Give Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving 2017. We hosted this year and invited Uncle Brent's family and Aunt Emily (Mommy's Sister) to come feast with us. It was the first time we extended our new table out as far as it could go and, because we had taken out the wall in the kitchen, we were able to seat 15 people around it. The food was delicious and everyone ate till they were stuffed.

James and his cousin Matthew were so excited to have a friend to sit next to. They had lots of fun passing food back and forth to each other.









After cleaning up dinner and taking some time to digest, we had all the kids come back to the table to decorate Gingerbread houses. Everyone enjoyed themselves and ate a lot of candy in the process.

James is 2 years old

Though we affectionately call him James the destructor, we love him and wish him a happy birthday. The boys and I took him to Frying Pan Farm to "moo" at the cows and "baa" at the sheep. We had a great time.

Since he loves ice cream more than anything,
we made him a messy ice cream cake with hot fudge sauce and a brownie base.

Evan's first tag

Though we hope he doesn't grow up to become a hooligan, Evan had a lot of fun helping Aunt Emily with her tag on the art wall in front of the Kennedy Center.

Candy

Along with cooler weather and nice colors, fall brings a lot of fun activities each year.  We once again were able to enjoy many of our favorites.

After all the parties and trick or treating leading up to Halloween, Evan and Bennet were over it and only stayed out trick or treating for about 30 minutes. James, however, refused to come in with his brothers and made Paul take him out until he had filled up his bucket twice.

We have a lot of trees in our neighborhood and on a nice fall day it is fun to rake them into a big pile and let the kids jump in.

Home Again

After a long car ride home to Virginia we finished off the summer with some DIY. There was a wall in our kitchen that we didn't like so we cut some holes and made a big mess.

Then, after watching some youtube videos and getting advice from Grandpa Saunders, we got to work putting it back together. It took us 3 weeks, but we now have new lights in the kitchen and more space without that useless wall.








The solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. was a total solar eclipse visible within a band across the entire contiguous United States, passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. We weren't close enough to be in the path of totality but we were close enough to see it mostly covered. We went with our friends to the Dulles Air and Space museum where they were handing out special eclipse glasses and watch the moon pass over the sun.

First day of 2nd grade

And just like that the summer was over and it was time to send the kids back to school.

Lets Race!

This year I wanted to try out running. After talking Paul into training with me, we set to work getting in shape. I got a training schedule off the internet and we dusted off the treadmill. Paul was the first one to run a race. He ran the Lawyers have Heart 5k with attorneys  from his Law Firm, WSGR.

The original plan was to just run the Provo Freedom Run 10k together, but after finishing it seemed a waste to do all that training for just one race so we decided to keep going.








Our next race was the South Jordan Glow Run 10k. It was along the Jordan River Parkway from 11pm to midnight. Everyone was all decked out with glow sticks and headlamps. It was very peaceful to run in the dark almost by yourself.  We are so grateful that we had Grandparents to babysit while so we could run these races.











On the 24th of July, Pioneer Day in Utah, we ran the Temple to Temple 5k from the Provo temple to the Provo City Center Temple. My brothers Jon and Alec Joined us along with Paul's brother Mike and his family all wearing our Kraczek family reunion tee shirts.















Our final race for the summer was the Crack of Dawn 10k down Millcreek canyon. It started at 6:30am. We ran the race and were back at Grandma and Grandpa Saunders house with bagels for the kids before they were even out of bed.


After all that running we drove home and haven't run since.

Additional Fun with the Kraczeks

In addition to spending a whole three day weekend with all of Paul's brothers and their families during our Kraczek family reunion, we had several other opportunities to spend time with our Kraczek grandparents, Uncle Mike's family, and Uncle Scott's family during the course of the summer.  For James, this led to a lot of crazy comotion that was not always easy to explain later.

Bennet used this as an opportunity to make creations in Grandma's basement and Evan loved getting to know some of his Kraczek cousins.

Amanda, for the fourth year in a row, had the opportunity to make Grandma Kraczek's birthday cake.  This year it was a blackberry lime cake, which we preceded with a coconut shrimp and steak dinner.  James loved the cake, but his favorite part may have been feeding his dinner to Boo, who was a very sweet labradoodle that belonged to Uncle Mike's family.







Uncle Mike's family invited us to some fun activities, including a plastic turtle race at BYU and playing at the beach at Manila Creek Pond in Pleasant Grove.

Towards the end of our trip, we took Grandma and Grandpa Kraczek to both the Loveland Living Aquarium and the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.  It is quite possible that James enjoyed the icecream at the dinosaur museum more than any boy ever has before (Daddy was not allowed to have any).