Beautiful Fall

While summer is my favorite season, I do love the beginning of fall. We took a drive up near Sundance yesterday to enjoy the beautiful colors on the trees. Everywhere you look there are breathtaking views. We stopped and got a few pix. Here they are.

Lauren, Britt, and Addy

Addy, Barry, Lauren (disclaimer: after viewing this picture, Barry has decided that he is a "bloater" and is going to do something about it)

View near Sundance

Utah State Fair

The first and the last. This always sounds like such fun to me, so I got discount tickets and convinced Barry that it'd be a fun family activity. Away we went. What a disappointment! As a teenager I loved going to the fair. I guess you're more concerned with finding good-looking members of the opposite sex to flirt with and riding the dodgy rides than with seeing things as they really are at these places: toothless ride attendants, pervy-looking balloon clowns, extortionary food prices, and scary-looking people all around. We tried to make sure our kids had a good time by masking our own displeasure. But I'm quite sure we won't be rushing to do this again.

Addy on the carousel horse

This was a cute little "farmer's market" kind of thing for the kids. They wore these cute little aprons and had their own little baskets to go through the farm collecting eggs from the chickens, fruit and veggies from the garden, milking a cow, brushing a sheep, riding on tractors, and things like that. At the end, they "sold" their goods and got to go to the shop to spend their money on something. That was the best part of the fair.

Lauren trying to ride the John Deere

Addy and Lauren by the sheep

Barry and the girls by a cow

Prima Adderina

Cute little Addy. I'm sure all little girls (and boys, for that matter) love to dance around pretending to be ballerinas (ok, maybe not little boys). We decided that at least for now, we wouldn't put Addy in preschool. She got a bit sad realizing that all her friends are going yet she's not. So, I thought to take the sting out of that realization, we'd sign her up for her first "official" dance class. It's just a six week course, half an hour a week, through the city. Nothing against dancers (I love to dance...remember I wanted to be a Janet Jackson backup dancer?), but I'm not into the idea of starting my little girl(s) in dance, only to grow up having body image/potential eating disorder issues. So, really, this is just for fun. Anyway, here are some shots of "Addy Grace"ing the dance floor.

Addy on her first day

During warmups - "butterfly legs"

doing a "lollipop" dance

with her cute teacher, Miss Julie

New House?

No, not a new house, just a newly PAINTED house. A little background...

We almost passed this house up when we were house-hunting because I didn't like the color. Mind you, it was January (or February), slush or snow on the ground, the sky was the same color as the house, and I was about 8 months pregnant. Nevertheless, we pulled the flyer and the rest, as they say, is history. This picture doesn't give you a true description of what I'm talking about because it doesn't look so bad with a beautiful blue sky and nice green grass backdrop. But the gray on the house just blended in with the rest of the gray all around for about half the year.

I had always said we'll paint it. So, after a year and a half (not bad, really), 10 gallons of paint, and 36 hours of manpower later... here's our "new house."

Squash anyone?

This is my second year of "gardening" and I am finding that I quite like it! Just about everything I've tried so far seems to work pretty well. I'm pretty sure that it's not due to anything spectacular that I do. I just water daily. What I do need to work on is figuring out how many seeds/plants to plant. For example, last year, not knowing how zucchini and yellow squash would do, I had them growing a plenty!! This year, I'm not quite sure why I thought I would need 17 tomato plants?!?! But yes, they're all growing. Funny thing is that I'm not quite reaping red yet. Let me know if you are in need of any yellow squash (crooked neck, I think, is what it's called), cucumbers, eggplant (1st year for this one!), and possibly some cabbage and tomatoes in the near future.

Carrots (argh!!! I hate the formatting on this $*&! thing - I've tried a million times to add a freaken space to no avail)

Green Beans

Green Peppers...not doing so well

Green/Red/Yellow Peppers doing better - they're right next to each other...don't ask me why some are surviving and others are dying

Eggplant (let me know if you want one)

Just some of the crazy tomato plants - what a jungle

Cabbage (these should be nearly ready - let me know if you want one)

Yellow (aka Crooked Neck) Squash (let me know if you want some)

Cucumbers (let me know if you want some)