How to distill the excitement of our lives down to just a few paragraphs??.....

Okay, Rachel says it's time for a new post because the last one was boring. SO, this one will be so much more exciting since so many more things are happening now....

Let's see...I'm still working in YW's and liking it (I give my thanks every day that I don't have Rachel's calling!) Dad and I recently went on the stake youth temple trip to Boston and had the pleasure of riding on a school bus for 6 hours. That's when you know you have a testimony! (Why else would you squish your abnormally long legs into seats meant for 8 year olds for 3 hours at a pop?) But the temple experience was really nice, and it was fun to share it with Dave and Bekah. I'm trying to plug forward with my classes. Unlike Rachel, I did not get all my learning taken care of while I was at BYU. Believe me - I wish I had! The assignments are challenging because they require DRAWING. Yes, it's true. I'm supposed to DRAW. Any of my children who grew up being entertained by my stick-figure masterpieces knows that this is quite a stretch for me. And unlike Mindy, I don't seem to be improving much! Dad's finally going skeet shooting tomorrow. He hasn't been for a very long time, so hopefully that'll be fun for him. He's going with our duplex neighbor. (Our neighbors are a cute young couple with an adorable little one-year old name Andreas.) Also tomorrow we're going to go apple picking. The leaves are turning, and it's starting to look really pretty back here. Yay for fall in New York!

Back to the coal mines.....

Well, we just returned from a veeerrry extended vacation to Utah. Bekah and I were out there for close to a month! Now it's back to New York and work, school, etc. We're trying hard to get back into a routine,but it takes a while. Meanwhile, we did have a great trip! It was so fun to see all of our kids, and to catch up on their lives. I'll mention here some of the highlights of the trip:

Jake and Nicole's wedding
This was, of course, the main reason for our trip out west. We are so happy that Jake found such a wonderful young lady to add to our family (and to our already stellar daughter-in-law collection!). We love Nicole and are so happy to have her as a Field!

Here are some pictures from the wedding.




Getting re-acquainted with baby Abby
Abby's at that stage where she's not sure she's all that fond of strangers. And we're strangers, unfortunately! But we had lots of fun playing with her and trying to get her to like us! She's a real cutie, and it's fun to see how she's grown!



Weekend at Bear Lake
Some of us took a little trip up to Bear Lake for a weekend. While there, we decided to try our hand at wakeboarding. Turns out we have quite the talented family! It was lots of fun. We also did to ATV riding up in the mountains - it was beautiful as always up there, and we got nice and dirty!



Other miscellaneous fun stuff
We also did lots of other fun things, some of which included: helping Amy sew roman shades for her new house (they came out super cute!); spending a day in the neighborhood park in Heber playing with Mindy, Abby, Rachel, and Bekah; going to BYU's opening football game (which they won - go Cougars!); Bekah spent a fun-filled weekend with Jeff and Rachel; visiting with family who came to the wedding; and in general just spending time with family. What could be better!