Sand Hollow

Last weekend we had family in town for their UEA weekend.... don't get me started on why our "Fall Recess" wasn't the same weekend as the rest of the state of Utah!

Anyway, so we headed out to Sand Hollow reservoir to go 4-wheeling and play in the sand.Brenner and Cierrah found the jackpot of treasure... shells. They spend countless hours looking for shells.
Mason had a fun time being buried in the sand by Matthew.
Terek just loves to get dirty.
Mikelle enjoyed relaxing and getting some sun.
Jadon just wanted to drive the 4-wheeler... and lucky for him, Joren wanted to go for a ride.
Did I mention Terek just liked to get dirty? The kids had a blast!!! And I enjoyed the chance to relax and do nothing:)

Pumpkin Patch

Friday night we found ourselves with nothing to do. We had been wanting to take the kids to a pumpkin patch that was in Santa Clara. It turned out that it was the Johnson family farm... this is a family that I have known since way back in my early childhood in Santa Clara. My friend had a migraine, so we took her kids and headed over. The pumpkin patch was free... then you bought tickets to go on the rides and do the activities.
The barrel trains are always a blast!
They had real horses to ride...
and fake horses... and bulls.... Everyone kept telling me how cute Zoe was... ahhh to have a girl for a few minutes:)
The boys liked digging for the "needle" in the haystack... they had placed nails in there and if you found one, you could win a prize.
Farmyard toys are the best!
They had dinner to buy as well and we ended up staying until it was dark. It's nice to have fun stuff like this around... and close to home... I've been trying to figure out how we could do this at our farm..... something to ponder:)

Fall Festivals

Last weekend we headed up to Cedar City for the Pumpkin festival. The kids got to paint pumpkins...

... Trace (my cousin Summer's son) was the only one brave enough to try to eat a donut off the string...
... Home Depot was there with a craft for the kids to build and paint. They also had a lot of fun booths and activities for the kids to do.
After the Pumpkin Festival in Cedar City we headed down to New Harmony for the Apple Festival. The boys enjoyed their blue snow cones:)
My Grandma's sister lived in New Harmony and had apple orchards. My mom's cousins still live there and own the apple orchards, so we headed over there for a visit and picked some apples.
Brenner was very particular about the apples that he picked and not sharing them with anyone.
We enjoyed eating a few apples fresh from the tree.
Joren thought it was fun to whack the trees to make the apples fall.... he didn't quite get that bruised mushy apples aren't super yummy to eat.
It was such a pretty place and fun to visit with family.
Left to right: Back: Kali (Cash's girlfriend), Ryan, Anisa, Summer, Libby and Peyton. Front: Brenner, Terek, Joren and Trace. I always love spending time with my cousins.
The boys always have fun with their cousins too.
It was good to see you Summer and I hope you have a safe trip back to New Mexico!

Staheli Family Farms

This past weekend was our Fall Recess. We debated on heading out of town, but decided everything was a little too expensive. So, we thought we'd find some fun stuff to do here in town.

Last year we went to Staheli Family Farm and just loved it. So, that was our first destination. We invited our friends, the Miller's to go with us.... everything is more fun with friends.
They had a fun little maze that the kids could go through.
Our rule has always been that the kids can't get a pumpkin bigger than they can carry themselves. Well, that didn't work for little Terek. When he saw how big his brothers' pumpkins were, he wanted a fairly big one too.
Joren carried a 16 pounder...
Brenner carried a 22 pounder...
Terek is my only kid still willing to pose for pics for me:)

Brenner, Joren, Terek and Xander had tons of fun playing all the games. They loved playing in the sand, on the corn slide and swinging from the rafters on a rope.
We got "lost" in the maze for about an hour and a half... I don't think we were really lost, but mostly just took the long route:)
Cute little Zoe had a blast!
This is totally one of our favorite fall traditions in St. George.