September...my favorite month.

September is such a great month.

Summer heat is still lingering as we begin the month and then slowly we move to cooler nights. We enjoy memories of summer and anticipate the festivities that lie ahead at year-end. The hustle of back to school is over and we settle into our new routines. As the month comes to an end we move full on into fall. The mountains are painted with vibrant colors...yellow, orange, red..(to name some of my favorites.) We don our cozy jackets. We relax.

Of course, September is also full of great celebration. My birthday of course. This year was my 34th birthday. I tell you that because I love that number for some odd reason and I anticipate great things this year. Kevin and Ellie gave me 34 gifts for my birthday. This is a picture of them before I did any opening. I had to wait until Ellie got out of school before I could open them and the anticipation was torture! But in the end, it was worth the wait. Ellie was excited along with me to open each one.


To define great celebration...well...it means to celebrate greatly....or for long periods of time. So we did both; we celebrated the Sunday before at Grandma's house, the Monday night before at the Sorenson's house, the day of, and Kevin and I spent the next 5 days celebrating in Cabo. Ellie had to stay behind because of school, but she had fun with cousins, grandma, and dad instead.

Thanks to everyone that made it such a great birthday!



Kevin would argue that September is great because it is the official start of the college football season. Ellie does her part by eating her morning chocolate doughnuts and wearing her football shirts and cheering for at least part of the first quarter. She is still an Ohio State, Utah, and BYU fan because of her loyalty to those she loves. The picture below is a little blurry because it is Ellie doing her first game of the season jig. She did it after laughing at Kevin do his, but I never got a good picture of that. Maybe next year.

Even Utah enjoys September. The Utah State Fair. The circus. The new babies at the zoo. All things we got to enjoy in September. (Along with a trip to the aquarium after my computer was on the fritz.)

Ellie has an incredible memory and from year to year remembers events she enjoys. Like many other events, Ellie looks forward to the Utah State Fair. The Little Hands on the Farm is a free exhibit that allows kids to learn about farming and go through doing some of activities. She loved it last year and couldn't wait to do it again this year.

This year we added a few things to her "look forward to list" for next year. Big Al - who didn't move the first or the second time she got to see him. Little Lena - really, this freaked her out, but she wanted to see this smallest girl in the world twice! The fun houses and of course the big yellow slide. Oh wait...that one is mine...but Ellie did her obligatory slide.


We went to the Greatest Show on Earth kind-of last minute. It was supposed to be a weekend with her dad, so I hadn't planned on it. I also had many people tell me not to go, that's it's not worth the money, that if we went last year not to go this year....blah blah blah. But ever since she saw the flier with the painting elephant, Ellie wanted to go.

So honestly, for us and our simple minds...the circus is fan-freakin-tastic! We stopped at the box office, bought fourth row seats, settled in with our popcorn, nachos, and drinks and didn't stop enjoying ourselves. Ellie was cracking me up the entire time with comments like:

"I just can't watch" (when the ladies were about to shoot out the cannons)
"That's just what the circus is about" (when the people were upside down walking on the ceiling)
"What a mess this is" (when the confetti shot at the end of the show)
And finally - "That was awesome."

The lady in front of us even turned around at one point to tell us that Ellie was so funny and was enjoying it so much that her circus experience had been improved. These are three of Ellie's reactions to the circus. These faces. These are worth every single circus minute.




The Zoo. Oh the babies at the zoo are so worth a trip! The elephant was so surprisingly little. Ellie wanted to bring her home!



Three little monkeys at the zoo.

My hard drive mysteriously crashed so while it was being repaired, Ellie and I took the afternoon to visit the Aquarium. We had so much fun. Ellie said these fish looked like the cheetahs we had seen at the zoo.



We had to say good-bye to a dear friend in September. So we are happy to include him in the month. Herx (as Ellie called him) was Kevin's dog of 13 years. Ellie didn't see him that often, but when she did Ellie loved to give him treats and play ball with him.


Ellie and her friend Izzy decided that September was probably the last month for lemonade stands. But I guess lemonade is out. They sold Ritz crackers - three for a dollar. They came up with the idea and made their signs all by themselves and had a great time. I only assisted in taking the table outside (so they didn't bang my walls) and dividing the money evenly. Eamon (Izzy's dad) was their first patron who got a bargain at $.50 for four crackers. Jake (Savannah's dad) was next and he got three for $1.00. My friend Kurt got the same deal, three for $1.00 as did Kevin. Garred got a slight discount at $.70. Another neighbor came when I ran inside so I'm not sure what they got out of her. :) It was so fun for them and with their steep prices I just thank my neighbors and friends for supporting them and promise no more high priced crackers this year!


Okay people, that's it....September is over....time to get it in your sweatshirts (or your mom's)...October is looking to be a cold one this year!

Ahh.

"I love you so bad."

Unprompted...sweet words....just made my night.

Mason Mason Mason

"My cousin Mason" arrived yesterday for a long weekend visit which reminded me that I had a long overdue post I needed to write. Mason's summer visit. Mason (who was a very mature 5 at the time) got the idea (I think Grandma may have had some influence) that it would be a good idea for her to come to Utah for a week in the summer. Mason was pretty insistent, so Robin (Mason's mom) and Grandma met half-way and Grandma brought her to Utah for the week. This is one of the HUGE differences between Ellie and Mason. Mason has a strong sense of adventure whereas Ellie is very reserved and doesn't usually test things until they are proven safe. But Mason had no fear. She came for a week with no parents and didn't look back.

Grandma dropped Mason off at our house night one (July 21st) and this is how the night and the majority of the week went.

The next morning I had signed them both up for a day camp so I could get some work done - but then I took the afternoon off so we could go swimming. The rest of the time was packed with time together and time with Grandma. Dress-ups, sprinklers, coloring, play-dough, on and on non-stop fun.


One of the reasons for picking the week she did was so Mason could go to the annual Heath family reunion. Ellie honestly looks forward to this camping trip each year. In fact, just on Wednesday this week (when it was snowing in the mountains) she asked when we would go camping again. I said, not until the summer and she said..."But mom, you can stay in the trailer - but I would be outside; I love the snow." Brrr. But back to the summer....On Friday we packed up and took the girls up the canyon for the big camping trip. We don't camp often, but when we do - we do it right. The Heath reunion is a well-oiled event that runs smoothly every year. We didn't win the horse-shoe, archery, or gun tournaments, but we didn't need to in order to have fun.







Robin surprised Mason by coming to Utah early, but then letting her stay longer than a week so the fun was extended another few days. The girls did another day camp, had more crazy sleep-overs and even let Logan in on their fun.


Oh those summer nights. (If anyone just had a Grease song pop into their head...we are on the same page.) Grandma made a fun picture book for both of them so they would remember the week. And Mason is already planning on next year!

We are excited to have Mason back this weekend. She is right now, as I type, just waiting for Ellie to get out of school and counting down the minutes until we can get over to Grandma's and start the fun!