September

 September was full of Swiss Days, bike races, and a trip to Washington.  Swiss Days was crazy as usual.  But at least this year we didn't have to make tacos in 100 degree temperatures.  Thank heavens.  My friend Audrey and I got matching shirts because we figured out we've been doing Swiss Days together for 10 years now.  Most people come and spend all day wandering around, buying tons.  We walk over Friday morning, quickly walk by all the booths, and are enjoying a scone by 10:30.  Thus our shirts say, '10 years of let's skip this row.  Swiss Days our way.  It's a pretty awesome tradition I think.

We had our second race at Eagle Mountain.  Sage had a great race and managed to move up a couple of spots again.  The crazy wind held off until after she finished, thank heavens.  

The fall leaves were amazing, as usual this year.  Definitely my favorite time to mountain bike.  I even decided to be social and rode the Wow trail with a bunch of other ladies.  

Jake had a builder group in Anacortes, Washington that we were excited to go to.  Of course, it happened to be the same weekend Sage had a race in Vernal.  It killed me to miss her race, but we've been looking forward to going to this location for a long time.  Some good mountain bike friends were super nice to take her and make sure she was ready for the race.  They even fixed the flat she had the day before the race (of course that happened when we were gone).  Sage killed it and finally met her goal of finishing in the top 10!  I was a worried mess until I knew she made it across the finish line.

Jake and I really enjoyed Anacortes.  Such a beautiful spot.  I really enjoyed exploring while Jake was in his meetings.  Then we did a bunch of fun mountain bike trails.  Mountain biking is pretty big there too.  It was fun to ride on new trails and try out a different bike.  Our last night there we decided to go on a little hike later in the afternoon.  On the way there the low tire light came on in the rental car.  I figured it was probably fine, but when I got out of the car I could hear air leaking out of the tire.  So Jake got to change a tire in a parking lot.  Luckily he's really good at that and we were good to go in like 10 minutes.  But definitely not ideal.  We've not had good luck with tires this year.  The rain mostly held off until the day we left, when it was dumping rain and freezing cold.  Thank heavens we had some good weather days first. 

August Happenings

 Maybe someday I'll do more than just a monthly recap.  But let's face it, these days I'm doing well just posting at all.  Trying hard to make sure at least some of the things get documented.

August kept us hopping, as usual.  We celebrated Kate and Sage.  Kate had her cute friends over.  Sage decided she wanted hair, eyebrows, and lashes done.  All in all, fairly low-key birthdays.  I will say I'm grateful every day for my girls.  I love talking to them and seeing their amazing personalities shine as they get older.  It's the best.

School started.  How is it that my youngest is in high school?!  And how can I have another senior?  I'm not ready for either of those things.  Zack came home from his internship, was here for 2 days, and left for school again.  Would have been nice to have him home more, just sayin.  Sage took a few days to adjust to high school (there were lots of naps) but now she's handling it like a champ.  Kate sometimes goes to school.  It seems like she has a lot of open classes.  So different than back in the olden days.

Race season started for mountain bike team.  This always makes our business like double because every other weekend we head somewhere to race.  It feels like a lot.  Good thing we enjoy it!  Sage is killing it this year and so far has moved up a couple of spots at every race.  I don't know how she does it.

As always I'll let the pictures do most of the story telling.

The preride of the race course in Manti was so so dusty.  And then I wrecked, which just added to the dust.  This picture does not adequately show how dusty I was.

Kate and our neighbor coached little kid mountain bikers for their job all summer.  They had some great stories.

Sage's birthday extravaganza

Sage made Kate a fancy lunch for her birthday

Kate's cute friends - Rachel, Presley, and Morgan

Scenic Jeep drive

Sage's birthday cheesecake

Sometimes we have lots of bikes on our car

Fun at the Manti pre-ride

Sage used her organizing skills to make a little bag that has everything in it she could possibly need at school.  She should sell them.

Freshman year!

Senior year!

Every once in a while Sage will ride with us

First race of the season

July Happenings

 We had some good fun in July.  Even though Zack had just left for his internship, he came home to hang out with us.  Jake was extra glad to have him along because he's starting to feel extra outnumbered with girls in our house.  We ended up heading to the Uintas for some camping.  We met up with some friends and had a great time.  It's beautiful there, as always.  It was good to get away and not have cell service!  We did a crazy hike up a mountain, fished, and relaxed.  It was wonderful.

On the 4th we continued our new tradition of going boating at Starvation Reservoir.  It's a great day to go because hardly anyone was there.  We were able to water ski until late in the day, which never happens.  We got home in time to eat some good food and enjoy the neighborhood fireworks.  There are so many people letting off fireworks it feels like we're in a war zone.  Gratefully, nothing started on fire.  We ended the night with the Memorial Hill fireworks.  All in all a good weekend, just no pics to document.

The girls went to girls camp.  Without me.  This was Kate's last year of girls camp and her first year of camp without me there.  Kind of crazy.  They got to go canyoneering up above Cedar.  They had a great time.  While Zack was home we celebrated his birthday.  Kind of weird not having him home on the actual day.  Jake's birthday was going to happen while we were in McCall, so we also celebrated that early.  These summer birthdays tend to not be home on their actual birthdays.

We went to McCall with all of the Spjute Family.  A great time was had by all.  The cousins loved playing together.  The adults loved talking, and playing.  It was a beautiful place.  We spent most of our time on the river with paddleboards and kayaks.  We attempted a slip-n-slide, but that was a fail.  Fun to watch though!  It was great to spend time together!

The road to where we camped was a true Jeep road.  But our trailer made it just fine!

Sometimes tress are across the road so we have to get chainsaws out to clear a path.

Zack wanted apple pie for his birthday dessert.  Random.

Jake's the only one who had cake this year.

We dropped Jake and Sage off to ride the rest of the way to the house.  They didn't quite make it, but they did manage 30 miles!

Everyone loves Beckett!

We went exploring on our bikes one evening.

Cousin fun!

The beautiful river where we played.

The usual line up in our chairs.  In the shade of course.

We waited in a long line for ice cream that wasn't that great.

Fun spot for jumping off a rock

Our latest project ripping up our driveway to fix the drainage problem.  There's a reason we've taken 8 years to do this.  It's not a fun project!