Fall In Maine

I spent the 2nd weekend in October hanging with Sara in Maine... talk about a perfect time to visit with the fall colors in full strength! We spent one day hiking and driving through Acadia National Park

This one just cracks me up - I find it very amusing that it's named Sand Beach (although I totally get that most of the coast isn't sandy beaches, but still...)

And I still can't figure out why some pictures don't rotate no matter what I do...

And we also spent part of a day going to lighthouses. First up Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse. It's actually almost a mile out on a breakwater:

Next up: Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. I was totally fascinated by the rocks here.

I'm getting pretty good at self/group portraits!!

The weekend also included a trip to the LL Bean store - holy cow!!

Thanks Sara Lu for an awesome weekend - love ya sis!!

A sure sign of fall....

As I was shaving my legs in the kitchen sink yesterday (yup - you read that right... let's just say that there's been delays in replacing my sewer line and anything but the shortest of showers with the drain barely open are O-U-T... wouldn't necessarily recommend the kitchen sink shaving method...too many nicks and getting down off the counter when you've only partially rinsed off the soap is a little tricky!) I was thinking that it really is fall - but how do you know when fall really arrives? For me there's a couple of things - first the State Fair. My friend Lisa and I went this week where I experienced my first funnel cake (I'm a fan in case you were wondering!). A few pictures from the fair:

Good to know that manure isn't garbage...

my favorite shirt there said: "lots of ANDS, lots of IFS and whole lot of BUTTS" - so a few here to share!

The younger generation of farmers were showing their pigs while we were there - I totally want a pig like this one so I can name it Neopolitan (now there's a good reason to have a pig, huh?)

It was a real hoot to watch these kids trying to show their pigs - or in true "Salsa-fashion" - perhaps the pigs were showing the kids?!

Another sure sign of fall - the first home BYU football game - unfortunately this was the highlight of Saturday's game - the band before the kick-off, that is unless you happen to be a Florida State fan... one can only hope that wasn't a sign of things to come!

I also look forward the leaves changing (hasn't started yet!)... I'm sure there's other sure signs of fall, but I haven't encountered them yet this year!!

Family, Soccer, Birthdays, Etc...

OK... big weekend - Deb and Sara both flew in and Kirk and Luci and the boys also came up. Kirk left us Saturday morning to go to the BYU-Oklahoma football game (way to go Cougs!!), while us girls and J-man went to the World Cup qualifying game at Rio Tinto Stadium - the US men's soccer team vs. El Salvador - it was AWESOME!!!

J-man with aunt Deb - he now has a new nickname - LoveBug (I'm sure he'll love that one later!)

LoveBug with aunties Deb and Sara

So close to the action... so AWESOME (in case you couldn't guess, I had a great time...)

Luci, grumpy LoveBug, me, Sara and Deb

Kind of a blurry picture of Z-boy, who was saying "Cheese" for this picture. Z-boy also has a new nickname - 40%, a reference to the 40% of 18 month olds who are bigger than him according to his doctor at his 18 month checkup... that's pretty hard to believe...

On Sunday we had all of our Robinson aunts and cousins Carolyn, April and April's kids over.

who knew Mr. Potato Head was so cool?

Kirk and Deb with Carol and Doris

The four Aunties - Doris, Alice, Carol and Marge

And the four siblings... Kirk was a good sport to put up with all the estrogen!

LoveBug showing us how to get down!

And Happy Birthday Kirk... count all 32 candles on that cake!! Highly recommend Maggie Moo's ice cream cakes - this one was de-lish-us!

Kirk, Sara and Deb checking out Sara's matches... signed up yet Deb?!! Yeah, me neither...

Monday we went to SugarHouse park for a picnic and playground time - can I just say that I LOVE the fall - we had just absolutely gorgeous weather this weekend, but the nights are cool enough to sleep... LOVE it LOVE it LOVE it...

Brotherly love??

LoveBug decided that we should go miniature golfing - so we went to the place we had gone over Easter weekend, and well... that obviously didn't work out so well for us!!

Finally made it to a very busy course and hey!! LoveBug - the ball is going the wrong way!!

The only draw back to the weekend?? the flooded basement... love the big old trees that line the streets of my neighborhood, but not looking forward to paying for a new sewer line... eek. Thanks for coming everyone - it was a FANTASTIC weekend!

Where do the days go? I have no idea... so here's one of those long, catch it all up posts...

Summer softball is finally over... here's one of the

Mutant teams I played on - this was my Tuesday night league where I ended up pitching about half

way through the season... yes, they were that desperate! While I enjoyed playing with these guys, I think I'm done with that league - of course I've probably said that every year for the last 2 or 3 years, but I think this year I really mean it!!

The last few months have brought many house guests - mostly for good reasons, but a few for not as happy reasons. One was J-man's broken and dislocated arm that required surgery at Primary Children's Hospital. Once in surgery, the actual injury wasn't as bad as the x-rays had led the doctors to believe, so that was at least good news!

One weekend was the Robinson family reunion -

held here in SLC (gotta love when you can sleep in your own bed). It was fun to see Dad with all of his sisters (missed you Melvin and Carole!) and our cousin April and her fun kids... (sorry - didn't get a picture with them)

That weekend Dad, Kirk, Luci and I ran a 5K - the weather was just about perfect for us - a little

bit cool with a light mist, but then J-man ran a 1K (with me and Luci) and the heavens decided to open up and pour (I think my t-shirt was about 10 lbs heavier!!):

J-man did great once he started running! My favorite was about halfway through when he looked around and looked up and gave his evil emperor laugh which I can't attempt to translate into words - but it was awesome. He even wants to run another race, but it can't be raining he told me!

And just so Z-boy gets some time - you can't really tell, but he's trying to put on his momma's high heeled shoes. He cracks me up!!

There has also been the happy addition of two new neices this summer - first came Crabby A (nicknamed by her family!) to join Marc and Ariane's family:

And most recently the safe arrival of Baby E to join Brett and Val's family:

A few weekends ago Rena and I ran a women's only race in SugarHouse Park - now that's something - to run with over 1300 other women... just very cool

And finally!!! Mom and Dad were recently called to serve in the Winnepeg Canada mission - the very mission that my Grandma Rose lives in. They report to the MTC on October 12 for 5 days of training and then are off! I am so grateful for the example that my parents are to me. This is one of my favorite pictures from their last mission (Kiev Ukraine Mission) taken by the Black Sea in Odessa Ukraine:

And now I think I'm mostly caught up... until next weekend...

What in the World??!

I had a big breakthrough last week... you see I ran a 10K race - BECAUSE I WANTED TO... not because my family was (see Bolder Boulder posts), or friends were, or any other reason than I wanted to see how I'd do. Now this is shocking - to me at least. See, I'm not a runner - or at least I haven't been in the past. I'd kind of try to run during the summers when I was in college to stay in shape for basketball, but it just never lasted very long... my knees would hurt (the result of popped bursae), the plantar fasciitis would kick in or shin splints, and there was always something else to do instead of running at nights. But Rena and I started running in January and in the last 3 months I've run two 10Ks and 2 5Ks, with more planned. And next year I want to do a half marathon ... wait, this is me, right?? Not so sure!! And in case you were wondering, I RAN the whole race and my time was 61 minutes - just under 10 minute miles. Not bad for a non-runner, eh?!! Although I have to say, I am just not photogenic... not posting the other pic where I look pregnant!!

Only on the web...

Ahhh... email and the internet - a combination guaranteed to increase productivity and fill the world with useful knowledge or not...

Wolves t-shirt listed on Amazon.com - scroll down and read the comments (link sent to me by my boss... now there's a busy guy...)

Earth hour 2009 - very cool pictures of before and during the lights out hour on Earth day.

And my favorite of the week... For Trade or Barter - just don't know what to say about this one, except well, still just don't know... what could I use as bait??

4th of July... plus a week.

Better late than never, right? So my fourth of July weekend started off on Friday with buying a new grill... the buying went better than the trying to get it in the car. The box wouldn't fit in the backdoor, the passenger side front door, the trunk... what's a girl to do? Stand in Home Depot's parking lot, bust open that box, pull out all the parts and pieces and shove them into the back seat (and that barely fit!):

The neighborhood does a big show for the 4th - it starts with a pancake breakfast:

And continues on with a kids parade (complete with a fire truck!)

The last couple of years I've missed the parade because I've been on snowcone duty at the after-parade-activities - I'm starting to get good at snowcones!!

Apparently I need to get a cruiser bike!!

Kirk & Luci and the boys and my friend Bonnie came over and we made sure the new grill worked (very well - it didn't even burn the burgers - keeper!). Kirk, Luci and Z-boy went to find an Urgent Care and meds to help with their summer colds, J-man, Katherine and Alan who were visiting their grandparents next door did a J-man version of hopscotch (and you can see Bonnie's legs... how did she escape with just a leg picture?!!)

And then fireworks... love that I can sit on my front lawn and watch them!

So very grateful to be a citizen of this great country!! Happy 4th of July!!