Mendon Connections

I love long family road trips where we get to go somewhere totally unfamiliar. But I've learned out of necessity that short trips to somewhere fairly familiar are great too! :) It's amazing how fresh and different life can seem even when you're only an hour or two away from home. That was our situation this year, when we really had no time for a family trip unless it was sandwiched in between other commitments. We'd stayed near Logan a few years ago and had such a fun time, so I looked in that area again for rental houses. And I found one! It was a converted barn (funnily enough, our last house was a barn too!) in Mendon, and we loved it!

It had big beautiful windows. A ping-pong table and toys. And plenty of space to spread out and play games or lounge on the couch and read!

Gus was awed. "Is it our WENTAL house?" he kept asking.

I love the way he's holding Caw's wing in this picture. Like he's dancing with him.

We liked the built-in bunk beds.

Daisy begged to be the one who got to sleep with Clementine! They were so cute!

Junie brought way more than the authorized number of pigs (one stuffed animal, I told her!!)

Anyway, we had a very quiet and nice time. I cooked most of our meals just like I do at home, but it felt different and novel, in a new kitchen, with such a pretty yard to look out at and with all kinds of strange adaptations necessary to keep things interesting. (You know, like getting along without a certain measuring cup or having to roll a pie crust out with a can of pan spray because there's no rolling pin. It's just kind of fun.) Even shopping at the Logan Costco felt foreign enough to be surprising.

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Sunsets and a few other October things

October was full of the prettiest sunsets! It seemed like every evening was more beautiful than the last. From our hill we can see the whole sky around, and I love it so much! Every night I would be inside making dinner and look out to see the mountains looking like this:

all golden and glowing. And then I'd know sunset was near. For awhile I kept thinking, "well, I can't just stop everything and go up on the hill to look at the sunset every night! Can I?" But it turns out…I could. It was worth it!

This was actually a sunrise. Equally beautiful. :)

People in front of sunset (with waving baby)

The hill is pretty in the moonlight, too. (That's Seb and a friend on their bikes up on top)

This was from a walk Sam and I took one warm Sunday morning. Everything was so golden and Fall-y.

Abe turned 18! I thought I was totally prepared for it, especially since he started college last April so I felt like I'd already mostly dealt with that milestone. It's been nice that online classes have kept him closer to home than he might otherwise have been, and he's such a great young man, and I'm so proud of all the things he's doing—so I wasn't expecting the torrent of emotions I suddenly felt the night before his birthday. I lay awake for hours, remembering and crying over I hardly know what—remembering those almost-three years when he was my only child, my little companion and friend, spending every waking hour with me (and many hours we should have been sleeping, too). News flash: watching children grow up is hard. And great. But hard.

Another pretty sunset, from a park this time (where Sam and I were eating hamburgers for our date night).

A colony of…bunny bats in Ziggy's bed? I don't know. Seb used to do this to make "carwashes" when he was little.

Junie, and Gussie in a bunny hat

Goldie, and Gussie in the stroller, walking to church (the weather has been glorious!)

Daisy and I had a picnic lunch date between Saturday General Conference Sessions (Sam and I each take one of the kids every time)…and SHE was the lunch! For this little fish. :)

Zekey in a foxy sweater

The girls spent all day planning a "party" on the hill and this was what they did: a little picnic lunch, "reading time," "singing time," and then sliding down the hill on boxes. Pretty good party if you ask me!

Reading stories with Grandpa Nielson

Another sunset! This was after one of Malachi's cross-country races (he's on a youth team) when he was running to the car to catch us…leaving without him. But we didn't! :)

It was actually very obliging of Malachi to have several cross-country races in beautiful places on beautiful evenings this month! Most of the races only allowed one spectator per runner, so I had to go alone with him, but it had the nice side effect of giving me some long quiet evenings waiting for his races to start and wandering the surrounding areas. I walked on some beautiful wooded trails and got to enjoy Fall in a way I have not otherwise had much time to do!

And here is the man himself. Not nearly as concerned as he ought to be about that pack of yellow-shirts on his tail! He is the most photo-aware runner I've had so far, and always looks at me and smiles while running by, rather than concentrating intensely and soberly on the race at hand (or should I say at foot). I like him.

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The Blue Barn, and way too much about snake grass

We stayed in such a great little place in Smithfield. It was big, actually—a big blue(ish) barn that had been converted into a darling house. We loved it!

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I loved the little "stage" behind the kitchen table. It was covered by screens, which could be slid aside any number of ways to reveal the toy area. The kids settled in and were playing happily there from about thirty seconds after we walked in the door. They liked making shadows on the screens, too.

What Ziggy wanted most of all was to crawl to the edge, drop a toy down onto the bench below, and then dive headfirst after it. We prevented this…mostly.

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There was a big fireplace in the middle of the room, which we didn't use since it was so hot outside, but it was a good place to sit and read, and no one fell and cut a lip or chin on it, so that was good.

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