Fall Fishing

We're almost halfway through October now, but since it was 83 degrees outside I wanted to see if there was any chance the fish were still biting. So, Quincy, Stratt and I headed out to the Cedar river for a little fishing adventure.

Every time I looked up one of the boys had a fish on the line! This was the first time Stratt had an actual hook that he was casting and reeling in on his own, which was a little scary (but more fun than scary). Up until now we only let Stratt cast with one of those fake little plastic fish that comes on kid poles to keep everyone safe, but he told us, "I hate this stupid blue fish - I never catch anything!" So, Stratt went "live" tonight and loved it. And I swear that with that little fishing pole he can cast a mile. It's incredible.

The boys kept me busy pulling bass off of hooks and untangling lines. We had a great time and caught about 15 fish!

We fished until dark and came home and enjoyed a fish fry with the family. The boys had a blast.

Stratt and Q from keelefam on Vimeo.

Stratt Frog from keelefam on Vimeo.

Stratt Fish from keelefam on Vimeo.

Spring/Summer Fun

Most importantly, Darren's sister came home from her mission in Peru this spring! Yay! Welcome Home Christa!!

We are sad to see the warm weather go, but we definitely took full advantage.

We spent lots of time outdoors.

Stratt learned to ride a 2 wheel bike and hasn't stopped since.

My parents came to visit.

I went on a girls weekend trip with my sisters and my mom . . . it was so fun! Especially the part about waking up with no kids to take care of! Definitely a much needed break.

The boys did lots of fishin' . . .

. . . which meant eating lots of great fish!

The boys did lots of tree climbing . . .

and even enjoyed some time hanging out and reading in the trees! I think my neighbors must think we're crazy!

Quincy really enjoyed baseball this year! Much more exciting than T-ball, that's for sure!

Darren had NeoCon up in Chicago this summer, and so the kids and I decided to join him for the week and just go to some fun museums and the beach. We had a great time!

I'm glad my boys have Darren, because he lets them do all the fun naughty things, like throw sand at each other, while I'm not looking. I seriously have like 50 pictures of them just hucking sand at each other. I don't get it, but it's a good thing Darren understands boys.

Darren went to Scout Camp for a week with his Boy Scout troop. It was lots of craziness, I'm sure. Quincy can't wait until he gets to go to Scout Camp!

We went down to Nauvoo with our friends, Ted and Amber and their kids, and watched the Nauvoo Pageant for the first time. The boys really enjoyed it!

Thanks for coming Ted, Amber, Kara, and Dillon!

We finally painted the back of our house and stained our deck.

this is just getting started: (I hate it when Darren is up this high, but I hate doing it too, so I'm glad he's willing) :)

The boys worked on finishing the shed:

Even Tuck got in on the action:

I definitely prefer my boys clean:

At the end of the summer we took a 3,750 mile road trip to Gardnerville, NV to see Darren's family and then to Boise to see my family. My mom drove with me on the way out and then Darren drove back with me. It was crazy, but a fun adventure! (pics to come)

And by the end, we were exhausted! :)

Catch-up

Okay, so I know its a little warm outside to be posting about snowy stuff, but I feel like I haven't had a chance to post about much of anything since Tucker was born. Thankfully Darren has posted some pics and videos in the meantime. Anyway, I'm going to do a quick catchup of all the stuff I missed.

As I was looking at these pics with the boys, they said, "I want it to snow again!!" It's weird how in the middle of the winter all we want is to be able to go outside in shorts and t-shirts and in the summer when we're dying of heat, all we want to do is roll around in the snow. All I can say is that I really do love living in a place where we have 4 seasons. I actually am looking forward to some crisp cool fall weather soon.

This Christmas for the first time, we had the boys pick out gifts at the dollar store for each other. They had so much fun picking them out and wrapping them. This is Quincy giving Stratt the biggest hug ever after he opened the package of erasers that Stratt picked out for him. It was so cute! Fun that they still get so much joy out of the littlest things.

While we were opening presents, the snow started to fall down outside. It was a beautiful white Christmas morning.