But with joy wend your way

Fall break! How fabulous for us! Week one in Denver included delights such as Gunther Toody's and Monkey Bizness bounce house, the leisure pool, Chuck E. Cheese, Toys 'R Us with Grandma K, a birthday party for the fellas, and our virgin experience with Jump Street in Littleton. We then hit the road just across the border - is there a less expensive and more poignant long-weekend spot than SLC, Utah?
The slideshow contains specific highlights, but Day One of glorious weather consisted of the Conference Center (Grace provided the soundtrack for the tour, consisting solely of "A long time ago in a beautiful place..."), the North and South visitors' centers, the Seagull Monument, the temple steps, the Joseph Smith building, Beehive House, flagship Deseret Book store and Church History Museum, which took every second of our 7-hour day. We wrapped up nicely with In-N-Out and crashing at the home of our dearest friends, the Roses (read: those who have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, and still welcome us into their home).

Following the JSB film which graphically depicted the Prophet Joseph's life and death, Eve and I left the theater, arms around each other's waists. A well-meaning and adorable senior missionary asked Eve what she thought. She beamed a smile at him and instantaneously burst into sobs, burying her head into my shoulder, and before I could even blink another sweet sister missionary from Cambodia came over simply said: "Oh, she cry? Oh! She feel the Spirit!", at which point, we all dissolved into mass hysteria.

After leaving the building, Eve watched Shane and Grace balance along the planter walls and shook her head in disbelief, "They just don't even get why we're here on this trip!"
But she does. As does Ty, though in a less dramatic way ("They had to leave Nauvoo? Where where the police to protect them?"). And so, obviously, worth it.

Day Two brought us to BYU's Bookstore and Los Hermanos for lunch, then back up to Salt Lake for This is the Place monument and Heritage Park. The segue into the westward Exodus is always my favorite, and I could hold forth on Brigham Young for many a day, but suffice it to say the monument and views are amazing. Heritage Park could do with a Web site update: it doesn't help my family when, at 2 p.m., we arrive to find that every historic cabin and building in the park has just closed for the day, when the Internet clearly informed us they would be open until dusk. Every bit as hard as crossing the plains. :)

Am I the only one who thinks Utah County is ridiculously overcrowded? That dinner at Texas Roadhouse was epic, though...

Day Three: super cloudy, rainy and all of 50 degrees. I scored at Rod Works (yahoo!) in Orem, and we headed to the stadium in full downpour - they've got quite the deal going at LaVell Edwards Stadium: no umbrellas allowed, but willing to sell us the $5 BYU rain poncho, which, of course, you've got no choice but to accept. The weather cleared nicely from game time 'til we all filed out of the stadium (luckeeeeee!), but those fellas were killin' us: they didn't exactly try to win, but did doing their best not to be beaten by Wyoming. Kinda.

Again, worth it to show the kids the full home game experience, as well as the obligatory ride around Provo: Those are the dorms! That's where mommy used to live! That's where daddy used to live! That was mommy and daddy's first apartment! Our second apartment! This building didn't used to be here! And you can't leave without eating at Brick Oven, 'natch.

Trekking home, alternating sleeping with videos and mom and dad's gleeful nonstop Pearl Jam radio-listening on Sirius...the car improbably behaved on the trip home through Wyoming, which more than offset the less-than-stellar scenery (though I get a kick out of Evanston, home of 'Pyro City')...

many thanks again to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who always offer the history of the restored gospel of Christ in a professional, enlightening, and spiritual way, as well as the Roses, hosts and hostesses extraordinaire - one for the books, and I'm more than sure, one that will be redone many a time.

Livin' in a Rancher's Paradise

I sometimes get lucky: chaperoning field trips is just one of my favorite pasttimes. I've been on trips from mind-numbingly boring to riveting, ill-advised to serendipitous, poorly planned and abominably executed to...well, wondrous, like this one. Clear Sky's 2nd grade field trip just south of Castle Rock to the historic Lowell Ranch just may well be favorite outing yet.
What a great place, just can't say enough about it. Tons to see, tons to do, tons to learn...here, Shaner's showing his gentler side with some kind of white fluffy animal: what do you think? Duck? Rabbit? Seriously. Can't remember to save my life.

The International (or perhaps merely local Clear Sky Elementary) sign for silence...he's Bison proud, I keep telling you people. Can't I get a buy-in?

During a presentation regarding cows and their multiple stomachs, feed is passed around. Other children, with normal family backgrounds, look at the feed, and some even gingerly run it through their fingers. My boy goes for immersion. 'Cause that's how we roll 'round here.

For a purely city kid, Shane can readily identify every naturally grown food item brought to his attention. It's kind of stupefying.

Essential Shane: a jaw full of...something. In this case, spaghetti squash. And you can bet your sweet bippy he's never going to be served that at home. Enjoy while you can, brothah.

Patchin' Things Up

Crawfords young and old wait breathlessly for this time of year: is there anything in this world more glorious than a Rocky Mountain Fall? In which to while away our fall breaks, two birthdays and Halloween festivities? Nope, nothin' like it in the world.

Anderson Farms is our favorite Pumpkin Patch, worth every second of the 1 hour drive each way, and worth every penny of admission. We hit it on an 85-degree day, and, apparently, timed our visit with every field trip taken by every preschool and daycare north of Denver. Still worth it? You betcha.

After face painting, hay-bale mazes, corn mazes, pedal karts, barrel-train rides, and petting zoo, you climb onto the hay wagon and ride on out to the patch, where you pick your pumpkins straight off the vine. Gracie's was just perfect: all she needs is her Fairy Godmother to change this gorgeous orb into a coach and hook her up with a fabulous dress.

How you like me now?

We hit the patch early enough in the season, and before any heavy rain or snowfall, so we got the pick of the crop. Shane's favorite part was stamping off those stems, and watching them ooze all over the wagon bench.

And the Great Pumpkin rises over the pumpkin patch...

My kids love to "milk" this plywood cow, and it's disturbing on so many levels.

Trike obstacle course. The boys are about 2 years too old for this, but they're always back to it, like dogs to vomit. How's that for a visual?

On a day this warm, one go-round on the pedal karts was all they could manage. Did they lap everybody? Is that really a question?

The bumpiest train ride in all of creation. How would it be to be five, where your body could take that kind of abuse? I mean, you slip off the haybale maze and require multiple band-aids for a scrape, but endless trips on the spine-warping barrel train leave them unscathed. Go figure.

'Til we meet again, Anderson Farms. Sniff.

Just one week prior, we hit the Chatfield Botanical Gardens Pumpkin Fest - about 20 degrees cooler, and, as you can detect, early enough in the season that my little California kids completely forget that one occasionally needs hoodies during a Colorado autumn, particularly when they're about to spin themselves into a coma.

After daddy absconded the boys to hit the batting cages, the ladies hit the face-painting booth. Gracie's pick: puppies! Everything's puppies with that gal.

Belly did what all the cool gals are doing: bright pink Broncos horses with glitter. I'm all about to hook her up with pink leather gloves and pink cleats, just like all the Broncs are sporting this month.

Just before we trucked off to the parking lot...
on yet another hay wagon, surrounded by those heartbreakingly beautiful changing leaves. Some say overkill. We say: you only get to ride on hay wagons once a year in these parts, carpe that diem, baby!

Dollop of Daisy

Our latest first: Gracie's now officially the youngest in a family of scouts, our 2nd and final Daisy. Sigh. For Grace's investiture for Daisy Scouts, she wore Eve's Daisy t-shirt, which she wore the year Gracie was born...aren't I too old and worn out to be brought to tears over such coincidences? Some people can roll with the punches. And then there's me.
Precioso. Sassy. Just the way we like her.

On my honor...I had kinda forgotten how precious Girl Scouts is. And I'm just so thrilled for the experiences Grace will have with this group of girls - Eve's Daisy and Brownie years were just pure bliss, girls and leaders that we still love to this day, and every now and again Eve will pull out her Girl Scout good-bye scrapbook made by Miss Julie and Miss Laurie and we just giggle over the happiness of remembering those people.

So relieved that the patches are iron-on - I have never been accused of being an overachiever in the sewing quadrant of my life. Wait. There's a sewing quadrant in my life?

First official Girl Scout activity: District Troop Sing-Along at the Douglas County Fairgrounds - how many giggling and screaming girls can you fit in one room?

It's hard to follow along in the song book when you can't read. But is she game? Ooooh, baby...

Oh, Beautiful! For heroes proved...

Adding to my near-monthly testimonial to Shane's Pack 780...Friday, September 10th Shane and Ty were invited to attend Meadow View Elementary's flag ceremony commemorating the events of September 11, 2001. As that flag was raised to half mast, I felt that bittersweet satisfaction that my boys were finally at an age in which they could begin to grasp the complete horror of a tragic national event - and as I teared up I couldn't decide whether that was good or bad.

Ty was not even a year old on that numbing day, Shane not even a thought in our heads. They beg for stories - as we watch the requisite programming featuring plumes of smoke, falling debris, crashing buildings, clouds of ash and terrified people, they just want to know what it felt like to watch the whole thing unfold, live. Being blessed enough to not know anyone personally involved in that diaster, they want to know what it was like for me, the closest person to them, to go through the motions of caring for small children as eras changed in the blink of an eye - we need diapers, do I dare trundle them in the car and go to Costco, when there could be hijackers over us right this second - what was that like? How scared were you? Did we understand? I wish they never had to.

September 11th itself was spent at the Air Force Academy as they hosted BYU on the gridiron - there is nothing like an AFA game, and now that the Y is out of the Mountain West, I'll truly miss bringing the fam down there every other year for their match-ups. There's no venue like it, particularly on that day - though it was a titch too hot and the stadium could use more bathrooms, it was just a touching display, start to finish (where else am I going to get handed a pocket-size copy of the Constitution while I wait to be frisked?)...above is a flag flown at Ground Zero and unfurled at the halftime show by rescue workers who survived the ordeal, returned veterans from Afghanistan, and cadets who will someday soon be sent to protect the interests of the U.S. abroad.

Each home game, all of the cadet squadrons are introduced and file onto the field in a display that can be called nothing but impressive - all those young men and women of the highest moral and intellectual caliber (that aren't already attending BYU, ahem!), the best of the best. Due to high winds we didn't get the parachute jumpers (man!) but as always, that fly-by makes your heart stop (and I can never get a picture of three jets going that fast).

You've gotta give 'em props for having a live mascot who performs at halftime - the Falcon had a bit of a crash toward the end, and my kids were just sick over it. I just think it'd be a hoot to let a live cougar loose at the next BYU home game. If only they had a suggestion box...

Cosmo isn't probably the best performing costumed mascot in the world, but to BYU alum kids, he's the bomb, they just line up for pictures, slap him high-fives, probably dream of him at night after they pray for Heavenly Father to watch over him. And there were a ton of us in force that day. Not that we had anything whatsoever to cheer for after the first quarter.

After the first touchdown. When we had hope.

Driving. In vain. I'll tellya what: I've never seen a BYU squad perform that badly before, at least not while I was sitting right there to witness it (we'll forget 1992's Holiday Bowl, thank you very much). We got stomped. And getting out of the parking lot took a millennium. But I'll miss it. A class act on both sides.

Hogwarts Express, Castle Rock Style

The tykes' presence at Clear Sky Elementary was demanded, and so we complied, that hot, hot August 6th...we started off with a neighborhood potluck breakfast, and, just like that, off they went - daddy and his oldest gal (sporting the Justice backpack)...
I'm a tradition and special-occasion junkie, so I LOVE the Clap-In they stage to send the kids off into another year of academic rigor and glory - check out this second grader!

His brother, entering fourth!

Their sister, entering sixth!

And, dangit, they just missed Sturgis.

Four days later, the kinder sissie made her debut at Clear Sky - she'll attend two full days a week, plus some random Fridays, and couldn't be happier about her new environment: Barbie backpack, the ability to eat a lunch in the Biston Bistro that she has packed for herself, checking out her own books out of the library. Sometimes, it's just the little things that are the big things.