AUGUST

As I said earlier, July ended with a family reunion in Oregon.  It was carnival themed and lots of fun.  There were carnival games, snow cones, and even cotton candy.  But Autumn’s favorite part was meeting two new members of the family.  Well, not really.  Chris’s uncle had 2 orphan goats that he brought along because he had to bottle feed them 3 times a day, and Autumn absolutely fell in love with them!  He would’ve sent them home with us, but we were worried about the long drive being too hard on them.  As fun as the reunion was, I only took pictures of the kids and the goats (imagine that), so that’s what you get.

Hannah and Harley

Upon returning home, it was immediately fair time.  Chris’s parents were in charge of the Education Foundation food booth, so helping them out kept all members of the family busy if we ever had free time.  In addition to helping them, we also helped with activities on Farm Bureau day.  Chris loved M-C-ing the kids tractor pull, and Autumn helped with the pie-eating contest and free ice cream social.  We think we have one of the best county fairs in the country, and so we love to go to as many events as possible.  We enjoyed the Lil’ Buckaroo rodeo, in which Chris’s cousins took part, the PRCA Rodeo (can’t miss that!), the Demolition Derby, and we even both took part in the Pig Wrestling contest this year.  This was Chris’s second year to be hired as the announcer at the Pig Wrestling, and his first year announcing the Demolition Derby.  He thinks he would like a job as a rodeo announcer some day.  Somehow Autumn’s friend talked her into being on a pig wrestling team.  Her team, which consisted of Chris’s sister, Aubrey, 2 friends, Allison and Mara, and herself actually won 2^nd place!  And she has to admit…it was fun.  Chris even got in on the dirty business, as Autumn snuck in for a kiss after her team’s turn and got him all dirty!  Actually, there were other girls (whom he didn’t even know) hugging him to get him dirty, too, and he later found out it was because the gate keeper (a guy he knew) was putting them up to it. Ha ha!  Oh! We can’t forget the final race in the Caribou County 5K circuit. Yes, another 5K.  Autumn and Chris’s sisters participated in the Soda Springs 5K fun run on Saturday morning.  Only, it was less run and more walk, and so we didn’t do so hot this time. :)

Aubrey, Allison, Mara, and Autumn after Pig Wrestling

Well, everyone around here knows that summer ends with the fair, and then it’s back-to-school time.  But we had one small task to accomplish first.  Okay, it was a large and very important task!  We had to get our house ready for our Adoption Home Study.  Talk about stress!  But we did it, and it must have been okay because we’ve since got a letter saying we were approved! (More about that to come in September’s blog)  After that was over, Autumn had one week left to get her classroom ready before Teacher In-service Days started.  Now I guess you know how August ended.  That’s right, with school starting.  After one week of school, Autumn’s assessment of how this school year would be was this: I love my beautiful, smart class, but boy, are they going to keep me busy!