insisted on picking one too. It was dark by then, so It wasn't until we were almost back to the hayride when I realized that his pumpkin was covered in wet paint. It was ALL OVER HIM. Awesome.

Annie snuggling with watermelon

The meal in a pumpkin was kind of a flop. Too bland. And it made enough for like 4 meals so we were eating it forever. I want to try a different recipe next year.

Elliot went to Lego club at the library. This is his creation that he named "Bum Bum." He refused to change the name,so it is proudly displayed on the little card on the library front shelf.

A couple of kids getting their milk cups

We spent a weekend with Mary and Michael. A favorite activity was putting all sorts of things on Annie's head.

Benjamin and Andrew are monkeys! That is Elliot in the grey shirt making it up to the lower platform. I was proud of my little guy's climbing abilities!

Annie's hair is long enough for a little ponytail now!

The Heyens happened to be going up to Phoenix the same day we were driving to Mary's house. We went up a bit early so that we could go to this new heart museum. It was pretty neat. Here is Elliot and Carter holding a replica of a Giraffe heart.

I made this teepee on a particularly inspired parenting day

A perfect spot for playing with Legos! Annie starting trying to pull it down on herself as soon as she woke up, so it was a short lived presence in our house.

We went camping with the Coe's at Gilbert Ray campground. It was pretty close to replicating a camping trip we went on with them in February of this year, except this time they are the ones with a 3 month old baby. The Coes have a camper trailer. It was nice being able to warm up our dinner in their microwave (fires are prohibited year round) and eat breakfast in a nice heated area. It got really cold overnight. We were all bundled up, but I needed to have the sleeping bag over my face to stay warm. The last time we camped at Gilbert Ray was the first time Annie slept through the night. This time we got to experience the worst night of her young life. I think she kept waking up because her face was cold, even when the rest of her was all bundled up. I kept having to get her to fall asleep on my chest inside my sleeping bag. I would fall asleep too until my arm would fall asleep. I would transfer her back to her pack and play or later to her carseat, but she would start crying in an hour or so. It was rough. 

The next morning was great though! Elliot slept in quite late. He miraculously didn't wake up at all during Annabelle's shenanigans, so he at least was well rested. We loaded up after breakfast and went to the Desert Museum. We haven't been since they built the new Packrat Playhouse. It was so cool!

I loved the desert sunset running around the room

Wyatt was scared of walking on the nets, but Elliot was loving it.

She was having way too much fun with the rubber baby scorpions. I'll need to work on somehow instilling a fear of scorpions in her so that she doesn't try to pet any that she finds around the house