Walkin' in an Autumn Wonderland



I love fall. 

 

Don't get me wrong, summer is my favorite, but fall seems to be catching up a little each year.  It is so nice when the nights cool off a little and the air just has that certain fall crispness in the mornings.  I love football (except for last week...Go Niners!) so that is another reason to look forward to fall.  And if you know me, you know I loooove me some Halloween.  And wearing boots.  And pumpkin bread.  You get the idea.  But I think my most favorite thing about fall is THIS:

Today while Arden was at school and Cora was at preschool, Dax and I decided to take a hike near our house, and It. Was. Glorious.

With the sun shining through the yellow, orange and red leaves, it was so beautiful it almost didn't look like it could be real:

 

 Little Dax Man was a trooper and (after some bribery) he walked with me up to the lookout where we can see for miles and miles:

 I love being able to spend a couple of hours with my boy by ourselves.  It hasn't happened much in his little life, so I am trying to do fun stuff with him during those rare times when the girls are both at school and I am not at work. 

We had the funniest conversation while we were walking about what Daxton would do if he saw a bear on our hike.  He had two scenarios:  In the first scenario, the bear is a friendly bear, and Dax would go up to the bear and pet it on it's head and say hello.  Then he would ask if he could take a ride on the bear's back so he didn't have to walk.  Next, he would ask if the bear knows any dinosaurs that are hiding in the forest.  In the second scenario, the bear is a mean bear.  If this is the case, Dax would yell at the bear and clap his hands until the bear ran away.  If that didn't work, then Dax said then he would run away FAST FAST FAST back to the car and lock the doors (no word on whether he would wait for me or not).  If that didn't work, then Dax would have to find a great big stick and hit the bear in the nose and the legs and ears and tail until it ran away.  If THAT didn't work, then he would put the bear in timeout for being mean.  Awesome.

I felt like I wanted to just keep following that trail up higher and higher and see how many colors we could find.

Dax, however, wanted to collect on his bribe, so after we reached the lookout we headed back down to the car and hit the bread store, where Dax gobbled up as much cinnamony-bready-carby goodness as he could. 

I was thinking about trying to go hiking again in the morning with Cora while Dax is at preschool, but unfortunately, and my girl does NOT hike.  She gets carried.  And the thought of that makes my arm tired. 

Maybe this weekend I will have the chance to get up there again and soak up some more colors before the leaves all fall down and turn brown and then the trees will be all bare and grayish brown and it will be cold and yucky forever and ever. 

I hate that winter follows fall.

Soccer...Football...Whatever...

Another soccer season is upon us!  This year Dax's team color is neon orange.  I kind of like it, because it sure makes his team easy to find.  Their name is the NINJA TIGERS.  How awesome of a team name is that?  So, so awesome!

 

Dax has had two games so far.  He has done a LOT of smiling:

 A fair bit of ball kicking:

I am not sure exactly what he is doing in this picture....

 And, true to form, there has been a little bit of tackling:

I think he took two kids down with this single tackle (if you look closely, there is a kid behind him AND another poor kid directly underneath my boy. 

Sorry kids.  Especially the kid underneath. 

So, sorry, mom of that kid.

I have talked to Dax A LOT about how there is no tackling in soccer.  Only kicking.

I tell him he has to wait until he is 8 years old before he can play football, but if he can just hold on for 4 more years, he can tackle people and instead of yelling for him to stop, I will cheer and tell him good job (assuming, of course, he is tackling someone on the other team.  Because right now he is kind of indiscriminate in who he tackles.  Either team works for him).  Heaven knows this kid needs an acceptable outlet for his tackling urges. 

I hope all my talking is working.  There was a lot less tackling in the second game than there was in the first game, so hopefully the pattern will continue.

Dax is LOVING soccer though.  A great big smile is plastered on his face thorugh most of the game.  He charges around the field with huge, leaping strides.  Sometimes even in the direction of the ball!  His coach is so awesome and understanding.  At the end of the last game, coach said something like, "If we could only harness all of that energy into the soccer ball, there wouldn't be a goal that could stop it!"  Yeah.  Tell me about it.  If I could only harness all of the energy that my boy has, he could clean the house for me.  Heck, he could BUILD me a new house.   If we could harness all the energy that boy has, he could singlehandedly provide power to the city for weeks at a time.

In the meantime, I will just be hoping for a little more ball kicking, and a little less tackling.  But still a lot of smiling!

Go NINJA TIGERS!

Daxton's First Day of School

Okay, so it is his first day of 4-year-old preschool.  He was so dang excited that he could FINALLY go back and play with Miss Sue (and her dinosaur toys).  He had his eyes on the door, literally.  I couldn't get him to look at me:

 Do you like his shark shirt?  It is supposed to represent how hungry he is for the learnin'!  (Or maybe it is just because he likes sharks.  Especially ones with big teeth. They are a distant second to dinosaurs). 

Here is another supermodel pose, and this time he is actually looking in my general direction!

 Here is my boy ready to head in for the first day of his last year of preschool! 

He is doing better this year on at least making attempts at writing his letters.  He knows all the letters and their sounds, but he just doesn't want to take the time to sit down and actually write them out.  He is getting better though!  This time next year, he will be a kindergartner!  And I will cry some more!  Hooray!   I am so proud of my handsome little man, who isn't so little anymore.  He is within an inch of being as tall as Arden.  Speaking of which....

Update on Arden:  She is doing much better; with first grade!  Yesterday she smiled and waved and blew me a kiss as she ran to her class line, instead of wiping away the tears.  She looked just as happy as when she used to run off to kindergarten last year.  That was HUGE weight off my shoulders!  It made me sooooo glad to see her little blue backpack bopping happily to join her classmates.  *Phew!*

Today, Arden woke up early and barfed twice before breakfast, so I told her she had to stay home from school.  She started feeling better around 9:00 a.m. (school starts at 8:45) and was dancing around her room by 10:00 a.m.  The only side effect from her 90-minute stomach bug that I could detect for the rest of the day was an extra dose of grouchiness.  She was running around fighting with the other kids all day.  I was missing First Grade!  My, what a difference a week (and a very grouchy 6-year-old) can make.

Cora the Preschooler!

Cora had her first day of preschool the same day as Arden's first day of school.  Cora is in the 3-year old preschool class that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Dax is in the 4-year-old class that goes Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays.  Since the first day of school was the day after Labor Day, Cora got to go to preschool first.  I rushed home from dropping off Arden and finished getting Cora ready to go.  But really, this girl has been ready to go to preschool for MONTHS.  But now she has a backpack to prove it.  She is just a teeeeeeeeny bit excited:

Most of the pictures I tried to take of her at home were blurry because she was bouncing up and down so dang much.  She just could not be more happy about finally getting her chance to go to Miss Sue's preschool.  Here we are, walking up to the door!

And here she goes!  She is opening up the door to all sorts of new adventures.  Aw, my littlest baby is growing up so fast.

And now, her backpack is hung up and she is ready to go in and start learning! 

 

 

She had a great day the first day, and has loved every day since. She is pretty good at writing her letters, but for some reason she writes most of her A's upside down. Weird. But back to our first day.  Remember how excited Cora was?  Dax, on the other hand, was NOT so excited.  I had to seriously physically drag this kid out of the preschool room and down the stairs and to the car, he wanted to stay at preschool so bad.

Don't worry, Dax.  Your first day of preschool is only one day away.

The First Day of First Grade for my First First Grader

The day had finally come.  The day that Arden and I had been both dreading and anticipating for weeks and months was finally here.  The first day of FIRST grade. 

 

The first day of first grade for my first first grader! 

 

Arden LOVED kindergarten, but she was a little nervous for first grade.  She knew that she had to stay at school "all day," and even eat lunch there.  That is still weird for me to think about.  Arden eats one of her meals at school, completely away from me.  I am not there to make sure she eats her fruit or vegetables before she eats her cookie!  Who is going to make sure she does that?  What if she gets hungry before lunchtime, she usually has a mid-morning snack!  And an afternoon snack!  What if she gets hungry before its time to come home?  What if she is too hot?  What if she gets thirsty? What if some punk kid is mean to her at recess?  What if she falls down and scrapes her knee and I am not there to put on a band aid and kiss it better? What if she doesn't like her teacher?  What if...?!

 

Okay, so maybe Arden wasn't the only one who was a little nervous. 

 

Luckily, we were too busy the last week before school to stress about it too much, and suddenly it was almost time to go.  I made Arden stop to take a couple of pictures before we ran out the door.  She is so big!

And so beautiful!

 I double checked to make sure she had a water bottle in her backpack in case she got thirsty and I snuck in some fruit snacks for her and told her if she was hungry she could grab them and eat them at recess.  Here she is, getting ready to walk into school!

We wandered around until we found her classroom.  Her teacher handed each kid a little water bottle and a package of fruit snacks as they came in.  Seeing that made me hopeful that I was leaving my Arden in some good hands.  We found her seat and she settled in for another picture. 

Soon a couple of kids showed up who sat at her table.  It was funny because none of the three kids at this table had any front teeth.  I should have taken a picture of that but I didn't.

Anyway, the bell rang and I told Arden that I had to go but I would pick her up after school.  She said "okay."  I told her I loved her and she squeaked "I love you too!" and started to cry a little.  I gave her a big hug, told her not to cry and to have a good day.  I gave her a big smile and waved as I walked out the door.

Then I boobed it all the way down the hall and out to the parking lot.

Of course on the way out I saw like 27 moms I know and they were all like, "Are you okay?" or "Oh, are you sad?"  I know that I would have been fine if Arden had smiled as I left her, but since she was crying I was a wreck.

I worried all day.  Was she still crying?  Why was she crying?  Is she okay?  The school doesn't have air conditioning, is she too hot?  What if some punk kid is mean to hear at recess?  What if she falls down and scrapes her knee...well, you get the picture.

After a long day it was finally time to go and pick her up.  Of course, she was fine.  She said she wasn't too hot, she wasn't hungry, she wasn't thirsty and no one was mean to her at recess, and her knees were fine.  But she did say that school was too LONG, and she wished she was back in kindergarten, and she didn't want to go back tomorrow. 

Of course, she had to go back the next day.  I talked school up like crazy all night and the next morning, and told her how pretty soon she would get used to staying all day.  The next morning I walked her to where her class lines up outside this time.  The bell rang again.  I gave her quick hug, and the tears welled up in her eyes as she turned to go.  Ohmygosh, I CANNOT handle this.  It seriously was hurting my heart so much to leave her there again.  But of course, what choice do I have?  (Home school?  Yeah, right.)

Again, she was fine when she got home (except she sat on my lap and snuggled me for a solid hour when she got home).  I talked to her about it, and she said she likes her teacher fine and she has friends in her class and at recess, but "School is too long and I miss my mama."  (Oh, that makes me so happy and so so sad!)  She said she didn't want to go back the next day.  Again, the next morning, off she had to go. 

This time, we just did the regular drop off line and she just jumped out of the car with the other kids I car pool to school.  "Love you, Arden!" I called after her.  "Love you, mom!" again, squeaking, again, crying a little again as she ran up the stairs to her line.  Seriously, I am going to DIE. 

Now it has been two full weeks of school, and luckily Arden no longer is crying in the morning (and consequently neither am I), and she seems to be settling in a little.  She still thinks school is WAY too long.  I kind of agree.  8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. seems long to ME, and I am not the one who is trying to sit still in a little chair and pay attention to a teacher. 

Arden is being so brave and trying her best, but I know she is still having a hard time.  Last night, she had nightmares and talked in her sleep.  This is the first time I ever remember her talking in her sleep.  She mostly just made sad noises, but once in a while she said things like, "I wanna go home!" and "It's too hard!"  My poor baby.  My mom said it usually took her kids about three weeks to settle in to the first grade groove, so hopefully by this time next week there will be smiles every morning and no more bad dreams. 

I miss kindergarten!

Luckily, Cora and Dax are still deep in happy-preschool-land and LOVING it.  More on that later!

Summer - Out with A Bang!

Sorry I am still playing blog catch-up! 

 

For Labor Day weekend we did one more big camping trip to send summer out with a BANG!  Preston's family reserved a large group site at Rockport Lake and so there was the promise of lots of cousins to play with as well as more wave runner rides to go along with the usual smores and sleeping bags.  The kids were superexcited!

 

We got up there on Friday night.  We had dinner, ate smores, all the usual stuff!  We soon settled in for the night.  The kids weren't too bad, and went to sleep without too much of a fight.  The weather wasn't nearly as cooperative.  It started getting really windy at some point during the pitch black night, and our tent was moving and flapping around so much I couldn't get back to sleep.  Eventually the lightning and thunder started, followed by some serious rain.  All of which seems extra-super-especially loud and bright in a tent.  I felt like I didn't sleep all night.  Luckily, the kids weren't phased much, although Arden kept rolling into the side of the tent and getting a little wet.

 

The next day started out cold, but sunny.  The little boy cousins spent a solid 45 minutes throwing rocks into the water, one after the other after the other.  It was fascinating.  Here is Dax, on rock number 1,297.

After it warmed up a bit, we busted out the wave runners and quite a few people took a ride.  Here is Preston with our nephew K:

More family on the wave runners:

It was still too cold for me to consider getting out on the water (yes, I am a wuss).

Soon the clouds rolled in and the wind really kicked up and everyone decided that it was no longer wave running weather.  The temperature started dropping and I was so cold I went back in the tent and got in my sleeping bag.  Cora joined me in the tent. 

During our little rest, the winds reached hurricane force and our tent was almost folded in half. Cora was screaming! Preston came down to check on us and the rain started flying again. Preston decided that in order to save our tent from ripping it needed to be taken down. So, Preston and a helper took our tent down WITH all our stuff inside, folded it thirds, and threw it in the back of our car. Me and the kids sat in the car and watched the storm and wondered what to do.  The worst of the storm passed and the rain stopped.  It was nearly dinnertime, so we decided we would stick around and eat and then decide whether or not to go home, since we had been planning to stay another night and a day.

 

The kids found interesting stuff to do while the beach was not an option.  Arden and Cora enjoyed getting their hair done by their cousins:

Then they decided they were still too cold and everyone of them piled in my SIL's van and they watched a movie and ate junk food.  Not exactly a camping activity, but whatever works.

 

After dinner, it was nice and sunny and the wind had died down, so we decided to unfold our tent and give it another try.  The tent was back up, and the kids played for a while.  Then it was time for another round of smores.  As I was on my third or fourth smore, I looked out over the water and saw some lightning flashes. 

 

Oh joy.  Here we go again.

 

We quickly finished up our smores and watched the storm coming towards us.  I folded up our camp chairs so they wouldn't blow away and made sure all our food was put away in the coolers or bins.  I quickly made the kids use the bathroom and brush their teeth (side note: NOT flushy bathrooms.  SO not acceptable.  There were some flushies at the boat ramp about half a mile down the road.  I made the trek more than once).  We got into the tent just as big raindrops started splattering and the wind started roaring again.  We were putting the kids in their jammies and trying to decide whether to stay or make a run for it.  Thunder was crashing, the wind was howling, our tent was flapping, and Daxton was...sleeping?

 

That kid went to sleep on top of Arden's sleeping bag before we even had the girls in their jammies.  I picked him up and stuffed him in his own sleeping bag and that decided it for us.  We hunkered down for another long night.  Luckily, after an hour or so of pretty impressive storminess, things calmed down and the rest of the night was blissfully quiet (except for Preston's snoring, which was complained about by people in other tents). 

 

The next morning was sunny!  Hooray.  Still a little cold though.  The cousins huddled in the van again, getting "makeovers."  Another not-so-campy activity, but with fun results: 

Some of these 11- and 12-year olds have way more makeup than I do! 

We don't get the wave runners out on Sunday, but we decided to let the kids enjoy "the beauty of nature" down by the water.  The water level was pretty low this year, and in some places instead of sand there was, well...mud:

Cora and Arden loved to get in the really deep mud and then show off their "mud socks."  Nice.

 

It was a really beautiful day.  There were lots of sailboats out on the water, but I didn't really get any pictures.  I was pretty much a picture slacker the rest of the time.  The kids went swimming in their life jackets, made sandcastles AND mud pies, and pretty much just got really good and dirty.  Some cousins brought their dogs and our kids LOVE dogs and spent a lot of time giving them walks and chasing them around.  Dax spent a lot of his time throughout the trip roaming around the big pavilion, looking for anything of anyone else's that looked good.  I caught him stealing a Hostess cupcake from my niece, some licorice from a SIL, and an entire gigantic box of goldfish from another SIL, which Dax and his little cousin B ran up the pathway with and "sneakily" ate in full sight of everyone.  I have no idea what he got away with while I wasn't looking.  There were also some craw fish caught and possibly taken home as pets (not by us, of course). 

 

I gotta say, the lake looks beautiful under a nice blue, sunny sky:

After playing on the beach all day, we had a family dinner with everyone.  After that (and a couple more smores), I really wanted a shower and the kids were reaching the end of their ropes.  We packed up and headed home to sleep in our beds.  Two camping nights is definitely our limit.

It was only 45 minutes from Rockport to home, but Dax was asleep in the first five.  We left the wave runners up there since some people we staying another night.  We headed up again the next day and did some more wave running (and it was warm enough for me to join in this time).  No pictures again. 

We headed back early since school was starting the next day.  We had a back-to-school feast of steak (and in my case, salmon) on the deck:

After dinner, it was baths, stories, and kids in bed EARLY ready for our next adventure...SCHOOL!  (Which I promise I will blog about soon!)

Lagoon 2012

Living where we do, we drive by Lagoon pretty often.  Most times, one of the kids will point at it and yell something like "There's Lagoon!  We are going there in the summertime!"  When it was summertime, they would yell something like "There's Lagoon!  Mom, it is summertime now!  When are we going to Lagoon?"  "Soon!"  I would reply. 

 

As July turned to August, the driving past Lagoon chant got louder and more whiny.  "Mooooom!  There's Lagooooon!  You said we could go there in the summertiiiime.  When can we gooooooo?"  Since it was the very last week before school started we decided we better get to Lagoon and make good on our promise.  Also, we were afraid that if we didn't go, we would have to hear about it each and every time we drove by Lagoon until next summer.  So to Lagoon we went!

 

It was the best day to go to Lagoon, since a lot of the surrounding school districts started school the week before us, there was hardly anyone there.  We walked on every single ride.  Awesome. 

 

Here is Dax riding a dragon (since that is the closest thing he could find to a dinosaur) on the merry go round, with Cora in hot pursuit astride a regular, boring old horse.





We brought Arden's friend A along to make the numbers even and to make everything more fun!  Here are the two girls, manning a rocket and shooting aliens from both sides:

 

After a few kiddie rides got everyone warmed up, we started moving up to the serious stuff.  Here is everyone on the jumping dragon ride (Cora is riding with me, she LOVES it).  I am only good for one jumping dragon ride and I need a little break.  

We did another kiddie ride or two until my world stopped spinning backwards, then we headed over to the OdySea ride.  For those of you that may not know, in this ride you sit in a giant fish or a shark and go around in circles trying to avoid getting spit on by various sea creatures.  Dax (shockingly) wanted to ride on a shark.  He ran around trying to find a shark to ride in, and unfortunately they were all taken, so he and Preston decided to wait for the next round.  While they were waiting, a bee was flying around Daxton's face, so he quickly smacked his hands over his forehead to protect himself.  Problem was, he smacked the bee ONTO his forehead and then left his hands there, screaming.  Preston tried to pull his hands off, but by the time he did it, the bee had stung his forehead.  Through all of this I am stuck in a fish going around and around.  The stinger was still in Dax's skin, poor kid, so Preston grabbed him and they headed off to the first aid station. 

We got off the ride and wandered around a little looking for them, and they soon returned.  Dax's forehead had a band aid, and his face was tear-stained but happy.  Since he didn't cry while they pulled out the stinger, they gave Dax a small stuffed shark with a fire patten on it.  He was so in love with that thing, I was worried he was going to start looking for another bee to sting him so he could get another toy.  Luckily, the sting didn't hurt or bother him, and you couldn't even tell anything had happened after an hour or two. 

After that, it was a little bit of lunch and then back to the rides.  Everyone was a good sport and rode on even the little kiddie rides like "Bulgy the Whale" to keep Cora happy.

Pretty soon, though, it was off to the Tilt-A-Whirl.  I have a rule against throwing up in public so I don't get on this ride.  Arden and A rode it a couple of times while the rest of us were finishing up our lunch, and then Preston and the other kids got on too.

 

After a few Tilt-A-Whirls, Arden started feeling it:

Poor thing.  That is the worst!  I sat with her on the bench for a while, but Daxton seized his opportunity.  He quickly volunteered to ride with A on the Tilt-A-Whirl again.  Then when Arden didn't feel up to the Scrambler, he again gallantly escorted her.  Pretty soon, he was putting the patented Daxton moves on the poor girl (it is hard to see, but he is holding her hand):

 Then he took her for a nice cozy drive (Arden rode with Cora).

Arden started to feel a little jealous, but it was nothing a little ice cream couldn't solve.  Luckily, as you can tell from this picture, when ice cream is involved, Dax can't focus on anything else.

We walked around Pioneer Village and rode the log flume a couple of times.  The big girls didn't want to go on Rattlesnake Rapids, so Preston took the littles.  This is the result:

 

They were completely soaked.  It was a hot day, so they didn't mind too much. 

 

We rode on nearly every ride in the park (well, the ones that you didn't have to be more than 46 inches tall to ride, anyway).  Arden loves the Bombora roller coaster best, and Cora went on it twice, but she was more than ready to get off both times.  Dax was game for anything.  I think his favorite was the Bat, which is one of those coasters where your feet are swinging loose.  Cora and I watched the others since she was too small to go on that one, and I could see Dax's feet kicking happily throughout the ride.  A couldn't quite convince Arden to go on Wicked, though, so Preston and I both took turns taking her on that one, since neither of us had been on it before ;)  Cora's favorite was the zoo train, I think.  She made us go on it twice.

 

Here is a picture of the big girls (in the back) and the boys (3rd from the back) on Bombora:

We rode more rides and more rides, and Arden was feeling better so she rode on the Music Express and a few other spinny ones again, and even was ready for some food.

We stopped briefly to eat some pizza for dinner, where all the kids entertained everyone around them with an impromptu karaoke performance of "Call Me Maybe."  (What can I say, they all love that stinkin' song.  Even Cora has been boppin' around the house all summer singing, "I jus met you, and dis is cwaaaazy!  But hewes my numba!  So caw me maybe!")    *Sigh*

Since we only go to Lagoon once a year, we Lagoon'd our guts out and stayed until the moon rose and the lights went on.  It was a superfun day!

Unfortunately, Arden started not feeling so good on the last couple of rides.  Even more unfortunately, there is serious road construction going on near our house, and we had to drive down a very bumpy dirt road and then several curvy detours on the way home.  Arden puked on her shoes in the car, about 2 minutes from home.  Poor little thing.  I guess we Lagoon'd her a little too hard.

I guess the positive thing is that next year I will have a buddy to sit by me while everyone else rides on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

A Little More Pre-Back-To-School

Today was the first day of First Grade for Arden and the first day of preschool for Cora, and the first soccer practice of the year for Dax!  I hate doing posts out of order, and I haven't even come close to finishing blogging about all the superfun stuff we did last week.  However, I am way to tired to try and blog about all of it tonight, so I will do one little chunk and then am I off to do a little running and then I shall jump into my wonderful bed.

Last Monday we took the kids to the last "Family Night" of the Salt Lake Bees baseball season ($5 for any ticket, plus a free hot dog, who can beat that?)  I was so excited.  For me, a baseball game on a warm night is one of the essential summertime experiences, and I only wish that we would have gone more often. 

At least in theory. 

We were quite a sight as we struggled to our seats during the first inning.  Daxton and Cora were having a screaming-hitting-drag-out fight over a half-inch long dinosaur toy, and Arden was whining because her hot dog bun had ripped ever so slightly.  Everyone wanted to sit by mom, but mom only has two sides and wants to eat her hot dog and no you can't sit on my lap right now.  The people behind us were probably dying as we made our noisy way down the aisle to sit in front of them.  Preston looked at me as soon as everyone was sitting down, still whining about the seating arrangement and how they didn't want mustard on their hot dogs anymore even though they just said that they really wanted mustard five seconds ago, "Okay, I am ready to go home now!"  I am not sure if we was joking, but I pretended he was.

After the kids finished their hot dogs (with the mustard wiped off) and Preston quickly followed that up with a bag of kettle corn, things started to be much happier, and thankfully, much less whiney!  The sun started to set and things started to cool off.  The mountains were purple behind the outfield, and (at least at this point) the Bees were winning!  Awesome!  It really is a beautiful ball park.

Here is Dax, chowing down on some kettle corn.  That kid can EAT when he gets going.  Not sure he knows much about baseball yet, but he knows that when we are at a baseball game, chances are he is going to get some kettle korn and possibly cotton candy, so he is totally in favor of baseball games.

Here is me and Arden, with Cora taking pictures (she also took pictures of Preston's feet, and a very close up picture of her nose and a few other choice shots that I won't share with you today). 

 Cora was so excited every time the Bee mascot came close.  She kept talking and talking about how she wanted to "swap him five."  Finally right before we were going to call it a night, he came and stood by our section.  A line of little kids quickly formed and Cora wanted to be IN that line.  Preston carried her over and we waited patiently for about 10 minutes so she could give the bee a high-five and get a picture with him.  When it was FINALLY her turn, she decided that she didn't like bees after all and wanted nothing to do with it.   Here is the closest thing we got of a picture of Cora with the Bee:

After that we decided it was time to go.  All the way back to the car in the dark Cora talked about the "monster" we had seen moving around on the Nightmare on 13th haunted house building (if you drive by there you know what I am talking about). She was very worried that big winged monster was going to "hop off the biw-ding and come and get us."  It took quite a bit of convincing to get her to believe it was only a pretend monster.  Everyone was pretty tired by the time we got home, especially since we weren't really recovered from Bear Lake.  But there was no rest for the weary, this was the last week of summer and we had to go out with a BANG!  See more later.