September 2023 Part 5: Cornbellys

We got season passes for Corn Belly's again, and we took advantage of the earlier opening of the Spanish Fork Corn Belly's in late September. Season passes come with punch passes, and Rachel and Michael opted to use some of their punches for the mega trampoline. 

Rachel makes flipping around on this thing look easy, but Michael assures us that it is much harder than it looks. 

I think he may have gotten a flip in there. 

One of the times, we went with Lea and Skyler. Skyler, Rachel, and Gabe disappeared together right off the bat, and Michael sort of hung with Lea, Brian, and I, at least for a little while. 

Michael rode on this spinny ride with Lea. Brian also rode, but had the seat to himself. 

I watched from the safety of the solid, stable ground. 

Michael found the younger peeps and jumped with them on the air pillow. 

I made Michael stand by this sign so I could have a visual reference to how tall he is getting. 

We watched the younger crew ride this ride. 

We saw a beautiful sunset. 

And we all rode the train together. 

I tried to get Michael to take a good picture with me. This is how that went:

The Sunflower Festival was still going on, and we loved riding the train by all the beautiful sunflowers, especially at sunset. 

My favorite part of the night was hanging out with Lea. All the kids ditched us again, and Lea led us through all the obstacles in the ropes course, and then we laid on this mesh swing thing and talked, giggled, and looked at the stars. We felt like little girls again! We even spotted the Starlink Satellites, which we didn't know about until we saw the evenly spaced stars flying overhead. It was a bizarre thing to see when we didn't know about the satellites. 

We played some games together, and took a picture together in the big rocking chair before we had to track down our kids and be moms again. It was seriously such a great, simple night with Lea. 

We went again, without Lea, Skyler, or Michael. This meant that we actually hung out with Gabe and Rachel the whole night. 

Gabe did the apple blaster, which is always fun. 

They did the zip line swings. 

We tried to take a picture with the pumpkin spider in the background. 

We did the corn maze. 

The kids rode this ride. 

And I made them pose in front of this thing. 

We found Lil' Sebastian (Parks and Recreation reference). 

 We also got to be a part of the candy cannon test where they accidentally blasted the candy right to where they had told people to gather to be out of firing range. It was pretty funny. 

It was so fun spreading our typical October fun into September!

September 2023 Part 4: Brian's Birthday

Brian's birthday landed on a Monday this year (and so did Michael's, as well as Rachel's and Gabe's in 2024, but let's not get ahead of ourselves). Our weekends have been crazy with football and soccer stuff, and so we made plans for a double date with Serene and Dustin to celebrate on his birthday at brunch time. Who doesn't love brunch? Serene made him a cupcake and brought a little candle, and I didn't take a picture of that, but I did remember to take a commemorative birthday photo in front of The Original Pancake House before we parted ways. 

And since Hunter isn't in school yet, he got to come along. 

We had a very early dinner so that we could party before Rachel had to head to dance (class started at 5:15), so basically dinner was a soon as all the kids were home from school--3:45/4 ish. We didn't have to time to go out, so we ordered R&R Barbeque to be delivered. 

After dinner, it was time to open presents. 

Brian's wrists have been bothering him, and we knew it was only going to be a matter of time before he needed to quit the kickboxing gym that we love so much, so...

I got him a speed bag that we can hang up at home so that he can still do his favorite thing even after hanging up his boxing gloves. And he finally hung it up a month or two ago (February or March). 

I made him a brownie ice cream cake. 

We ran Rachel to dance and relaxed the rest of the evening. There was probably a movie or TV show involved, but I can't say for sure. 

What I do know for sure is that Brian is my favorite person in the entire universe. He makes me laugh, and he holds me when I cry. He puts up with my orneriness. He always believes in me. 

Back in the summer of 2004, I broke up with my first boyfriend. Actually, he broke up with me, and I'm so grateful that he did, because he wasn't the right guy for me. During the healing from the break-up though, I wrote a list called, "What I am looking for in my man." Amazingly, Brian has all the things. Here's the list:

• Current Temple Recommend
• Worthy Priesthood Holder
• Sense of Humor
• Strong Testimony
• Understands that EVERY THING revolves around the gospel
• Home-teacher
• Priorities in order:
• When we're dating: The Lord, Work/school, Me
• When we're married: The Lord, Me, Work
• Worthy goals
• Cherishes me, treats me like a queen, opens doors for me
• Always a gentleman
• Magnifies whatever calling he has
• Good with kids
• Understands my goals and encourages me in my dreams
• A little bit country.... (it started out as only a very tiny bit, but Idaho is slowly rubbing off on him)
• An active member of his family
• Ambitious, hard-worker
• Gets along with my family, my family adores him
• Gives me flowers
• Makes me want to be a better person
• Friendship
• Smart with money--thrifty, not extravagant
• Creative
• Managing skills, leadership skills
• Understanding of the importance of education
• Always working to improve himself
• Served an honorable mission
• Supports my decision to be a full-time soccer mom
• Brings out the best in me
• Cares about me more than he does about himself, cares about US more than he does about me, and cares more about the Lord than he does about US. 
• Honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, abides in good works continually, lovely, of good report, praiseworthy, anxiously engaged in a good cause, brings to pass much righteousness
• Controls his temper
• Knows how to turn off the TV and video games
• Supportive
• Is not afraid to get his hands wet in a sink of dishes
• Steps up to offer assistance when needed
• Won't stand by and watch me work
• Helps around the house
• Stands as a witness of God at all times, in all things, and in all places
• Motivated by his testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, not by me

I stumbled across this a few months ago, and I thought, "Whoa! This list is intense!" and then I marveled how Brian really does and is all the things. He may disagree with my assessment, but it is true. 

  

He is an incredible human, and I'm so so so grateful that he was born and that he is my man. I love him so much.