ASU came to UTAH!

So remember the post about David and I going to the ASU/UTAH game? Well here's the follow up.... We had a marvelous time! The Ingram's were exceptional good sports about the Extra Large ASU sign in their front yard. They didn't even destroy it upon seeing it or anything. However they did text us a few choice messages about our SUN SATAN'S!

When we got to the game the first people we ran into were our own flesh and blood! Jared and Meghan were visiting from Mesa with their three boys. It was fun running into them! They have such a cute family. They were all dressed in their ASU gear ready to cheer their team on to victory! Jared is David's oldest brother Charlie K's son and Meghan is Jared's wife. So as crazy as it sounds David and I are the Aunt and Uncle!

Brent and Kami Ellsworth were at the game too! We knew that they would be there but didn't know just how close they would be sitting to us. It turned out they were close enough that we could have thrown stuff at each other if we had wanted to. Brent is a HUGE sports fan! I'm pretty sure he bleeds maroon and gold. Unfortunately for them they attended the game with UTAH fans and were forced to leave the game early due to the score not being in Utah's favor!

The stadium was nice, the weather was beautiful and the score was just the way we wanted it. We witnessed a few men boozing it up with flasks of Vodka {A little shocking for us puritan BYU fans! Tee Hee!}. And we enjoyed some really yummy Philly cheese steaks {After finding out that they only accept cash/no cards and standing in the ATM line forever!}!

When we got in our car to go home we received a text message from the Ingram's encouraging us to remove the ASU sign from their front yard! I guess it's all fun and games until someones team loses {wink, wink ;-)}!

Mormons for Devils...
GO DEVILS!

Apples Apples Apples

We have an apple tree in our backyard that is really quite small but it produces a lot of apples! And if I knew the first thing about farming apples, then I would prune the branches, thin them out and spray whatever it is your suppose to spray on them and then I would probably end up with some really big nice apples. But I don't know the first thing about farming apples so instead we have lots and lots of really small apples. But I must say that they taste good and most importantly... they are organic! Who knew that I was green! Don't be alarmed, actually I'm not green at all... just lazy! So lazy that I don't even know what kind of apples these are! Haven't taken the time to find out!

The branches were so full we worried they would brake off!

So we did what any good apple tree owner does... We picked a few and took them down the street and fed them to our friend Kim's horses!

And they loved them!

Don't worry, we didn't feed them too many! And we didn't feed them without getting permission from Kim first. She told us just how many each of them could have.

Talan loved feeding the horses! Well actually he loved watching me feed them. He was too afraid to put his hand underneath their mouths. But he squilled with delight to see them munch! And as you can see from this picture, they wanted more!

And not to toot my "Molly Homemaking Horn", but I made homemade applesauce out of these apples that tasted divine! Mott's has nothing on me! And David found an apple cider recipe that we are going to attempt next!

Oh it's fun to be an apple farmer! Maybe next year I can learn how to produce apples big enough to dip in caramel!

The young guns birthday!

Every year Bradon and Carsten end up having a combined birthday party. When they were younger it was because I encouraged it. There birthdays are only 1 week apart from each other and so it only made sense to kill 2 birds with 1 stone! Then they started saying, "Next year I'm having my OWN party! I don't want to share my party with HIM!" And so I agreed, they could have separate parties. And then when the next year rolled around and they started brainstorming ideas of what they could do for their very own party, it turned out that they both wanted to do the exact same things! And that's where I draw the line. I am NOT going to host 2 separate parties doing the exact same thing at each of them! They can have it TOGETHER! And this year was no different. They both wanted to go shooting guns for their party. I told them that shooting guns would be okay but since shooting guns is dangerous I would limit their invitation list to 2 guests each. I thought that this would make them rethink the whole gun shooting idea... but NO!

A gun shooting party it was!

Bradon invited Dillon and Max.

And Carsten invited Dillon and Tate.
Tate wasn't able to come but didn't want to miss out on the whole gun shooting adventure so his dad took him earlier that day just the two of them.

We packed up some clay pigeons,

ammunition and the most important item... Ear Plugs!
Then we headed to the other side of Utah Lake for some
good old fashion shooting it up good times!

It's crazy how much BOYS love the feeling of shooting a gun!
It's just one of those beautiful differences between girls and boys.

Bradon is surprisingly really good at shooting! The first time we flung a clay pigeon up in the air he nailed it with his first shot! Wow I had no idea! I sort of thought, "Oh lucky shot!" But then he did it again and again!

Carsten was bound and determined to figure out how to fling a clay pigeon.

But the dang thing wouldn't fling out!

After trying multiple times I think he finally decided to leave the flinging up to him mom, the master for flinging! When it comes to shooting, I think that flinging clay pigeons is the only thing I'm good at!

David showing the kids how it's done!

Carsten doesn't have one serious bone in his entire body!

"Look at me! I'm shootin' from the hip!"
Possibly just a case of watching one to many episodes of Top Shot!

All the boys took a try at hitting a moving target and being the flinger of the moving target too! They all did a pretty good job!

That's lovely Bradon!

This pistol has so much kick that David
had to hold Dillon steady!

And amongst all the sounds of warfare
sits these cute little wild flowers!

And this beautiful view across the lake.
Can you see the Y on the mountain?

The boys had a blast!

After cleaning up our mess we headed back
to the house for cake and ice cream.

We sang to our 12 year old Bradon.

And they posed for a picture!

We sang to our 10 year old Carsten
and then he puffed out his candles in one poof!

As you can see, all the kids were a little hyped up acting obnoxious and having a good time! You can't ask for anything more from a birthday party!

Happy Birthday Boys!

Carsten recieved his BEAR!

Just in the nick of time Carsten completed all the requirements of the bear before turning 10! It was like a crash course in cub scouting for a few weekends there but he did it!
Now on to the Webelos den!

Way to go Carsten!
We knew you could do it!

Bradon's football season and birthday.

This was Bradon's second year as a CAVEMAN and the only thing
that comes to mind is this little cheer that goes something like this...
First is the worst, second's the same, last is the best of all the game!
But in reality, second was really worst than the first!

My heart goes out to Bradon.
He finally gets drafted to a really good team and then gets traded.
Not that he was against the trade, it just equaled
another tough year of loss after loss.

They ended their season with ZERO wins!

And it's not like they don't have some really great players on their team either. And we love the head coach. But Bradon has reached an age where games aren't won with just part of the package. You have to have the whole package to win! And unfortunately this team just didn't have it!

This is a picture of their first touchdown of the year!
I don't remember how many games into the season it was
but it was against our rival, the other American Fork 6th grade A team.
{The team Bradon was originally on this year.}

Cute #7 on the sidelines watching his defense play.

Man, if halftime banners counted for something, we would have won some games! This banner was awesome! The caveman was drawn by Coach Best. It's like the Incredible Caveman!

He made this big HUGE club too!
All the kids loved it and wanted the privilege of holding it.

Now those are two Football Fanatic Fathers!
{A little preoccupied with their cell phones at the moment but fanatics nonetheless!}

Our friend Tom and his son Max made it a point to come to as many of Ethan's games as they could which was really nice! Tom coaches one of the 8th grade A teams. Ethan and Bradon played on fields side by side on this day which made it really nice for us.

Talan enjoys messing around with Max.
And I'm pretty sure that Max loves every minute of it!
{Wink Wink!}

Bradon's team lost the game, BUT SCORED!

Since it was Bradon's 12th birthday
we brought Krispy Kream doughnuts to celebrate!

The team sang Happy Birthday, we passed out doughnuts,
and then headed to Logan for a Utah State Aggies football game!

Eric got us tickets to the game and so we made a family vacation out of it. We stayed at the Marriott, we went swimming, and went to the game!

Eric is #66.
He starts on the offensive line.
He plays right tackle.

The family and friend's of the players section is right behind the band. When we got to our seats someone was already sitting there. They told us, "In this section you just sit anywhere!" So we found some empty seats and sat down. Little did we know, the tubas stand up to play! So anytime the band played this became our view... TOTALLY AWESOME!
I have to admit though, sitting behind the band is totally entertaining. They have all these little dances they do to different songs. They have apple eating contests. And this year one of the tuba players was having a heart attack or something! Never a dull moment sitting behind the band!

I love this picture of Eric protecting his QB!
What a great shot and I'm pretty sure that it was one of the kids who took it!

The Aggies ended up loosing 34-35 in double overtime to Colorado State.

After the game we took the kids back to the hotel and then took Bradon out to dinner with Eric for his birthday. I seriously think it was the highlight of his birthday!

It's not everyday that one of your cousins plays division 1 football and you not only get to go to the game, but you get to go out to eat with him too!

Thanks Eric for the special birthday treat!
Your the best!

The next morning we woke up and hurried back home
for church so that Bradon could receive the Priesthood!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRADON!
WE LOVE YOU!

American Fork 8B Rivalry Game!

Ethan's # is Double Zero!

This year football has been CRAZY once again!
We literally run like crazy leaping from one game to another trying to see as much as we can of all 3 boys games. David has coached Ethan's 8th grade B team this year so he has gotten to see 100% of Ethan's games!
Ethan has improved SO MUCH!
Last year was his first year playing football and unfortunately for him, his line coach didn't have the first clue about coaching a line. And even without any REAL instruction he did pretty good! But this year his line coach {Coach Lemon} was excellent! And Ethan has done nothing but excel!

Coach Lemon's wife told me that Coach Lemon talks about Ethan all the time. She said that he's so happy with him! Not only is he a good kid but he's turning into a pretty good linemen too! He even bought him linemen gloves for playing so well!

Every year we get to play against the other American Fork team. The kids really get up for this game! Even though we are really all on the same team in the long run it's like the RIVALRY game of the year! Last year we beat them in the final minutes of the game. And this year the boys wanted nothing less than a win!

Ethan had his first fumble recovery!
It was awesome!
He jumped up off the ground and held the ball up in the air!
He was so excited, well actually we all were!

At one of the timeouts Talan followed David out to the field. The funny thing is that David didn't even notice that Talan was behind him in the huddle. One of the refs came over to David and jokingly said, "Coach, you have one too many coaches on the field." David was like, "What?" He pointed out David's little shadow and David was totally surprised to see him there!

Come on little buddy, timeout's over!

Tee Hee Hee!

We played a great game!
We didn't just win by a hair, we slaughtered them {relatively speaking}! In fact they almost had a goose egg up until the very last play of the game when they scored. Dang it, they scored!

In the forth quarter when we were way ahead Ethan came out of the game. This year since Ethan has been playing offense and defense we don't see him on the sidelines very often. Which doesn't allow for a lot of rest time but I think it's been good for him!

Way to go on a great game
DOUBLE ZERO!