Apple Trees

I picked all of the apples off our Honeycrisp apple trees. 

They sat for awhile before I decided to use them to make an apple crisp for Chris. Kristen is too much of a food texture kid to try the mushy yet sometimes crunchiness of baked apples. 

So, even though she would have probably enjoyed the flavor, she couldn’t handle the texture. 

My dad would have loved to help eat the apple crisp. As it was, I divided the crisp up into small containers and froze them for Chris.

Kristen's Pumpkin

Kristen and her group of girls at church painted pumpkins for a Wednesday-night activity. Gotta love the creativity.

Smooth Date Line

Amy has been dating A LOT and having fun at BYU. 

One of the guys who asked her out recently texted her this, “Hey, how are you doing? Do you remember that time when we went to the pumpkin patch together?” 

She was totally confused because she didn’t know the guy who was sending her the message. She racked her brain for clarification and then finally said, “Uh, not really.” 

The guy responded, “Oh wait, that’s what we are going to do this weekend.” 

Clever.

New Family Pics

We finally got some family pictures taken before the girls headed off for school. It has been four years since our last pics, so we were pretty much overdue for an update.

Here are just a few:

Mountain Biking with Buddies

Chris and his mountain-biking buddies spent a couple of days in Grand Junction, CO racing up and down hills.

He looks forward to this so much and enjoyed the time away.

He may have had one crash when one of his shoes wouldn't unclip from his pedal. (Happened once before so he has a scar in almost the same spot as the new scrape!)

The "best" crash of the day wins the "Wookie" award. Not sure that that is something to strive for!

These are the crazy paths they ride on.

The group got in a few good days before it started to rain. 

I am always grateful when he makes it home safe and sound.

Amy and her Roommates

Amy is really enjoying her roommates this year. (I AM SO GRATEFUL!)

They went up Provo Canyon on Friday evening and had some fun taking pictures. One of her roommates works for the Daily Universe and has a great camera available to her.

Amy's roommates are Kayleigh and Raychelle—both from Hawaii. Kayleigh took the pictures.

Raychelle, Kayleigh, Amy

I think these ones are pretty cute.

New Car

Since the gray Mazda 3 (2012), named Ellie by the girls, was indeed totaled a couple of weeks ago, we were able to find a new car. Though there are not a lot of options around. We were glad to find a 2013 Mazda 3 that is another manual. Maybe that is why it was available. Not a lot of people want the manuals.

Kristen was happy to have anything, but it more glad to have a car with heated seats. 

Prayers for safe driving would be appreciated.

Goodbye to Ellie

Hello to ?

So Glad Kristen Listened

One of the challenges that Kristen has faced over the past year is that many of her friends do not follow the law when it comes to newly licensed drivers and allowing passengers.

For the first six months after a teen driver receives a driver's license, no additional passengers under the age of 21 are allowed to drive with them, unless a parent or other licensed adult (over 21) is in the vehicle with them. Siblings are an exemption or if you are driving someone with a medical emergency. That's the law.

So many of her friends do not follow this law.

It would have been so easy for Kristen not to follow this law, but we are so grateful that she does and that she did the night of her accident. Any passenger riding with her would have been injured and the consequences would have been so much more severe.

Thank you Kristen for being obedient and law-abiding.

Sunday Drive

Chris, Kristen, and I drove up to Estes Park and through some of Rocky Mountain National Park while listening to the Sunday afternoon sessions of General Conference.

The colors weren't quite at their peak, but still there was plenty of beauty around. I love the colors of Fall.

A Change of Hair Color

Kristen decided that she wanted to change her hair color. The end result turned out great.

The process may need some fine tuning. I am just grateful that the color came out of towels and bathroom rugs.

There may have been some painting of the bathroom door required.

Cleaning up the Islands

Chris and some of the other homeowners on the street spent hours cleaning up the three islands of our lake. The islands were totally overgrown and were becoming a haven for the geese who like to nest around our lake.

The geese are such a nuisance with pooping all over our beaches, eating down the grass, and ruining the water quality in the lake.

In the Spring, the nests are transferred from the islands and around the lake to the wetlands on the other side of the river. Since the geese like to return to the area they were born, we are hoping that we can give them a new home!

These guys mowed, weed whacked, and worked for about 6 hours on their Saturday!

Before

After

Photography Challenge September

 Photography Challenge

Week 36 Centered

Week 37 Low Light

Week 38 Warm & Cozy

Week 39 Night

Amy to Julie's

Both of Julie's girls have birthdays fairly close together. In celebration of Kelsey's 3rd birthday and Madelyn's 1st, Amy drove to Layton on Sunday afternoon to be a part of the party. 

It looks as though both of girls warmed up to Amy fairly quickly.

I think Amy was happy to enjoy having someone else cook for her too.

Nice to See Misha

One of the great things about having Misha live and go to university so close is that she often pops in for a short visit (usually to raid and plunder along with her visit) or stay the night.

We always look forward to seeing her.

She is doing great and hopefully starts a new job this week.

Misha's Leaky Ceiling

Chris and I were facetiming with Misha when her attention was drawn away from the camera to her kitchen. 

She said, "Uhhh, I think my ceiling is leaking."

When she first moved into her apartment, we noticed that there had been a previous leak that had not been fixed terribly well. Apparently the toilet above their apartment had problems.

Management was called and arrived shortly after. Misha, and her roommate Sara, set out garbage cans to catch the water. Management brought them a big fan to help with the drying.

Misha mentioned the other day that she wants to try and find a different apartment for next year.

BYU Football for Amy

Amy ran into one of her classmates from her marketing class while working out at the gym on Saturday afternoon. He invited her to go to the game with him and bunch of the other marketing students. 

She hadn't been sure if she would go because none of her roommates go to the game and she didn't know anyone who was going. This worked out perfectly.

And BYU played great for the second week in a row.

I think she said their seats were on row 9 of the student section right behind the end zone.

Misha and the Cat Cafe

Misha and Sam were going to go to a concert but arrived at the venue early and realized the band didn’t perform until 9:15. They took the train back to Union Station in Denver and then hopped a bus to the Denver Cat Company. That’s basically a cafe with a whole bunch of adoptable cats that you can go hang out with. 

The girls stayed at the cat cafe for about an hour and then returned to their apartments to get some food and just ended up hanging out. 

Sam hasn't been feeling great for over a week with stomach issues, so she and Misha ended up missing the concert because Sam was in a lot of pain.

Homecoming 2021

Kristen and a few of her friends came to our house to get ready together for prom. Kristen even helped a few with their hair and makeup.

It always seems to happen that they spend a little too much time on the getting ready part and then forget that it is starting to get dark a little earlier. The pictures outside were a little dark, but we did our best.

After, the girls came back inside and had some pizza before heading off to the dance.

Car Accident for Kristen

Kristen's homecoming evening ended on a really sad note. She and her friends were going to Waffle House after the dance.

Kristen missed the turn to get to the restaurant and had to drive a little further toward the Wendy's close by so that she could turn around.

As she flipped her blinker to turn, she noticed a bunch of police cars had pulled over a car and was feeling anxious about not getting pulled over herself. She may have been paying so much attention to the police cars that she turned left right when another car was coming through the intersection and got t-boned.

Thankfully, both cars were going at a pretty slow speed and didn't have any physical injuries (at least that we know of yet), but one of the side airbags in Kristen's car deployed.

The older man that hit her has front end damage to his car and I guess we'll find out if there is any more damage once we get the police report.

Chris had been watching the BYU football game and I had gone upstairs to watch tv. It was about 11:30 and I was dozing when I heard Chris come into our room and say, "Kristen just got into an accident!"

It took me a moment to wake up and process what he said. I got up to get ready to go with him, but I guess I was taking too long because he left without me.

He called in a bit to say that no one was seriously hurt but it was likely that Kristen had caused the accident. Groan.

He now needed me to find a ride with a neighbor to come and pick up his car and Kristen while he drove the Mazda home.

A couple of minutes later, our next door neighbor, Mike, knocked on the door and we drove about 7 minutes to Wendy's. Chris and Kristen were standing by the Mazda on the side of the road but walked over to Wendy's as we arrived. The officer had cleared them to leave.

Kristen started crying as they walked away from the car, having held it together until then. I wrapped her in a hug and then bundled her into Chris' car.

Chris snapped a few pictures of our car and the other guy's car. 

Mike followed Chris home as Chris drove the Mazda. It was drivable, but with some of the airbags deployed, we are not sure if it will be totaled or not.

Kristen is shaken up, as you can imagine.

Missionary Night for Youth Activity

Chris was asked to participate in a youth activity where people shared about their missions, the experiences, the food, and the culture.

Chris had a great time going through his stuff and pulling out things to talk about.

He wore his barong—embroidered dress shirt for men—and loved being able to share some of his experiences with the kids.

Sophie Wasden looks pretty cute!