Pumpkin Patch

Did October sneak by anyone else besides me?  I can't believe October was almost half over by the time I realized we needed to go to the pumpkin patch.  I remembered just in time for us to go for FHE.

 It's such a fun tradition.

 I tried to get away with not using the flash for as long as possible.

 Brigham kept sniffing every time I tried to take a picture.  This is the best one.

 Everyone found their pumpkins pretty quick, but it took a while for me to find my perfect pumpkin.

 Jonathan tried to push the wheelbarrow for a bit, it was pretty heavy.

Based on the signs, I think this was at one time a maze of some sort.  It had been trampled on so much that it was really more of a hay pile.  That didn't stop Jonathan from climbing to the top.

I don't enjoy Halloween as much as I used to but there are so many fun traditions associated with Fall that I'm willing to put up with it.

Conference Weekend and Reaching My Goal

Conference weekend was really nice.  It's always nice, but I think it just went really smoothly this year.  We streamed it from the Mormon Channel with no problems.  In the past it seems there has always been some kind of issue.  I didn't even have a backup recording on our TiVo box in my room.  So it's a good thing it worked out.

When I was growing up I don't actually know what kinds rules my parents had, but the impression that I got was that Conference was just on Sunday and we had to sit and watch.  It wasn't until I was in Jr. High that I realized that Conference was on Saturday too and had been for a long time, apparently.  When my boys were young I guess I sort of did the same thing, we'd have conference playing on all the tvs and radios but they could keep playing if they wanted to, but Sunday we'd all have to sit and watch.  The rules changed over the years as we had more flexibility with start times.  First, we noticed that BYUtv aired it two hours later which was great when we were still sleepy at ten.  Then we got a TiVo box which was amazing, especially when we started getting sleepy.  We'd just pause it and take a 15 minute power nap and wake up ready to hear more.  Then we got one in the family room so the kids could watch it while they played.  Now, we have our Roku box and can stream it from the Internet.  We have the flexibility to start it when we need to and pause if we need to.  This technology thing is really awesome.

One thing I noticed this year was that the boys just knew that we watched Conference together, even on Saturday.  We all just sat down together to watch.  They did great.  I wasn't sure how much they were paying attention though so for Sunday I tried a game I had heard about from a friend of mine.  I bought several different kinds of candy pieces, like M&M's, Reece's Pieces, Skittles, etc.  I put them each in their own bowl and made a sign with a word on it like: temple, family, prayer, faith, etc.  So, whenever that word was said during conference we'd get to eat a candy from that bowl.  It seemed to work pretty well.  The first time a word was said we had to pause it because it was so exciting that we stopped paying attention to the talk, but we got better at it and it stopped being as disruptive.  In the future though, we might want to pick less used words or pick different treats, we were all a little sick from candy by the end.  We normally have breakfast for dinner on Sunday's that we're home, but we were so full of sugar that I made a tasty casserole instead which was perfect.  I wish I had taken a picture, you'll just have to trust me I guess. Not of the casserole, but the candy bowls.  Conference was great, though and I've already downloaded the talks as podcasts.  It's my favorite thing to listen to when I'm driving.  It keeps me relaxed.

Saturday night was the Priesthood Session.  Nathaniel has been a few times now, but I still love it that he and Jaaromy go together.  They even went out for a treat afterwards.

I think they had a good time.

The rest of us needed dinner too so we went to Village Inn.  They did great and I didn't have any trouble with the two of them on my own.  I had a super tasty sausage skillet that I'm sure was a thousand calories but I decided that it was okay, just for today.  The only reason I mention that is because it has to do with the next part of my post.

Since January I have been using MyFitnessPal to lose weight.  I've gained a little bit with every pregnancy over the years and, in the case of Brigham, a lot.  I wasn't happy with how I looked.  The last few years had been really hard for other reasons and even though I didn't like how I looked, it honestly wasn't forefront on my mind.  In a way, I felt like I was just surviving and I didn't even feel guilty about not exercising.  I'm not entirely sure what made me change my mind.  Jaaromy had found this app and was using it and exercising regularly.  He was having success and maybe that's why I decided to start.  I've never loved the idea of counting calories because I love food and I felt that it would make it less fun.  Turns out my analytical have-to-make-the-numbers-add-up side of me was stronger.  So, I credit my success to the fact that I'm so annal.

Here's a before picture:

 This was taken on our trip to St. George about a year ago.  I didn't know I was going to do this or even that it would work so it didn't occur to me to take an official "before" picture.

It did occur to me, however, to take an official "after" picture:

Overall, I lost 40 lbs.  My goal was actually 45, but it started evening out on it's own and so I decided that I was happy with it.  I really don't want to do anything more extreme to lose the last 5.  If this is where I fall naturally, then I'm good with it.

The reason I tied this in with Conference is because I hit the 40 lbs. lost mark on Conference weekend.  This was especially funny to me because of the 1,000 calorie skillet that I mentioned and all the candy we ate on Sunday.  Back in the beginning when I was having a lot success, I didn't dare take a day off of counting.  I guess I was afraid it would stop working.  I finally got to the point where I felt like I could take a day off and start again the next day.  I wasn't going to suddenly gain all the weight back that I had lost.  This was illustrated perfectly in early April when we took our trip to Seattle and Vancouver.  We did a lot of walking but there's not a lot you can do about food.  So, even though I tried to make healthier choices when we ate out, I still had to just let it go and not worry about it for our trip.  When I got home I had gained 5 lbs. back.  But a week later I had dropped it and it went right back to where it was.  That was encouraging for me, I think.

I feel so lucky that this worked for me so well.  I know how hard and insurmountable it can seem.  I'm glad I did it.  I wish I had done it sooner.  I wish I had done it after each pregnancy.  It's a lot harder to come down 40 lbs. than it would have been to just lose 10.  Oh well, better late than never.

Anyway, so that was our Conference Weekend.  Good times.

Temple Visit

We've sort of made it our goal to visit as many temples as possible.  I even have an app for it called Temple Passport.  We've been to many temples close by, but we had never been to the Bountiful Temple even though it's relatively close.  I've been meaning to go for a long time and we finally got a chance.

 It's actually kind of hard to get a good picture of it from the front because of all the big trees.  That and I didn't want to cross the street to get farther away.

 We took a walk around the whole lot.  Since that includes the parking lot, it wasn't a short walk.  But there were some cool views of the valley and the lake.

 It seemed easier to get a good picture from behind the temple.

Finally a group shot!

Now we can check the Bountiful Temple off on our list.  Only three more to go in Utah.  Until they finish the Payson, Provo City Center, and Cedar City temples.  Then we'll have some more traveling to do!

General Relief Society Meeting

My stake had tickets to the conference this year and so a bunch of friends from my ward went together.  We had a big group and it was fun.  We rode the train down town and went to dinner along with hundreds of other women at the City Creek food court.  I had just come from a baptism so I wasn't hungry, but I did get a frozen yogurt along with Kathy.  I wish I had been hungry, all the food look really tasty.

Then we made our way to the Conference Center.  One of the pluses to going down town was seeing all the cute skirts everyone has.  So many different kinds.  I wore one of my awesome ones I got at the Betty Page store and I saw another lady with the exact same skirt.  I still love it though.

It was fun to be in the Conference Center, it is such an impressive building.  I should have taken more pictures, but I did get a few.

 Here's a selfie with Randa.

 The lady behind us noticed how awkward it was to take a selfie and kindly offered to take one for us.  She had a hard time switching the view back to forward and accidentally took this picture.  I love it.

 So here's a less awkward one with Randa, myself, and Irma.

Lori was down the row and tried to take a picture and I accidentally sort of photo-bombed it so I had her send it to me.

The Conference was wonderful and it was so much fun spending time with these ladies.  After we took the train back we stopped for frozen yogurt.  Since Kathy and I already had frozen yogurt we just stayed and visited with everyone.  It was a nice night.

Random Moments

I do these kinds of posts a lot, I know.  Isn't that what life is really made up of?  Lots of little things happening every day.  That's life.

I surprised even myself when I bottled 33 jars of pears.  I always look at a tree full of fruit with a small amount of dread.  Yes, it's wonderful to have canned fruit, but the work of canning is hard and long.  In years past I've just given up, content to do just one batch or just eat as many as we could fresh.  One problem is that they'll all ripen at different times and I start getting really tired of having the canny equipment hanging around the kitchen.  Part of why this year went so well was that they all ripened at roughly the same time.  I did lose some because I waited too long, but not much.  Some ripened a little later, but it was perfect timing because I didn't have time to can for a few days.  So it all worked out perfectly and now we have 33 more bottles of delicious pears to eat!

Brigham had just showered and I was combing his hair and I decided to spike it.  He actually seemed to like it and was even willing to let me take his picture.  He admired it for a little bit and then smashed it all back down.

Nathaniel went on a field trip with the Quest kids and lucky for him, Aunt Sara was there.  I have no idea who took this picture but she was nice enough to send it to me.  She had some really fun stories to tell after hanging out with him for a few hours.  I'm so glad she was there to keep an eye on him for me.

 We eat at Wendy's on a weekly basis, or so it seems, and so we were able to get this cool kids meal toy.  Jonathan loved it more than I would have guessed and really wanted me to give it a try.

 Then it was his turn.

 Once with just the ears(or horns or whatever)

"Oops, forgot my glasses!"  He really had fun with them and wore them for quite a while.  I even noticed that he wore them to bed.

Brigham will occasionally get homework and I often don't make him do it since, as many of you know, I hate homework.  I decided that I should be a little more diligent with his homework so I had him sit down after school to do it.  He was perfectly willing and got right to work.  I love how hard-working he looked so I had to take a picture.

So those are some of the random moments that make up our life.

Photography Phun

Indulge me for a moment while I share a few pictures that I've taken recently.

Here's one I took around Brigham's birthday:

I've mentioned that I love playing with exposures.  This is the moon at roughly midnight for ten seconds.

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Turns out I can take pictures with my new camera through my telescope.  My old camera's viewfinder had a separate lens that showed up in the viewfinder.  My new camera's viewfinder is what the lens actually sees(if that makes sense), so I was able to actually see what my camera sees through the telescope lens.

It's still a little blurry, and there's speck of dust in the middle there, but not too bad considering.  Still doesn't hold a candle to looking through the telescope yourself.

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I don't know why but I haven't photographed my roses much this year, so I made a point to do it a little while ago.

I like this one the best.

Thanks for humoring me!

A Study on Sleep

Don't tell him I said this, but Jaaromy snores...a lot.  It can be pretty loud sometimes too.  He doesn't sleep well and will sometimes struggle to breathe.  As a result he's tired all the time and sometimes grumpy.  He decided that he was done being tired all the time and so he set up an appointment for a sleep study.  It couldn't come fast enough, he was so anxious to be "fixed".

The appointment finally came.  He was to go to the sleep center at 8:00 and...well, sleep for them.  They'd measure all kinds of things and then kick him out the door at 6:00 am or so.

Luckily, he sent pictures!

They tried on different masks to see which one worked best.

 Apparently, there are tons of different masks to choose from.

Then he got hooked up with all kinds of wires and stuff.

You'd think it would be hard to sleep on command like that, but he said he did okay.  One of the preparation requirements was that he had to wake up by 8:00 am the morning of the study.  So that helped.  But also the years of not sleeping well and constantly being tired helped too.

Funny enough, he was actually worried that he wouldn't sleep badly enough for them.  He had all kinds of weird and vivid dreams while they watched and measured.  In the end, he needn't have worried about his performance, it was clear that he had severe sleep apnea.  Now we just had to wait for it all to be processed so he could get his mask.  He knew that it would take some getting used to.  They suggest you give it at least three weeks for your body to acclimate to it.  He was hoping that since he was so willing it wouldn't take as long.  Turns out that it's still weird, even if you want it to be there.

As an aside: Jaaromy and I have only been apart over night a handful of times, so it was still a little sad for him to be gone.  So, I thought about what I wanted to do while he was gone.  I decided to take pictures.  It's not that I can't take pictures while he's home, it just gave me something to look forward to.  It's often a solitary activity anyway so it seemed like a good excuse.

Here's what I came up with:

 I love playing with shutter speed.  The clouds were moving kind of fast, but the stars held still for me.

 A rose in my backyard by moonlight.  This was actually really hard to do.  Because it was so dark my camera couldn't auto focus on it so I had to do it manually and it's super tricky to know if it's focused with the display screen.  This picture was focused the best but the shadow of the railing is in the way.

 This one is better lit but not as focused.  Tricky shot.

One more star field, just because.

So that's how I spent my evening alone while Jaaromy was sleeping for doctors.

His first night with the mask was interesting.  He started with the mask that covers his nose and mouth, like in the second picture above.  In the morning I was really anxious to see how he slept.  He said he kept waking up but strangely felt more rested.  After the second night he said it was starting to hurt the bridge of his nose so he asked for a different kind of mask.  I don't have a picture of it but it basically goes on the nose, just under the nostrils.  He has to wear a chin strap to keep his mouth closed, otherwise it won't work.  It's weird because the machine is keeping constant air pressure in his throat and mouth so if he tries to talk while it's on all the air comes rushing out his mouth.

He's gradually getting used to it though.  It's been a week and it's starting to feel normal to wear, although he still feels tired.  I'm hopeful that he will gradually feel more rested as time goes on.

Hey, and no snoring!  That's awesome.

Finally S'mores

The summer just got away from me and I realized that we never got out the fire pit to make S'mores or even hot dogs.  So we decided that now was a good time to do it before it got too cold.  I actually don't like the idea of getting out the fire pit in the middle of the summer when it's hot, so this was good timing.

Brigham doesn't like the marshmallow parts of S'mores, so he eats the graham crackers.

It was a nice relaxing evening.

Jaaromy likes to fuss over the fire.

We had a pretty neat sunset to look at too.

Jonathan can never sit still for long and was soon running around the backyard.  The only problem was the smoke from our fire was getting in his way.

I'm sad that we didn't do this more often, but maybe we'll get more chances before it really is too cold.  As it's getting cooler, sitting by the warm fire sounds really nice.