House O' Sullivans

A couple of weeks back we combined forces with the Goebels to harvest a whopping 12 chickens.  Mary has a neighbor that wanted to clear their coop of 8 and we added another 4 to the table.  The kids were generally fascinated and wanted to get a piece of the action--except for Hallee and Phoebe.  We'd talked to the kids about harvesting our flock and getting new chicks in the spring and they were all okay with it . . . until the blood started running.  Poor Hal started begging for the lives of Black Bill and Blackie--her two favorites.  Many tears were shed, but we now have a freezer full of chicken and the hope of a fresh little flock in the spring. Phil and Casey, handling the massive poultry harvest. We also got a chance to soak in some fall color up Big Cottonwood Canyon with our friends, Carlynn, Matthew, and Luke.  We took the kids up to Donut Falls.  (Very pregnant ladies can't get too crazy, you know.)  Afterwards, the kids fo...

I took the kids to the State Fair last Friday.  We all rode the old rickety Ferris wheel.  It made Zeke super-uncomfortable until I pulled him onto my lap.  Then all was well. Soph and Hal, delighted and little Zeke, totally petrified. Little Mister, feeling better about himself.  Everyone needs a mom. Zeke, volunteering to help the magician during a show that we watched. This week, the girls also started regular gymnastics classes at the Utah Gymnastics Training Center.  I took them to a trial class a couple of months back and they could hardly contain their excitement--especially Hal.  At one point, she ran over to where I was sitting, breathless, and enthusiastically exclaimed, "Mom!  I want to do this!" Check out those sweet biketards.  Oh yeah.

While everyone else's kids started their first week of school, we started our first week of school.  About two weeks ago, we drove to Island Park for a family vacation.  Some friends of ours have a cabin there (near Mack's Inn) and had offered to let us stay there many times so we finally took them up on it.  We hadn't had any big  vacations this summer, so we were excited to stay at the cabin and visit nearby Yellowstone with the kids.  Sophie was a baby the last time we went to Yellowstone, so we spent the days leading up to our trip learning about bears, wolves, mud pots, and super volcanoes.  The kids were so excited!  Somehow, we were under the impression that the cabin was rustic, so we were surprised to find that it was new construction and custom, beautiful everything. We couldn't even find any dust on anything.  It was way nicer than our house . The cabin where we spent the week It was a pretty dreamy place. The kitchen...