Adventures

So Jared's in Brazil fly fishing on the Amazon. He was offered this exciting all-expenses paid trip by the company he buys his semi-trucks from and who could say no to that? He left last Thursday and will be gone through Sunday - 10 days! We're already missing him considerably but we're so glad he gets to go do something he loves (fly fish) in such a beautiful place. He's hanging out with several trucking executives in the middle of nowhere - 250 miles from Manaus in the middle of a totally pristine part of the river and rain forest. Ashton's in the middle of writing a report on the rain forest for school so this trip has been very helpful for his report. Jared's had spotty internet access but he was able to send us a photo of the first fish he caught - look at that beauty! It's a peacock bass. I guess the part of the river where he is has like 2000 different kinds of fish, some of them very rare, so it should be very interesting to see what he catches.

While Jared's gone, I'm having my own adventures here at home dealing with a lot of kids 24/7! The kids were really pretty good for sacrament meeting yesterday (that was the part of Jared being away that I was most concerned about - 2 sacrament meetings w/o him) and we've had a great time together reading lots of books, watching movies and playing games. A new family center just opened at the kids' school and you can check out games and books and movies and the timing couldn't be better for us!

My sister Saydi had her baby yesterday - a girl! They didn't find out ahead of time whether it was a boy or girl so the news was extra exciting. Everyone's happy and healthy and Saydi had a quick but relatively normal natural childbirth - just what she was hoping for after two rather wild previous births. Little Emeline Rose is absolutely beautiful and I especially loved the pictures of her with her adoring older brother and sister. Hearing about it all brought tears to my eyes as I remembered those amazing moments of holding my own seconds-old baby for the first time and seeing my older kids meet their newest sibling. Those are moments I wish I could go back and relive, moments that make all the hard stuff so completely worthwhile.

It's suddenly turned COLD (50's feels pretty darn cold here - with 40's in the morning). I love feeling the crisp in the air and catching a glimpse of changing leaves here and there. The twins get SO excited about every "golden tree" they see. It poured with rain yesterday and brought out the most deep and rich colors everywhere. I love the desert in the rain - the unique smell, the saturated colors - has to be one of my all-time favorite things.

Ollie and Si have been bugging each other like crazy. I think they take their dad's absence harder than anyone else. But this morning they're so cute. They got into bed with me with a book this morning and it was so fun to snuggle and read with them for a while in our cold house. Now they're playing so nicely together. I just overheard Si say "Olber, you are the bestest Spiderman in the world" and Ollie replied, "well, you're the bestest Superman!" Then a few minutes later: "Olber, are you mad?" "No, I'm not mad but can I use that book?" "OK - here is yours and here is mines and now we both have one." If only things could stay this way all day!