Fall is upon us...

Fall at our house almost always means forts of some size.  This one the boys slept in a few weeks ago.

And it means more bread baking, which means that the KitchenAid sits on the floor.  It's missing a rubber knob on the bottom and if we left it on the counter for an eight-minute kneading cycle it would vibrate itself onto the floor.

Fall also means first-day-of-school shots.  Ginny really wanted to go with the boys.

And of course a lot of Soccer. It's Ian's first year and he does a lot of  running around.  He''s just happy to be on the field, regardless of which direction his team is going.

And the post-game nap has become an essential ingredient in our soccer days.

Labor day weekend we booked a last-minute campsite up Diamond Fork campground in Spanish Fork.  We had foil dinners and s'mores and stayed up late to watch the stars.  We don't spend enough time (and I really mean "any time") looking up at the night sky, which is one of the reasons we like to go camping. And I know its a bit of a cliche that we should go to the woods 

We took a hike in Red Ledges picnic area.  Mom made it half way up the hill and she and the dog waited for the boys and me to go all the way to the top.

a fun little summit...I had to carry little Ian the last bit up and the first bit down--it was just too steep.

Here's our portion of the Franklin family at Uncle Richard's funeral.  It was a beautiful service and a sad day to say goodbye to a good man. 

Here's Melissa at about 2 a.m. on the weekend of Callan's Birthday. While he was at Nana and Papa's house we redid his room--painted, built a new bed, sewed new curtains and hung art on the wall.

Here's Callan earning his arrow of light.  We had one month (October) where we didn't have to go to pack meeting.  Callan is now doing 11-year-old scouts and Nolan starts cub scouts in November.

I grew up playing soccer in the rain, but here in Utah it almost never happens, so when it started to poor at one of Nolan's last games, I knew it was going to be a memorable event. The boys all loved it and everyone got soaked.

Here's a picture of the bed I built for Callan's birthday.  I bought a scrap of plywood from the Habitat for Humanity store, as well as some trim, and the rest is from pine boards left by the previous owners of our house.  Inspiration courtesy of Pinterest.

This is a fun photo. I took it at a retirement get together for Bruce Jorgensen. In this photo sit five generations of creative writing instructors at BYU. Doug Thayer is at the head of the table. he started teaching at BYU in 1954. To his left is Bruce Young, who took classes from Doug.  In the left foreground of the photo is John Bennion who took classes from Bruce.  To the left of John is Pat Madden who was a student of John Bennion.  And the hand in the left foreground, that's my hand, and I took classes from Pat and Doug.  That's sixty years of Creative Writing at BYU. So glad to be a part of it. 

Ian and I watched a lot of soccer together.

And Callan and I watched a lot of soccer together too...including this very rainy day.