Oktoberfest whirlwind weekend

What an awesome weekend! It started off with Kris and her 3 kiddos driving over from Denver Friday to hang out. My boys were so excited to have Zack and Bryce here for 3 days! Friday nights at our house is pizza & soda and Papa Murphy's from Colorado was a success! Morley decided Thursday night that he wanted to run the Oktoberfest race Saturday morning with me, so we tried to get him to bed at at decent time.

SIX O'CLOCK a.m. Saturday morning we started waking up ALL of the kids so we could head to the race that started at 7:00. We tried to dress warm, yet comfortable for the run. It was about

35 degrees when the race started! WAY TOO COLD to run your best for sure! I was so excited that Maleia decided to run the race last minute with me, even though she totally kicked my tail! She won 2nd place for the women's division! I beat my last 5k time by 40 seconds somehow...even with my knee locking up at about mile 2. Sometimes that adrenalin rush keeps your body going. I had a hard time overcoming the intense cold. Morley did his 1 mile run in 7:29, which is so awesome! We headed home to warm up and have some 'homemade' donuts waiting for us, thanks to Matt. YUM! Morley and I are clearly sponsored by Under Armour. Okay...maybe not sponsored but we love them...all the way down to our unders!

Oktoberfest is hands down the 'biggest event' in our county for the year. It starts on Friday and ends Sunday night. We have never been out to the fair grounds to see all of the festivities but I hear it is interesting. You can imagine all of the 'authentic food' and beer being consumed in 3 days! Our favorite is the parade that lasts for 2 hours. Morley, Drew & Matt were in the parade with Pack 90 helping with the Color Guard to start the parade. They looked so handsome in their uniforms.

The kids LOVE the parade because of the enormous amount of candy they take home! Luckily we had enough fun pillow cases for all 7 of the big kids to collect their candy in! Ella LOVED the parade and every time the marching bands walked past she started dancing. Drew & Brayden were hilarious when they put their heads inside the pillowcase trying to inspect their candy stash. The tractors were huge, the motorcycles were so cool and LOUD and my favorite are the Bagpipes! There was even a kid riding a lawn mower in the parade. What?

We came back to the house and TRIED to watch General Conference with all the kids. It was a valiant effort, but I can't wait for all the talks to come out in the November Ensign and thank goodness for DVR! We devoured 6 pizzas (thanks Maleia) for lunch and put the babies down for a nap.

Morley and Drew helped sell more of the popcorn for their fundraiser at Oktoberfest. Matt said they sold quite a few, yeah! It was a 'cash & carry' booth so the boys liked seeing people walk away with the yummy popcorn. Matt said they ate A LOT of samples, of course they did!

The day was so perfect with the sun and NO WIND that we decided to head out to the pumpkin patch with everyone in search of the best and biggest pumpkins! There was no wind and the pumpkins were bigger than in years past. They were only $2 each, no matter the size. The kids had fun finding their favorites.

the 'best' family picture...really?

after seeing these 'smiling' faces...2 children in particular had a little talk with me about "smiling for pictures that are special to mom, even if they don't want to!" grrr...the attitudes!

Kris, me & Maleia at the patch

After loading 12 pumpkins, 9 kids, 3 adults and a bunch of Indian corn and corn stalks into the two vehicles...we headed back to the house. Matt headed off to the priesthood session and we let the kids play the Wii (thanks Mayon). It was a great distraction while we prepared a hot dog, chip & carrot dinner with donuts for dessert, thanks to Jenni! Now there were 11 kids and 4 moms in the house, CRAZY! We ate 18 hot dogs and a dozen donuts in no time. We were brave and busted out the crafty stuff with the craziness around us! I taught Kris and Maleia how to applique and sent Kris home with a cute tiny skirt and ice cream cone shirt for little Avery! I think she now has the crafty bug! The dads got back from priesthood around 8:30 and I think Maleia was grateful to head home after being away from her hubby all day! We loved having her hang out with us!!

Sunday we had a delish mountain man breakfast topped off with orange juice just before conference started. We had a house full again with Call's joining us for the morning session. After we survived that, we headed out to Webb's so Kris and her kiddos could experience country life. They loved all of the animals and Bryce loved gathering the eggs from the chicken coop. Sam and Drew were so kind to invite us to stay for a scrumptious lunch of soup and rolls. They were generous and sent us home with garden fresh squash, onions and pumpkins! We hurried and left them in peace before the afternoon session of conference started! The second session was so fantastic, I think Elder Holland's talk was the most amazing!

Phew, what a weekend! I'm still trying to catch up! Thanks Kris for driving out to visit, we love seeing you guys so often!