My Favorite Time Of Year

 I love fall.  Definitely the best time of year.  It cools down, but not too cool.  And the leaves...  Magical.  As usual, our fall was full of mountain biking, and this year cross country.  It's a busy time of year, but I kept reminding myself to enjoy it because it's our LAST YEAR!  Which is really bitter sweet.  We've had 9 years of riding on the team with our kids.  What a great opportunity it's been for all of us.  I know the kids don't love having their parents at practice, but I sure loved it.  I personally learned so much about mountain biking.  And got a let better.  Now I love it and hopefully will continue to do it in my old age (although an ebike is definitely in my future).  For 9 years we've had practices twice a week and races every other weekend August - October.  So I'm definitely looking forward to having some of that time back.  Especially our fall weekends.  But I know next year I'll look around and wonder what to do with myself.  It's been a great experience.  We're at this weird time of life where we're having a lot of lasts.  I'm trying to not freak out, enjoy every second, and lean into the great experiences that I know our ahead.  We'll see how it goes...

Anyway, we managed a quick trip to St George one weekend and got to see Kate perform on her cello.  She's gotten so good!  I got to listen to my first all cello performance.  I've always loved the cello, but had no idea how it could sound with a big group.  It was amazing.

We went up to Logan a couple of weeks ago to spend the day with Zack.  We went on a hike.  I made him promise it would be 4 miles or less with minimal climbing.  I threatened him if he tried anything crazy.  And he delivered.  It was a beautiful hike with the perfect amount of climbing and some amazing views!  It was so good to spend some time with Zack up in his neck of the woods.

Sage of course has been busy.  But not as busy as she hoped to be because she injured her hip at a cross country meet in September.  Unfortunately, we couldn't get it feeling good enough for her to run on, so she missed the rest of her season.  I feel so bad for her.  She worked really hard all summer and was hoping to run varsity this year.  Gratefully, she was still able to bike.  But she hurt pretty bad her last couple of races and wasn't able to go as hard as she wanted to.  Injuries are the worst!  Especially your senior year.  But I'm so impressed at how she pushed through and is trying to make the best of it.

In other happenings... We had another house in the Park City Showcase.  It's been a lot of years since we did that, and it's a lot of work.  But it went really well.  The house was beautiful.  Also, we've been having some crazy weather these days.  Extreme rain, and one storm brought huge hail.  We happened to be in Park City at a mountain bike practice.  We didn't even get rained on.  But when we were driving home we started seeing huge piles of hail.  Apparently we missed a huge storm with golf ball sized hail.  It hit our neighborhood really hard.  Unfortunately the Jeep and the truck were both parked outside and had damage.  And we're in the process of getting our roof replaced from hail damage.  Who knew?!  Hopefully this was a one time experience.

We (mostly Jake) finally finished the spec in St George.  Well, it's been done since like July.  But we decided to put furniture in it so that we can enjoy it until it sells.  And to hopefully help it sell faster.  We got it furnished just in time to stay in it while we were there for state.  It was fun to finally get to stay in one of Jake's houses.  And I got to test out what I like and don't like for some day when we build again.  It's a beautiful house!

The beautiful view from the master bedroom at the showcase house

Grilling in one of our rain storms

All of the seniors had big heads made that we got to cheer with

At the panguitch race we took the chance to go to Bryce Canyon. So pretty! Unfortunately Jake had to miss that race, but Kate got to come!

This was October 5. We’ve never been boating that late in the year! The water was a little chilly but it was mostly magical. 

The varsity girls from our team. All but one are seniors. 

Sage made me delicious cheese dip for my birthday. It was so good!

Last practice ever

Beautiful furniture at the St. George house

Senior dinner. Such a cute group of girls!

Last race!

All the coaches

We also went boating in September and sage finally locked in and got up on a slalom ski!

Pigs!!!

 Never in my life did I think I would have a pig.  Or two.  Never.  Sage came to us last year wanting to raise a pig for the fair.  I'm not sure where this came from, or why.  She says she wants to be able to help her kids do it some day.  This is some serious planning ahead.  I would have said no to the pig, but Jake is a sucker to any kind of animal, especially a farm animal.  He not so secretly wants to live on a big ranch.  Apparently, until that happens, we're going to try to turn our acre, in the middle of Midway, into a farm.

Back to the pigs...Raising pigs for the fair is a lot different than just having pigs on a farm.  Fair pigs get tagged, and then you have to get them to make weight.  In our county they have to weigh 230lbs by the weigh in day.  We got our pigs the end of March, and had until the end of July to get them to 230.  If they don't make weight you don't get to show them.  They're not allowed to eat just any kind of food.  Leftovers?  No way.  They eat only special food that somehow helps them gain weight differently than not special food.  In addition to weighing enough, they have to be able to walk around an arena and follow your directions.  How do you get them to do this?  You walk them.  Yep.  You start out with short little jaunts, but by the end you're walking them for like 30 minutes twice a day.  It's some serious training.  And finally, they can't just roll around in the mud like pigs want to do.  No, they're skin and hair has to stay nice and clean and healthy.  So they're not allowed to run around in the pasture.  If you do let them out they have to wear sunscreen (I had no idea pigs can get sunburned).  And yes, you wash them.  Once a week.  Or more.  These are princess pigs.  Their water has to be cold, their pen can't be too hot.  They live better than half the people in the world.

As you can imagine, doing all of this is a lot of work.  There were some things that were a family affair:  getting concrete in the pen, installing a gate, figuring out a water system.  But most of it was Sage.  She worked so hard.  And did something that was big and scary.  She read everything she could about showing a pig, she talked to everyone she knew.  She had a job most of the time she was raising pigs, so some days she would get home from work and then have to walk the pigs - at 11:00pm.  Bless our neighbors.  They were actually so patient and nice.  Most of them got a kick out of seeing Sage walk her pig down the street.  Our pig was extra loud, and didn't want to walk.  So he would scream the whole time she walked him.  Sounded like a dinosaur or something.  I was fully prepared to get complaints from our neighbors, but they were so supportive.  Which was awesome.  

Fair days came and we had the weigh-in to start things off.  I was so nervous about making weight.  We would have been crushed.  But the hard work paid off and we made it in at 247lbs!  Then for the next few days Sage pretty much lived at the fair ground.  We had a day of market and showmanship.  I won't get into all the details of this, but basically you walk in front of judges and they judge you.  Plus lots of random people watch.  The better you do at these, the sooner you get to go at the auction, and the more money you usually make.  Sage did such a good job!  All of her hard work paid off.  And our pig came through for us.  The only time I've ever wanted to hug a pig. 

The auction happened on Saturday.  They auction off all the pigs, steer, goats, and sheep at the same time.  Over 300 animals.  So it takes almost all day.  I have to say that one of the hardest things I've ever done is watch my daughter walk out in the arena, by herself, to try to get money for all of her hard work.  There are no words.  And then it's suddenly over.  Your pig goes to butcher, and this animal you spent hours and hours with is suddenly gone.  I didn't expect that to be as hard as it was.  It was super sad.

These pigs took up a lot of our lives for a few months.  We all learned a lot.  And I got to see Sage work her guts out, and learn some really good life lessons.  I'm amazed at everything she did.  Way to go Sage!

I installed this fence by myself.  I was proud.  I'm sure it was hard for Jake to not redo it.

They were so small when we first got them.

Trying to pick out pigs when we know nothing.

First walk!

Waiting our turn for weigh-in.  Sage ended up riding in the trailer.  We were real nervous at this moment.

One last wash right before showmanship

This is what the FFA kids had to wear.

blue ribbon for showmanship!

In the pen that leads to the arena.  So nervous!