'Tis the Season

I know that for some hunters, there is no end to hunting season as there is always something that needs to be shot. For Sam however, there is only one hunt that really matters. The pheasant hunt in South Dakota. I'm pretty sure it is more about the time with his dad than the actual hunting. He confessed to me this morning that on his first day he fired over 40 shots and only took down one bird, which means it is probably a good thing that he goes just for the company.

Paul picked Sam up in Cheyenne on Thursday night and they drove through a pretty bad storm to spend the weekend hunting. We're glad that they had such a good time and even happier that he is back home.

Good things are meant to go together

I don't know if it is this way all over Colorado, but Jefferson County has a lot of land and funds dedicated to creating and maintaining "Open Space". The open space includes tons of parks, trails, ponds, etc. We love that there is a new trail and park to explore everyday. Best of all, there are some nice trails within walking distance of our apartment. One of our favorite trails is lined part of the way with pear trees. Ollie and I have been watching the pears ripen this fall and wondering just who they belonged to. Well, finally I took a friend on the trail and showed her the pears, she informed us that the pears belonged to the community. So, that afternoon Oliver and I took the bike trailer to the pear trees and loaded the thing up with the pears that had fallen to the ground (the trees were much too tall to be able to pick the fruit off of them).

We decided to make some pear jam and I found a great recipe for pear raspberry jam. Raspberries are not really cheap this time of year, but when the local grocery store cut the price from $5.00 to $1.00 a pint, we knew it was meant to be. We invited the Koyle's over and took turns watching the toddlers and stirring the freezer jam. It turned out super yummy and we had enough left over to make some pear cherry jam as well! Thank you Jefferson County Open Space for the pears and thanks to King Soopers for the raspberries, it was a match made in heaven!

15 weeks and counting...

No, I am not 15 weeks pregnant. It is even better new than that. Only 15 more weeks until Oliver gets to go to nursery! Yahoo!! Today while Sam was taking his turn attending Elders Quorum and Oliver and I were out collecting rocks on the side of the church I decided to tally up just how much longer my Sundays would be spent in such a manner. Sam and I still view time in mission-type chunks, so it was good news to discover that we only had a little over two transfers left of getting absolutely nothing out of Sunday School, Relief Society and Elders Quorum.

To be fair to Oliver I have to say that he never cries or gets ornery in church, he is just so busy that he becomes an absolute distraction to us and everyone else in the room. For example, a typical Relief Society meeting will include: banging on the piano, pulling the music conductors stand over on top of his head, pulling items from several sisters' purses, climbing up on every empty chair in the room, playing peek-a-boo behind the chalk board, taking a turn at teaching the class by standing next to the teacher and talking louder than she does, sampling all the other babies' snacks, dancing in the isle and running circles around the display table. I seriously am not exaggerating when I say that all of this takes place in the first 15 minutes of class, by which time everyone is paying more attention to Ollie than the teacher and I pick him up and head for the door. If you are reading this and wondering why I don't just make him sit still on my lap, all I can say is please come back and read this again when you have an energetic 14 month old, then you will understand!

Trick - or - Treat

Last night was Oliver's first trick-or-treating experience. He never quite got into the whole candy idea, but he did pull the top off of every pumpkin on each porch we visited.

More than the candy, Oliver was interested in the rocks. I am pretty sure that we collected more rocks from each house than candy bars.

Although he never was quite able to grasp the concept of knocking on doors and receiving candy, he definitely understood the concept of eating it. Just as long as his mouth was full of candy he happily marched to the next house. By the end of the night he was bouncing of the walls.

There is nothing like a holiday centered solely around candy, unless maybe it is a holiday centered around pumpkin pie. Yum.

Party 'till ya drop. . . . . . . . literally

Seeing as it was the last Saturday before Halloween, our day was filled with Halloween festivities. We started the partying at the Roberts' with chili and a pumpkin carving party. Yum!

Oliver didn't get too into the pumpkin carving, but he did find the 'guts' rather facinating. His new thing is to hide things from us and then look at us and shrug his shoulders as if he has no idea what just happened. He found his new game to be particularly effective with the pumpkins. He kept throwing different utensils into the pumpkin and shrugging his shoulders the whole time I was trying to get the seeds out.

After the pumkin carving party it was off to the ward Halloween party. Oliver got to be a dragon for Halloween this year and we have been practicing wearing his costume around the house. Sam and I each took turns wearing it and roaring and trying to convince Ollie that it was super fun. All our brainwashing seemed to have paid off becuase he kept it on the whole time without complaint.

Oliver loved the carnival games. Especially the ones that involved candy.

We even made a cake for the cake walk.

And decorated our car for the Trunk-or-Treat.

Unfortunately Oliver was done at this point. He has been PTS-ing (peevish teething syndrome) pretty bad this week and so we didn't even make it to our last party at Parker and Emily's house. Sorry guys. All-in-all it was a good day though and we are all practiced up for some good ole' trick-or-treating this coming weekend.

From fittest to fattest

Sam has officially accepted a summer internship with Marathon Oil in Houston, Texas. This means that for three months this summer we will be relocating from the fittest area in the country to the fattest. Sam thinks we ought to purchase a deep fat fryer so that we will fit in better in Houston!!

All joking aside, this really is a great opportunity for our family. Marathon is the fourth largest integrated oil company in the country and they pay their interns extremely well. Of course, moving for just three months isn't very appealing, but the company offered to pay all our moving expenses so we decided that we just couldn't turn it down.

So, it is hot and humid Houston for us this coming summer!

Our very first visitors!!

And the winner is . . . . . Grandma and Grandpa Peay!! That's right, Sam's dad and step-mom were the first to endure the eight-hour drive from Salt Lake to Golden to come and pay us a visit. It made us feel so loved that they would give up so much just to spend a couple of days with us. Not to mention that Sam was absolutely giddy with the opportunity to show off our new town and his new school. Their whirlwind trip included a walking tour of downtown Golden and the School of Mines campus. A wild game night in which Leslie taught us a really great dice game and then stomped on all of us (I am thinking maybe she held back some secret strategy to winning when whe was explaining the rules.) A trip to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. A visit with some of Leslie's family, who sent us away with a couple bottles of homemade peach jam so I guess that makes them our family too. And of course, lots of play time with Ollie. It was really a fun weekend and we are so glad they came. We wish more people would follow suit (hint, hint).

Here we are on a hike inside Rocky Mountain national park. Aside from the incredible views and scenery we also saw loads of Elk. There was even a herd right in the middle of town. Sam was quite the trooper on the hike considering his recent biking injuries.
Grandpa and Ollie explored the waterfall together.
Oliver has a complete aversion to remaining on the path, he would much rather wander off to collect sticks and rocks on the mountain side. He did okay holding Grandma's hand though.

To dream the impossible dream...

Why is it so hard to get a decent family picture? It seems as if the stars never seem to come into complete alignment where photos are concerned. If by chance you do manage to get everyone into clean, ironed, matching outfits; find a good location; and get good weather and good lighting, you are almost sure never to get a good smile out of everyone at the same time. Thus was our fate.

This year we decided to take the economical route, i.e. we had my mom take our picture with our digital camera. Despite all of my efforts and my mom's good photo snapping, we ended up with a lot more bloopers than keepers. Case in point:



Too bad I am not better with photoshop!!

Road Rash

Sam had his first bad crash on his road bike this week. It has been well over a year since his last accident, so he was about due. This time it was a head-on collision with the road after his tire turned and got caught in the railroad tracks sending him over the handlebars. He walked away, but with significantly less skin on his lower body. The poor guy has some pretty bad road rash and is in a lot of pain. By the way, this picture is not of Sam's road rash. His injury covers areas that would make this an R-rated post. But, his bum and thigh look pretty much just like this, so you get the idea. Ouch!!

Home again...

This past week Sam had Fall Break at school, which gave him a five-day weekend. We decided to take advantage of the time off and drive back to Utah. We had a fun-filled week with family that included a trip to the zoo, the pumpkin patch and Gardner Village. Of course, the best part was just hanging out with all the people we love most. While we were there Oliver picked up quite a few new words (which he seems to be doing on a daily basis now). Among the newest additions to his syntax were Grandpa and Caci (my little brother's fiance). I think that the rest of the family was a little jealous that Caci was first, she claims that it was because her name is so easy but we all know that Ollie has a crush on Caci and has been trying to steal her away from Donald for a while now.

I really can't believe how quickly he has started to pick things up. It is as if all of the sudden his little mind has opened up and he retains and understands things amazingly well. For example, I have been pretty lackidaisical about teaching him sign language but this week I decided to teach him the sign for "more." I used it once on Thursday and on Friday he used it to ask for more orange (without any prompting). By Friday night he gave up on the sign and just said "mo". I had heard that a child's development between 12 to 18 months is astounding, and now I believe it!