JSTA BLOG

October Update

We had a nice visit from Grandpa Lyn at the beginning of October. These boys sure love hanging out with Grandpa and his dog, "Whifford." Her name is "Whiff," but the kids have adapted it to sound more like "Clifford, the big red dog," I guess. Grandpa likes it just fine, so around here, her name is "Whifford." :-)

We spent some fun down-time as a family at our favorite area park.

(Ascha loves to be toted around this way.)

This isn't a very clear picture, but I have to include it because I love Taylor's expression so much. This is the moment after he rode his bicycle off the curb for the first time. He had no problem staying on, and he loved the adrenaline of "jumping" (can't you tell?). Aric started doing the same thing, which wasn't so good for his training wheels. The day after these pictures were taken, he and Daddy removed the bent-backward training wheels, and both boys have been "two-wheeling" together ever since!

Of course, we always love playground equipment. At this particular park, Aric ends up leaving his bike helmet on so he can easily switch between playing and riding. For Aric, a helmet is prudent playground garb because on a couple of occasions, he's hit his head fairly hard. With the helmet on, he just laughs. :-)

We didn't ever end up going camping this summer, so we decided to cap "the end of summer" (or "when the camping dream finally died," since summer had already been over for a while) with a s'mores night out on our back deck.

Ascha got to hang out inside, but she didn't mind too much.

After these few days of "recuperation time," we headed to Montana, where we spent the bulk of October. Thankfully, our earlier trip to Idaho had apparently used up all of Ascha's allotted "car screaming time" ... this trip was much less painful in that regard.

Jeremy did plenty of bow hunting and bagged his largest bull elk yet on opening day of rifle season.

I am pretty excited to have relatively TENDER meat in the freezer after a few years of tough game. For whatever reason, this big bull is tasty, not at all gamey, and less tough than his smaller counterparts from previous years. Hooray! I've been trying to use up all the meat from previous years before getting around to the "new meat," but I can't resist pulling out some great steaks about every other week.

:-)

While Jeremy was out hunting, the kids and I LOVED hanging out at Grammy and Grumpy's, spending time with family and friends at a more leisurely pace. Usually, our trips are a whirlwind of just trying to see a glimpse of everyone, but this time, we got to spend more time with people and we got to do more fun things. We are so thankful for the great memories!

Grammy and the boys made a scarecrow with leaves from the yard.

We went to Bozeman and saw the Museum of the Rockies with cousins Connor and Kaylee.

The kids got to go for a thrilling ride up, up, up in Grumpy's bucket truck.

A little perspective:

We helped Aunt Pat feed the calves and climbed the climbing tree with Uncle "Brucer."

Of course we rode motorcycles.

We went to a few Friday night football games to cheer on Uncle Spencer's team (Go Big Blue! They made it to the playoffs after a great season and some very exciting play while we were there. I love the atmosphere at high school football games and haven't been to a game in many years! It was fun!) The kids had a blast, as usual, at Grammy and Grumpy's church with all their little "Montana friends." At the end of our stay, we had a fun Halloween. Grrreat Grama & Grrreat Papa came and helped the kids get ready, then we went around to all the relatives' houses for more visiting!