September 2014

The old program I used on my computer for blogging stopped working last year, so for awhile I gave up on blogging.  I'm trying again, just using Blogger, which I don't really like - it makes the pictures go all over like crazy and I feel like I can't control where anything ends up! We’ll see how it goes.  Sorry if all the pictures and spacing are messed up.

It feels like I should be writing about September of last year (2015), and that would be an appropriate amount of months to be behind, but I’m still in 2014!  I guess the benefit of being that far behind is that it was pretty fun to look through all these really, really old pictures and be reminded of the things we were doing way back then.

First up, a Labor Day trip to Schlitterbahn!  Our favorite Texas waterpark! (this was when we still lived in Texas).









Our traditional stop at Rudy’s for dinner after a long day of waterpark fun:


Then it was back to school for the older five, and just me and Cindy at home.  We still spent a lot of time at our neighborhood pool, which was fun because we usually had it all to ourselves.


Then we drove up to Dallas to see the Mariners play the Rangers.  Like always, we made sure we got there with plenty of time for watching batting practice and also getting autographs from our favorite players.

When I first saw this picture I thought that part of Lizza’s hair was actually my hair, and I couldn’t figure out how such a big chunk of my hair was that length.  Now I can’t unsee it that way.
Then there was lots of football!Henry had no idea what he was doing, but he looked pretty cute in his uniform.Oliver had a great season.  He put together this cool highlight video all by himself (for some reason it is posting really tiny - if you want to actually see him, click on the youtube link).

Tristan.  This was his first year playing for the school (8th grade team):

Daniel, Oliver, and I got to go see BYU play the Longhorns at UT in Austin (Oliver’s birthday present this year). It was a pretty neat stadium, and an awesome game to be at (BYU won, 41-7):

The kids climbing over the back fence to get to school:  

Back at the pool.  Cindy working on her backfloat:

Lizza playing soccer.  She loves it.  

Another Mariners game.  This time they were playing the Astros in Houston.  We loved that we got to see them play so many times while we were in Texas.

Getting autographs:

And, best thing ever – a picture of Felix Hernandez with all the kids.  I think I wrote about Felix recognizing our family when we went and watched the Mariners play in San Diego during the summer, because we had been to so many of their away games.  Whenever he’d come out to see fans and sign autographs, he’d walk straight over to us.  I had already gotten some pictures of the kids getting things signed by him earlier in the season, but I had really been hoping to get one of him with all the kids.  I knew this was going to be our last time seeing them play before we moved to Utah, so I was brave, and after he came over and was done signing autographs for the crowd (there were lots of people around, not just our family), I called out to him and asked if I could take a picture of him with the kids.  He said sure, and reached over the railing and picked up Cindy and got all set.  It was pretty exciting.

Plus, he signed Oliver’s mitt.  

Daniel’s brother and his wife lived in Houston, so they came and met us at the game and brought their little boy, Maximus.  I think Lizza tried to hold him the whole time.  I realize it’s probably best to not just keep having more and more babies, but it is kind of sad to run out of little cute people to let the older ones play with.  Thank goodness for cousins. 

 

The game had a late start time and didn’t get over until after 10 pm.  Not everyone made it through the whole thing.

Rachel and Lizza all dressed up for some sort of western day at school. 

 

Cindy and Henry decided to also dress up for western day, only their version was a little different.  Henry told me he was a “flying zombie ranger pirate cowboy”, which makes sense.  I can’t really tell what look Cindy was going for. 

  

And here’s something else scary: a snake that decided to jump out and surprise me while I was mowing the backyard.  You’d think because we had a pet snake at the time that was living right inside our house that I wouldn’t be concerned about wild snakes popping up here and there.  Turns out that’s not the case. 

 

Also during September, we got our house ready to sell.  I went through every room and cleaned out clutter and got rid of stuff and boxed some stuff up so that everything would be neat and tidy and easy to keep clean. 

 

Our realtor had a professional come to take pictures of our house to include on the listing, so I had to get the whole house all cleaned at the same time!  Stressful day!  Here are just a few of the ones he took:

He added a fake forest scene to our TV,  which I thought was funny.  I guess that looks better than a blank turned-off TV?  Also, that is a cozy fake fire that he added to our fireplace.  Which we never used once in our 8 1/2 years of living in this house.

Another soccer game for Lizza.   

Rachel and Lizza all tuckered out after the General Women’s meeting broadcast.

And some end-of-September fun at the pool. 

 

Okay!  Only about a year and a half to go and I’ll be all caught up!