All the September things rolled into one.

Justin has been looking for a car for Sarah (she turns 16 in 13 months). Judging by his search criteria and the listings he shares with me, this ad on the bulletin board of our local grocery store looked like something he would be interested in. Poor Sarah.

These are the shoes of a man at Henry's football game. A grown man.

Met these cute fellas on my walk a couple of weeks ago. I live in a pretty town.

Our stake hosts a yearly harvest festival. We didn't go the first year we lived here because it was on my birthday but we've gone the last two years. It's a cute time.

We didn't enter the salsa contest and we got there waaaay after the official judging so people at the booth didn't care about our opinion but Justin was all about tasting them.

The best part are all these boots hosted by stake members. People bring goods to show off, demonstrations, collections of Legos, knives, guns, etc. I love seeing the quilts and tasting baked goods.

The most popular booth was the cotton candy. My kids stood in line foreeeeeever for one. Like they missed out on doing most everything else long.

Calvin came with us and it had been awhile since he hung out with James and I realized I missed him. They are so funny together and such cute boys.

Every parent there dreaded the moment their child ran up with goldfish they won in the kiddie game section. 

Erica named her fish Stewart (or Fish Stew as I called him). He survived a miraculous 36 hours. Here he is getting the porcelain salute Monday morning.

Our neighbor owns an axe throwing place and they brought their portable target trailer. It was fun but I am terrible at it.

And then the grand finale of the candy rocket.  There was also a car show and a train ride. We have generous people in our stake. I wish I was talented enough to share something. 

We had a random Monday off of school so we went to the zoo since I figured the crowds would be smaller. My sister and her husband and son met us there. Justin decided last minute to not go to work and came too.

We hadn't been to the zoo since James was less than 1 so he didn't remember anything. He had a great time. He wanted to look at every little creature in the stinky reptile house and was just oohing and aahing over everything.

If you know James then you know he loves tigers. 

This is a good tiger. He relaxes for a bit but then paces back and forth in front of the several windows of his enclosure. I didn't see it but he came right up to James and licked the window right at him. Made his day.

This is our last opportunity to see elephants at this zoo. They are in their prime breeding years but have been unsuccessful so they are being moved to another zoo to see if that helps.

 

Elephants are Henry's favorite animals so I'm glad we made it to see them before they moved the next week.

This drinking fountain is a Hogle Zoo classic!

Sloths are Erica's favorite animal. Pretty sure it didn't move an inch the entire time we wathced it.

******

We will soon say goodbye to our sweet neighbor, Ashley. She has been serving as the primary pianist so my littles have gotten to know her and love her. She is leaving on a mission soon and we will miss her. She stopped by the evening of her farewell to bring us some cookies.

Henry had his last football game. His team did pretty well but they had a heartbreaking last minute loss last night.

Just for context, he is 12 years old. This morning he wanted a peach for his granola and asked me to cut him one. "I don't know how," he says.

"Erica can cut a peach," I replied. (Erica is 9)

"But she's still asleep." (He was dead serious.) I've been chuckling about it all day.

And it's moments like these that make family life the best life.

Happy conference weekend!