Fall Break

We are just returning to school from almost 3 weeks of Fall Break. Here's the highlights that I don't want to forget:

Friday EARLY morning, we loaded the kids in the car and drove the 10.5 hours to Utah just in time for the BYU football game. The boys went with John, Grandpa, and a few uncles. I hung out with Shawnne and my mom and watched the younger kids.

Saturday EARLY morning-we left for SLC where we attended General Conference. My brother watched our three youngest, and we took the three oldest into the conference center. Taylor loved going to Priesthood session.

Sunday- we watched GC with my Bennion grandparents, then had a great visit that evening with lots of extended cousins that I hadn't seen for a while. It was good to catch up.

Monday-John flew home for work. I took the kids with my parents and a few siblings to Provo Canyon for most of the day. Loved seeing the Fall colors. Taylor and Mason enjoyed a tour of BYU's football facilities where James works with the team as an assistant trainer. They came home with BYU hats and couldn't be happier.

Tuesday-spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa Bennion, both into their 80's. Grandpa spent a lot of time helping the oldest kids make leather crafts, and he spent more time making bows and arrows out of metal hangers for Andersen. Grandma taught the kids how to play Chinese checkers and a few other games. Fun, memorable day.

Wednesday-drove to SLC and spent the day with my parents at Pioneer Village and other church museums. Cold and rainy, but still fun to be together. During the day, Andersen started doing the potty dance and my mom asked if he needed to "go number one or number two". His response cracked us all up. "I need to go a THOUSAND!!!" Enjoyed dinner at Denny's with both of my parents.

Thursday-headed to Alpine with all the kids and spent the afternoon and into the late evening with a favorite friend and college roommate. The kids had a great time playing with her kids, and I could have visited with Nicki forever. Wish we were neighbors!

Friday-spent the day with my Aunt Marcia and her kids, who happen to line up in age with a lot of mine. She and her family provide great role models of how we want our family to turn out. (Theya re about 10 years ahead of us in the parenting aspect). So every time I'm around Aunt Marcia, I ask lots of questions and observe how she does things as a mother. Very impressive! John flew back to SLC, just in time to drive us all home . . .

Saturday- long drive back home to make the 6pm soccer game for Taylor and Mason. Barely made it! Lots of laundry and unpacking.

Sunday-more laundry, church, and repacking for another full week at the cabin. We left a few hours after church.

We spent the following Monday-Saturday at the cabin with most all of John's siblings, their families, and parents. A few activities we did were: hiking, exercising, lots of visiting, work projects, horse riding, tractor riding, fishing, minute-to-win-it games, compass challenge, family feud, campfire sings, smores, board games, more hiking, mountain biking, eating, and more visiting.

It was a blast. One thing I pride myself in is that I married into an AMAZING, super fun, hard working, talented, and rock-solid family. Love those LeSueurs, and proud to carry the name.

Here's a few pictures of our second week:

Mason was insistant on catching AND cooking a crawdad. He ate it and said "tastes like chicken".

Kate enjoyed the freedom of walking and doing things by herself this time around. And needless to say, I enjoyed it too.

I thought this was a cute shot of Abby. She doesn't have very many girl LeSueur cousins but enjoyed herself nonetheless. Thank goodness for Kinsey, who's just a few years older.

Notice the PINK cowboy boots. I think she was more excited to just wear the boots than she was to ride the horse. She had a hard time giving them up when it was time to take the boots off. And my mind was yelling, "christmas present. . . consider it done!"

Andersen spent some time riding with Papa on his tractor. I couldn't tell who enjoyed it more-the little boys or Papa.



Taylor, giving thumbs up while playing minute-to-win-it games with cousins.
Andersen continued finding more and more sticks. But if I dared call it a "stick", he would get after me. "Mom, I've already told you. . .it's not a stick. It's a gun". This particular "gun" became very handy when he was riding horses because he could shoot all the 'elks' and 'badguys'.