Chapter of Four.  You’ve been good to us, but it’s time to close you and move on.  Before family member #5 came, we wanted to do some fun things with our girls.  Here are some of the highlights.

Classic Fun Center in Orem.  Roller skating, roller blading, scooters, laser tag, bounce house, climbing, and a little arcade.  Good work Kathryn for getting a great groupon deal. Anyone remember groupon?

Frozen yogurt afterwards.  What a fun day!

Next up, Cirque du Soleil.  I’ve read about them in a couple of my classes and other business books.  They are always the case study for Red Ocean vs Blue Ocean strategies.  The ultra short story is that rather than compete in “red oceans” against the traditional circus and the traditional theater where the market is saturated and it’s a bloody competition, they took elements from both and created a whole new show in a “blue ocean” that is unique and fresh, and they don’t really have any competitors, so they’re not blood in the water.  So, after reading about them several times, I decided to look and see what it would take to go see one of their shows.  It turns out that they were performing in Salt Lake in just a few weeks.  So, we decided to go for it and get tickets.  The show did not disappoint.  It was quite spectacular really.  True to the textbooks and case studies, there were lots of amazing acts from the circus, and they were mixed in with a running storyline.  We were just floored by the strength and skill of most of the performers.  I didn’t think to get any video till the very end, but you can read more about the show here: https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/press/kits/shows/corteo.

We had some fun times at Jakers Pumpkin Patch in Springville too.  Cornpits, slides, and a bumpy ride through a soupy pumpkin field.

We had a really fun drive up the canyon.  We drove all the way up Hobble Creek and over to Diamond Fork.  We then discovered that the road out that was recently reopened after the fire was closed again due to flooding concerns.  So, rather than backtrack, we took the road out through Sheep Creek.  It made for a long, but beautiful misty fall day drive.

For the last hurrah, we headed up early afternoon for a fun day at Cornbelly’s at Thanksgiving Point.  There were lots and lots of fun things to do and everyone had a really great time.  If you haven’t been recently, we thought it was worth the trip.

Isn’t Kathryn amazing, doing all of this just a day before #5 came.

Looking back, we have so many fun memories of our family of four.  We have been incredibly blessed.  Time to close this chapter and move to zone defense.  “Hi, could we get a table for FIVE?”  It’s going to take some time to get used to that!

Our mountains are on fire here.  Lots of evacuations on the south side of the valley.  Over 75,000 acres have burned in this lightning caused fire.  Wind gusts up to 50 mph are fueling the fire and caused its explosive growth.  This is the #1 fire in the nation and lot’s of fire crews are on scene.  No structures have burned yet though.  This has been a really bad fire year and I’m looking forward to the end of fire season.

Hard to believe that we’ve basically put a wrap on summer already. Here is some bonus content not covered in some of the previous posts.

Last dirt bike ride with Kevin. We conquered a huge loop up American Fork canyon that gave us trouble last year when Kevin’s chain broke and we had to ditch his bike. We didn’t have any problems this time and we really enjoyed the beautiful overcast day and epic views of the mountains.

I just love this picture. It’s my new favorite desktop background.

Pioneer day.  Wagon treats and Fiesta Days Rodeo in Spanish Fork.

Good bye celebration for Kevin and Bethany.  We really enjoyed all the time we got to spend with them and we sure miss them.

Austin and Karina’s wedding.

This girl LOVES to dance.  Especially at weddings.  I can’t say that getting out on the dance floor is really my thing, but it’s hard to resist when you get pulled out on the floor by your daughter!

Swinging!  The girls have absolutely loved this swing this summer.  So do all of the friends that come over.  We’ve worn a pretty huge bald spot in the grass as proof.

Just loving my girls.

Swimming lessons!

Boating and cabin weekend.

Backyard violin concert and BBQ.

Kevin’s Graduation.

Packing up for an Idaho weekend.  Ashley was helping me load up the dirt bike into the truck.  There was lots of swimming, family pictures, lots of airplane and drone flying, green beans, dirt biking, and just all around fun family time.

Adam is such a great uncle.  These girls really love him!

Back to School!  And that’s a wrap to summer 2018!

We had the privilege of going to the Hairpin Ranch again this year for a Kirk family reunion. We really enjoyed the trip and had a fantastic time. It was a good wrap up to summer proper.  To top it all off, we were invited to ride on Spencer and Kristen’s plane.

Here we are on the ride up.  It made the trip so much shorter, cutting 4 hours of driving out.  Plus, it’s just really cool.

We had a lot of fun on the beach and the little lake. The girls played in the sand for many hours making their creations and soaking in the goodness.

Ashley has wanted to go fishing for so long too.  I told her she was born into the wrong family and maybe uncle Stan would take her out sometime.  Well, she finally got a chance to fish.  We didn’t catch anything, but we did have a bite where a fish stole our worm!

We basically foundered on good food over the entire trip.  We helped with the Hawker Hawaiian Chicken lunch. This was a pot of around 18 cups of rice that we cooked up for a sense of scale.

As an early birthday present for the girls, Grandma Suzie got them both these sleeping bags.  The girls love-love-loved them!  In fact, when we put them to bed that night, it was the first time in history that we’ve put them to bed together, in the same time, in the same room.  Granted, they were super tired from all the day’s activities, but when the experiment ended in sleeping girls instead of yelling, laughing, or someone coming out, we were astounded.  The sleeping bags had to have something to do with it.  They were so cozy!

Ashley naturally gravitated to this little guy, only three months old.  I think she’s really going to like having a baby brother of her own.

Pics at the ranch yard after church at the nearby branch.  It was a great meeting.  I always like going to other peoples church and getting their perspectives on the gospel and on life.  We basically inundated the little building and there was standing room only in the chapel meeting room.

We really enjoyed driving around on the side by side.  We might have to get one of these sooner than later with how much fun we had on it.  It was a lot smoother than the four wheeler, and we could take the whole family.  Maybe once we have a bigger garage someday.

The traditional family games.  This year it was the Viking Games, with the Norwegians vs the Swedes.  There were a variety of games including king of the balance beam, axe throwing, bow and arrow shooting, and tug of war.  Then there was an inner strength game of blowing a boat across a little pool and then eating a sardine.  Luckily, the sardine was boneless and skinless, so it basically tasted like strong tuna.  Still though, sardines have a very bad connotation and tend to bring on the gag reflex, so I’m glad we’re not in the sardine business.

She nailed it.

Ashley and I went on the hike up to Peterson lake.  It was a really pretty hike through the forest and Ashley did a great job.  She was a trooper.  It was great to get out in the forest and get up to a mountain lake.  I missed doing that this year.

We took the Mavic up too and got some fun shots and videos.  This is one of my favorites of the big house at the Hairpin.  I love how open and remote the area is.  It’s just so peaceful and relaxing to be there.  This really is Big Sky Country too.  I couldn’t believe how many stars there were at night.  I haven’t see the sky like that for several years and I forgot how mesmerizing it is.

And here we are on the trip home, loading up.

This was a great trip.  So much fun went undocumented too.  A big thanks to everyone who made it possible, especially Spencer and Kristen.  We really enjoyed the chance to spend the weekend with the extended family and connect with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins.