Ashtons, BYU Football, and Weed Whackering

On August 22, we went to Sandy to have dinner with Jeff and Ruth at Jeff's parents' house. We were finally able to meet Baby Evan, who is almost too old for that title. It was great seeing you guys! Wish we had more time together, but we're happy we were included in your short tour of Utah!

Then, on August 25, Brian decided to take Michael to one of the only Saturday Marching Band rehearsals, and I decided to tag along. We barely caught the end of their practice on the field in the stadium, and Michael was mad when they stopped playing. We waited to say "hi" to Brother Mac, the director, and when he saw us, he was surprised and seemed a little excited. He started handing us hats and drawstring backpacks. Soon, someone summoned me to pick out shirt sizes, and then Bro. Mac gave us tickets to the opening game. We were not expecting any of this. Bro. Mac said to consider it a bribe :) 

As we were leaving the stadium, I couldn't resist snapping a picture with the Y in the background. 

Thursday, August 30 was game day. Unfortunately, the game started at 8:15, which was past Michael's bedtime, and kind of late for pregnant me. We decided that it would be fun to go anyway. We met up with our good friends, the Brintons, for a quick dinner of pizza, and then headed to the stadium. It was a white-out, so I made sure that we were all dressed in white for the game, but on the walk to the stadium, it started raining, and we busted out jackets. It only lasted a minute, but we couldn't convince Michael to take off his jacket after that. Oh well.

The stadium has fancy HD screens above each end zone, and they had fireworks to welcome the team onto the field, which was pretty awesome.

Michael loved the game and the marching band.

Too bad we couldn't get a picture with the REAL Cosmo, but this just had to do:

While we were at the game, Lea dropped off her bouncer and baby swing that are no longer needed at her house. Rather than put them in storage until January, we decided to leave them out so Baby Amber could use them while she's here. Apparently, Michael thought they were for him:

 I can't even get over how big he is getting! Fall means that someone in our house will soon be turning 3!!

 He loves to "mow the lawn." He often heads toward the door calling, "I need to mow da lawn." On labor day, he was out pushing his mower right along with his daddy. Of course, by the time I got the camera out to take a picture of them, Brian was done mowing, so I made them pose for a picture instead:

Matthew has a large collection of light sabers--and Michael LOVES playing with them. However, since he has never seen Star Wars, he calls them his weed whackers. So, in addition to mowing, Michael also heads outside to do some "weed-whackering". So, when Brian stopped mowing and began weed whacking, I looked out and saw Brian with the trimmer and Michael with the light saber. I ran for the camera, and at the same time, Brian ran to get me and the camera. The result? Michael stopped "weed whackering". And this time, we couldn't get him to pose. He was back to mowing. So, I got a picture of Michael mowing and Brian trimming. (Brian is in the far background.)

 But a few days later, I caught him in the act:

It's so crazy that the evenings are cooler, and the leaves are turning in the higher elevations. My apples are all picked--half by neighbor kids, which were then mostly ruined by our kids here, and the other half by me--and school has started. And, the year that I thought would be so terrible is turning out to be quite lovely.