Wonderful Christmas Vacation

Family pictures

Sunset at the beach

Spectacular frisbee shot

These things just happen

San Diego Temple lit up for Christmas

Chris with the sunset

Heisman?

4 in the bed and the little one said...

Merry Christmas to Me!!!!!

The BEST Christmas present EVER!!!

Cozy Christmas Tradition

Ready for Christmas!

Grandpa and I at the Lewis Family Christmas party!

My niece, the stylist

Katie's Birthday

We went crafty and made our very first Christmas wreaths.

We had a ton of fun and they turned out almost as cute as we are!

Happy Halloween Dinner

For Halloween we enjoyed a fantastic Halloween dinner
with our fantastic friends, Landon and Julie.

Check out our spread!

Mummy pizzas

Divine cheeseball dip

Spiders in the drink

Eyeball dessert!

The girlies had fun drawing patterns on the pumpkins and
watching the manly men carve out the designs.

Our jack-o-lantern-can you see the stars in our eyes, too?

Our great friends!
Jack-o-lanterns for the trick-or-treaters to admire

Brother!

When we were in California, we got to go to Nathan's cross country meet at Mt. Sac. He did so great and it was fun to watch him!

Go Blue!

On another note, peach season had Chris and me canning lots of yumminess for the year ahead. Yay for sticky floors :)

Chris's Sprint Tri!

The team: Cory, Chris, Spencer, Dad, and Mom

Coming out of the swim

Taking off on the bike

Last step of the run!

Amazing finishers!

Newest Addition

Domestic Projects of the Day

Yummy Punkin Pie (complete with homemade crust!)

Fun outdoorsy pillowcases

Lovely decorative pillows for the couch

Dear Hyundai Sonata,

We will not miss you. We am so glad you are gone from our lives. You are the reason we will never buy another Hyundai. You are the reason we will never have PepBoys service any of our cars. You are the reason I got yelled at for being a woman and trying to resolve a car issue. You are the reason for 10 months of car service headache. You are the reason some of our friends and family will never buy a Hyundai. I hope you treat your new owners better than you treated us. We will not think of you fondly-only to tell others of our awful experience with you. Goodbye. Forever.

Renae and Chris

Rock Canyon

We decided to tone down our outdoor adventure a little this weekend and found ourselves hiking Rock Canyon with Chris's sister and her fun family. We had a great time watching the nieces and nephews climb up the rocks, admiring the fall colors that are barely starting to change, and chatting with Jason and Becca.

After our hike we enjoyed delicious frozen yogurt from Golden Spoon in Orem. YUMMMM!!

Maple Canyon Lake

Another backpacking adventure-with Jake and Amanda! We went up Maple Canyon and hike the Spanish Fork Peak trail up to Maple Canyon Lake. We got a late start because of Labor Day Friday night traffic so we didn't get to the lake until dark. We found a nice flat spot right next to the lake and set up our tents. After a fun campfire we crashed into our tents. Within the hour, an elk came and bugled just outside our tent. For the rest of the night we laid in our tents, listening to the elk. A whole herd bedded down and two bull elk fought in the lake for hours. I was TERRIFIED. They would bed down right next to our tent and we would lay absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe. My heart was pounding and I was so scared I passed out! I was SO grateful when the sun came up in the morning. I have never prayed so hard in my life. None of us slept a wink! We enjoyed breakfast in the morning and explored around the lake/pond and saw where they wallowed in the mud, fought, walked around and we even saw remnants of their hair in the mud. We were grateful that they had left in the morning and we didn't come out of our tents to find them all still sleeping around our tent. WHEW what a trip!

This is how close we were to the lake where the elk were fighting: