falling for fall

I have fallen for fall. I fall for fall every year. I love everything about it. The new school year, chilly mornings, replacing zucchini bread with pumpkin bread, watching BYU football on TV, falling leaves, raking leaves, eating soup, wearing slippers, drinking hot chocolate. Really, what's not to like??

Not only do we like watching BYU football, we are also huge Carson High School fans. Austin's JV team is undefeated this year, and with only two games to go, they might just go all the way! Here are some pictures of our Awesome Austin #8:

Now watch this series as he runs, breaks through a bunch of defenders, and gets into the endzone. TD!!






Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. This next one is after he caught a long pass in the endzone in a different game:



And this is a shot from the game against their biggest rivals (whom they beat 48-0):



And here he is on the other side of the ball:



We have had so much fun watching him and his teammates play. Football is exhausting and takes up a LOT of time, but Austin has had a great season and felt a wonderful team camraderie with the other boys.

Here's a picture we sent to Brennan, with Austin and Keith wearing shirts that Brennan had sent them from Kentucky:


You may ask why we send him pictures that look like that, and it's because Brennan sends us pictures that look like this:


Some things apparently never change!

Brennan took one step out of his mission recently so he could say he'd been across the border. Here he is in Tennessee!


Elder Shaffer is continuing to have some amazing experiences in KY, and is loving his mission more than anything else in his life. He did say recently however, that after having guys for roommates for a year now, the idea of marriage is starting to be appealing in a whole new way! Oh my, I can't even wrap my mind around that yet.

Kristi is doing great at school. She has made lots of friends and is staying very busy between her classes and her social life. So again, some things apparently never change. Here's a glimpse or two:

Her dorm:


Some friends:




She went to Salt Lake for conference weekend, and attended the BYU game. Look who she ran into there!


And speaking of running into, here she is in Salt Lake for all-you-can-eat pancake night at Denny's, and she saw some of the Kid History guys in line in front of her. So my shy, demure daughter just had to go make friends.


(if you are unfamiliar with the Kid History videos on YouTube, you just might want to check them out.)

Although there is no photographic evidence of this, Kristi has done her fair share of dating since she left home. She protests a little when I say that, but that's because this generation doesn't really know what dating is. When you go places with a boy, or with an even number of boys and girls, and the boy pays for a meal or for the entertainment, that's a date. She's not dating anyone exclusively, but it's fair to say she's dating. And fair to say she's enjoying it.

I should throw a couple of pictures of Dallin in here too, but I have no pictures of the things he spends most of his time doing - school, trumpet, scouts, and swimming with the community swim team. Note to self: quit ignoring your youngest child. Thank heavens he's a good sport.


A good quote from Dallin the other day as he was pondering the difference between happiness and joy. He said, "Happiness would be going to Disneyland. Joy would be when Kristi comes home from college." Aw . . . sweet.

That's it for now. Gotta start thinking about dinner -- the missionaries are coming over. I'm actually serving leftovers from the JV football team dinner we had a couple of weeks ago. We had a huge taco bar and the leftover meat has been in the freezer ever since. I still have lots of shells, nacho sauce and chips too, so we just won't tell them it's the second time around. ; )