Hayride!

Landon and I decided it would only be fitting for us to make a visit to the Rowley Red Barn this fall. It is owned by cousins of Landon's Dad, and the farms are where Mike grew up.  Plus, we heard they have hayrides and fresh apple cider donuts, so really, that's all we needed.   We packed up in the car and drove the half hour to Santequin--which seems to be a sketchy town in my opinion.  I've only been there three times, and every time I run into same-sex couples, and Landon tells me there are polygamists down there.  But that's besides the point.

We went inside and looked around to find that it is a lot like "The Country Mercantile" at home.  They have some delicious ice cream, and the aforementioned donuts.  I think we were the only ones who watched the whole video playing about how they make their cider, complete with commentary from Landon about what was different from the farm at home. We talked about wanting the apple butter and cherry salsa, but we're too cheap to actually buy any. And then we headed outside to the hayride.

I'm not sure you appreciate how excited I was for the hayride.  I have never been on one, you see. And you can't get to adulthood without having experienced a hayride, in my opinion.  I was a little let down when it came and there was no actual hay--they were too high class and had actual benches instead.  Landon, being allergic, was perfectly happy with that trade.  But on the way back we got in the wagon with the hay, so I was satisfied.  When our tractor driver was a little delayed, I had to hold Landon back from hopping on and taking over.  We got to pick our pumpkins, went through a maze made out of apple bins, and took some fun pictures.   Landon even got to meet a couple of the relatives.  All in all, I would say it was a fun day.

Landon was just sure this was one of Grandpa Rowley's trucks.

Not sure what these faces are about, but I'm pretty sure they have
something to do with ghosts.

Edible Art is the Best Kind!

 One of my coworkers, Brian, was nice enough to invite Landon and I over for dinner last week.  He is from Peru (born in Puno where Chris served), so he made us an authentic dish, which was fun. Afterwards, we brought dessert.  Since he has a little boy named Ethan, we thought it could be fun to decorate cupcakes for Halloween.  It's amazing what you can do with the right colors of sugar :) Brian made a cyclops, and it must have been good because he ate it too fast for anyone to get a picture.

Ethan was pretty intense while making his scary monsters.

Landon holding baby Gabriel so Brian could do a cupcake.

Brian's wife Valerie

Relief Society Activity

Gotta love Relief Society.  They are the only reason I have any decorations in my house for holidays other than Christmas (because those are a necessity, of course). We had a fun activity the other day where we dipped leaves in wax and threaded them to make garland for fall.  Then we painted pumpkins, and made a leaf-covered candle holder.  I have decided modge podge is one of the greatest inventions ever.  Relief Society uses it for pretty much every craft these days.  Anyways, it was pretty fun and inexpensive--just pick up some colorful leaves from outside. I was happy with the result :)

Weekend with the Fam

Uncle Landon showing Darwin the remote control car

  We were so excited to have Michael and Anita come visit us this weekend!! They are doing a short rotation in Cedar City, and Michael had a couple of days off so they came up to see a football game and hang out.  We got to go out to lunch on Saturday.  We ate J-dawgs for old times sake, and then got some more at Zuppa's to top us off. Both Landon and Michael call it "rabbit food", but I thought it was great!  We fit in some swinging with Darwin, and softball to enjoy the weather outside.  Michael had some great barehanded moves that kept us all laughing.  Like usual, getting a little too close to hitting a car made us decide to do something else.

Playin the guitar.  He seems to like bar cords...

Can you tell how delicious these floats were by the mustaches?

Covering his ears for the cannon. He didn't seem too
phased by the noise as much as people grabbing his head.

The football game was awesome.  Just like old times--Michael yelling crazy things in his emotional fan voice, Anita and I trying to growl like a cougar, with the addition of Landon's frustration at stupid plays and refs.  All that along with a winning game--Great combination. We ended up in some pretty awesome seats.  But we were also right next to the cannon, so we had to be on the ball and make sure we covered little Darwin's ears every time we scored.  Darwin was a champ.  He only whimpered a few times when the crowd went in uproar, and the rest of the time he was just chilling and smiley--even slightly after bedtime :)  Landon was supposed to be able to fire off the cannon, but it turned out they didn't score enough to make it to his turn.  Bummer.

Go Cougs!

On Sunday we got to visit Grandma, and she finally got to meet little Darwin.  As always, he won her over in seconds.

When we got home, we may or may not have ventured to make another music video--bringing back the old D Thugs N Harmony, ha, and adding Landon to the group.  I'm pretty sure I was laughing most of the time.  It was a hilarious workout.  These were the pics for our CD cover :)

Sadly they had to leave Monday morning. Poor Landon had to get up early to finish a paper (since we didn't give him any time before), and Michael had to work a 12 hour shift today with less than 8 hours of sleep.  But we had a blast!