November Happened

 November was a pretty unexciting month.  Maybe because we were so busy in October.  Mountain biking ended for the season, fall break was over, and we kind of just dug in to life.  Sage went to her first high school dance.  Girls choice.  She ended up having fun, but didn't enjoy the stress leading up to it.  She's chosen not to go to sweethearts.  I'm glad she went, and also glad she's taking a break.  She has plenty of dances in her future.

Kate and Zack were both living their own lives at opposite ends of the state.  It's still crazy to me that I have two kids in college.  Jake's busy as always with work.  

Thank heavens we had Thanksgiving to give November something fun.  For the first time in a while we stayed home.  The college kids came home and we all enjoyed some family time.  For actual Thanksgiving we went to the Spjute ancestral home.  To start things off some of us met to play some pickle ball.  The Johnsons showed us all up.  Then we went shooting up Farmington Canyon.  Dinner was amazingly delicious.  We ate, talked, ate, and talked some more.  It was a perfectly lazy Thanksgiving.

Jake decreed the rest of the weekend an auto mechanic weekend.  They all worked on Kate's car, Zack's car, and Sage's car.  Don't ask me what they did, but 2 of the 3 cars were more functional after.  The boys say this is fun.  The girls not so much.  But the girls are grateful to have functional cars!

Weekend of the cars.  My contribution was bringing food

The feast

Safety lesson pre-shooting

Sage does dry needling.  Seems very painful

Jake and Sage made a box for our home gym.  I was especially happy when I saw that they signed their names on it.

The annual turkey trot.  Even 10 degree weather doesn't stop us!

Midway Bakery opened again.  This is obviously worth documenting

The cute girls in Sage's dance group

Cousin time!  Sage had a sleepover and went to Sundance with Chloe and Sierra 

This is apparently how teenagers smile

Sage's dance group

October Part Two

 Jake and I got back from Colorado, were home for a few days, and then headed to St George for fall break and for the state bike race.  We spent the first couple of days of the break in Lake Powell.  I've never been that late in the year, but it was really great.  So few people there that even the main channel was pretty smooth.  We talked the Mackays into coming with us, and we had a lot of fun.  The weather the first day wasn't ideal.  Cloudy and a little on the cold side for boating.  But the second day was perfect.  Beautiful sunshine and warm water.  We were sad when we had to leave.  It's always good to leave wanting more!

In St George we just hung out, did the normal things...biking, Jeeping, even a pedicure this time.  Sage had her last race of the year at Three Peaks in Cedar.  This year's race was a little different.  Every team in Utah races and so they split the race up over two days.  Well, there was a freak cold front and storm Thursday night so everyone woke up to a couple of inches of snow on the ground.  It was freezing.  And sad.  They ended up canceling all the races for Friday.  Which is the worst way ever to end a season.  Luckily Sage was able to race, but she only did one lap instead of two.  Makes a big difference.  Oh well.  She did a great job and had a great season.  It wasn't the season she was hoping for, but we're proud of her for how hard she worked and for sticking with it.  

Stopped and had lunch with some skeletons on the way

Had an RS activity on making caramel apples.  We're definitely not professionals...

I told Jake he should be a lumberJake for halloween.  He didn't appreciate the idea.

Some day I should collect all the pics we have of Jake driving the boat

You can't tell, but all of the adults are on the tube.  We let Kate drive.  She did great, but it was a little terrifying.  There's a reason we didn't let Sage drive...

We visited Kate at work at Swig.  She loved having us there.

Hard to tell, but this climb is brutal.  Sage killed it.

My family finds great joy in this picture.  This is the first time I've done any kind of dressing up in years.  And of course I was a dog.  But I tried to be a good sport and go along with it.

State race was on my birthday this year, so we went for a birthday ride after.  

October Part One

 October was such a busy month!  I think we were away from home for most of the month.  Like actually.  So it was a fun busy.  Jake and I started off the month heading to Golden, Colorado for a builder meeting.  It was so nice to not have to fly!  We went a day early and stayed a day longer to take advantage of Colorado time.  We also drove the Jeep.  This is both good and bad.  Good because we get to go fun places.  Bad because the drive is much slower and less comfortable.

Our first stop was Steamboat Springs.  Such a fun little town.  Then we headed towards Rocky Mountain National Park to find a place to camp.  It's been a long time since I slept in a tent, but it wasn't horrible.  The area we ended up in had recently had a fire so there were actually no trees.  And thus not much wildlife.  I don't think I've ever been anywhere that quiet.  It was so quiet it felt loud, if that makes sense.  I slept great.  The quiet woke Jake up;)

Then we headed to the national park.  I've always wanted to go and it didn't disappoint.  So beautiful!  The road through the park goes up to almost 13,000 feet in elevation.  Crazy!  It felt like we were driving on top of the world.  So cool.  We drove through a lot of the park, did a hike, ended on a Jeep road, and then headed to Golden.  

Golden was a cute little town.  Not as pretty as our little Midway, I think.  But I was jealous of all the trails they had along the river.  I went on lots of trail runs and hikes while Jake was in his meetings.  It was awesome.

And then the meetings ended.  We headed to Breckenridge and found a fun Jeep trail.  This trail actually hit 13,000 feet elevation.  The mountains in Colorado are definitely more tall and rugged.  We were going to camp again, but found ourselves outside of Beaver Creek and decided to stop there for the night.  We stayed in an amazing hotel right at the resort.  We've gone there for a lot of years to ski, but never been there in the summer/fall.  Still beautiful.

We made it home and all in all had a great trip!  What about Sage you might ask...  She was living her best life here on her own.  Pretty sure she was with friends every night.  There were reports of being in the hot tub at 2:00 in the morning.  Bottom line is Jake and I can leave and Sage won't cry.  

Beautiful Beaver Creek without snow

Super cool trail I ran on in Golden

Where we camped.  Notice the lack of trees.  Made for good views though.

The whole way to Steamboat there were signs for this store.  A lot of signs.  Guess their advertising worked because Jake got some boots.