Still need more pictures of Ella

I thought I had some good pictures of Ella- but no not really- I need to take more- especially of her two front teeth-

For now this will have to work- Time with Dad is always fun- Tyler loves reading books


Tyler and his only cousin close by- Jack -driving a train at Thanksgiving point


Tyler is taking a tumbling class at a local middle school- very amatuer but fun. He looks forward to the class all week and takes it very seriously- He practices his stretches all week so his teacher "will be so 'mpressed"



We also got a new addition to our family- our family of bikes that is- Darren picked me a really good one- I rode it today for the first time and loved it-

Butterflies

I went to the Scarecrow festival with an old friend Tawnie Baldwin Croft- side note - we have been friends for almost 21 years -can anyone beat that...

Anyway- you would think I would have pictures of pumpkins and Halloween things- Sorry to disappoint- This was the highlight!  Tyler flew Tawnie, Ella and I all over- 

Some of the places we went were over to the popcorn stand, Boise Idaho, Michigan, Seattle, Logan, Chicago- oh I cant even remember all the places we went!

Tyler has said some interesting things lately :

"I like butterflies because they give us butter"

Tyler likes to eat hot dogs- he gets a bun, puts ketchup and mayo on it and then LOTS of mustard - no hot dog!  - He says- I like mustard because it is good for you!  (who knew!)

For those of you who watch Channel Five news- One of Darren's pictures was on TV- The picture Darren posted in the last blog with the beautiful yellow leaves and the white bark of the aspens was shown a couple nights ago.

My sister said I needed more pictures of Ella- This is a classic Ella one- She weighs 15.5 pounds now- up from her little 12.5- and loves to eat- I am glad she is so cute with food all over her but I sure seem to be "bizzing" - that means soaking ...a lot of her clothes lately!

Seasons and a Big Moose

One of the great things about living in Utah (besides being so close to the mountains) is seasons. I went mountain biking at Solitude with Nolan the other day and the leaves were starting to change... so this evening we decided to go for a little walk/hike in Big Cottonwood Canyon.





It really was a perfect evening.
















On our way back to the car we ran into a moose. She was about 20 yards off the trail. Like all moose, she wasn't scared of us and didn't seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere. We decided to keep on moving to get past her as it was getting dark. We passed her and Amy, Tyler and Ella kept walking as I paused to take these pictures.



As I was looking through the view finder to take this picture (trying to get the shutter speed and aperture correct) I noticed she appeared to be looking at me. The picture isn't perfect as I decided it was time for me to leave... well so did she. As I looked up from my camera she began to trot towards me. (I don't know if moose can run or not but with that long of stride the trot is pretty fast). I caught up to Amy, Tyler and Ella about 50 yards down the trail, picked up Tyler and told Amy that we had better run for a little bit as the moose might be angry. (About now I was praying that she didn't have any youngsters up there and if she did that we were not between them and her.) After we had ran for about another 100 yards or so we stopped, I set Tyler down and as I was telling Amy I think we are OK we hear branches cracking behind us. You guessed it, there she was again about 20 yards behind us. By now the adrenaline was really pumping. I grabbed Tyler and off we ran down the trail. Another 200 yards or so of running and we hear branches breaking right next to us on the trail. I'm now hoping that it's not a baby moose and thinking to myself how I can get her to chase after me so Amy can make it down to the car with the kids. About that time Amy yells back it was only a couple of deer. We had finally lost her, or probably more realistically she had decided we were no longer a threat. Anyway we made it back to the car safely, and Tyler now has a really cool story to tell all his friends and family.