Fall

A little catch up on our Fall activities:

My boys...

Audrey sleeping in my old bed with my old blankie. So cute, except she looks like she's dead.

Story time on the kitchen counter.

Labor Day BBQ at Independence Lake....it was raining and I was covered with a shower curtain.

I l.o.v.e. this picture. The kids were eating popsicles and watching out the window for Todd to come home from the hospital. I love that you can see him in the background. He said it was so cute to just see Drew's eyes peeking over the bottom of the window.

This is the new cool thing...sitting on the big potty with no Dora seat to help. Best thing ever.

So, I was doing the dishes, both my kids were trying to get into the sink to "help" me. I told them we could put on their swimsuits and play with the water outside, so I filled some bowls with warm water and took them out to the front porch. When I came out with another bowl Audrey was sitting in this bowl....it cracked me up.

Our neighbor, Willow, saw the Fall swim party and joined the fun. The craziness just kept escalating.

My sweet friend Tawnya came to visit a couple weeks ago with her adorable baby Rex. I don't have many pictures of us while she was here because we basically shopped the ENTIRE time.  It wasn't just run of the mill shopping either...it was Salvation Army, Value World, Garage Sale shopping. I spent approx. $15 all weekend, but she bought so much stuff she had to buy a new suitcase (for $1 at a garage sale) to drag it all home. It was 52 lbs, but the nice airport man let her through. So much fun. Thanks for coming to exotic Michigan, T. Love ya.

Cider mills in the Fall....Michigan tradition.

I think I took this same pic last year....I am a little obsessed with all the pumpkins.

And last, but not least, post-church nap yesterday. Love it.

Salt to Pang

My little brother Clay just put on a bike race called Salt to Saint (SLC to St. George). A couple weeks before the race he and Seth were going to do a test run of the course. The whole family, plus some Canadian cousins, ended up getting together very last minute to do the test run and it was quite the memorable trip. We rarely get time to just hang out with the grown ups now that there are 15 little Christensen/Nelson people to tend to, so this was pretty awesome. Micah owns a bus (he only needs a train and then he has all the basic transportation options covered) so we all piled on the bus mid-day Friday and headed out. Todd and Steph did the first leg of the bike ride, we drove about 15 miles and then stopped and switched riders. We kept going with that pattern until we got to Panguitch (around 8am Saturday morning) and then the race director made an executive decision to throw in the towel. We were too chatty at the transitions, and they ended up taking 30-45 minutes instead of 1-5 minutes. At that pace we would make it to St. George by Monday - ha. So, we gave each other high fives and headed back to Salt Lake. We had SO much fun just hanging out with the fam. Major thanks to Kim and Julie for watching the kids!

 Dad, Clay and Seth....triplets.

 Micah and a sweet old gas station.

 Todd riding through Zion's with his head out the top of the bus.

 Steph shcarfing down some fries (if you know her, you know this means she was REALLY hungry).

You know how every once in a while you have experiences that seem to give perfect clarity to what is important in life (and what's not at all important)? We have had quite a few of those experiences lately, and looking at these pictures reminds me how much I love these people and how important they are to me. I am one lucky girl.