Break out the Kleenex...

If you haven't seen this video, you need to. I saw it on a friend's blog and knew it needed to be shared...

Deja Vu

So, back in high school the first car I drove was a red Nissan Sentra. Technically it was my dad's, but he would hitch-hike to work (literally) so I usually drove it to seminary, school and everywhere else.

That little car was passed down to my sister Trish, then Justin, and then Grant. Since there's a 6-year gap between Grant and Aaron my parents didn't have a need for the car when Grant went on his mission in 2008. Luckily, there was a family in the ward that was glad to take it off of their hands. Pretty sure they were at the house to pick it up, and pay the $1 my dad was asking for it, within minutes of Grant leaving for the airport!

Now to the present day...a few weeks ago we got an email from that very family, saying that they had received moving orders to California and would be leaving within a few weeks and were unable to take the red car with them. They then asked if my parents would like it back for the low, low price of $1! Haha. We all laughed, and then quickly said yes. Aaron just turned 16 and will have his license in December, so my mom thought it was perfect.

The Rigtrups brought it over a few days later, and here it is:

The license plates have since been changed. We don't have a Max in our family, so Max1mus was just a little out of place :) It is actually in pretty good condition for being 17 years old. And guess what?! I am the driver of this lovely car again! Since we've moved away from my parents and I have started subbing, we needed a 2nd car until we can find one of our own.

I never thought I'd be driving this car again...crazy how some things come right back to you :)

Nationals vs. Braves

My brother Dallin has fallen in love with the Washington Nationals baseball team this year. I think having baseball fanatic Darren around helped with that.

A few months ago Dallin looked at the Nationals' schedule for a weekend that my dad would be home from California, and picked (at random) the last Saturday game of the season, September 24th, against the Atlanta Braves. The game was at 1pm, so we headed up with my parents at about 11, and got to the stadium with plenty of time to walk around, find our seats, and get lunch.

It was a cloudy day and we were a little worried about getting rained on, but our seats were completely covered and it never actually rained. Perfect weather! I'm sure Dallin was in heaven the whole 3 hours we were there.

Michael Morse - "The Beast"

Each game they have a race between Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln & George Washington. We were so excited to see all of them jog out from behind the field.

Apparently Teddy had never won a race, so Jayson Werth did his best to keep Thomas Jefferson from winning, even after he cut across the outfield. It was hilarious to watch Werth push and shove this big mascot thing to the ground.

Ryan Zimmerman

Jayson Werth

Tyler Clippard

My family! Notice none of them are looking at the camera with happy faces. I promise we were having fun...

The Nationals won in grand fashion, and ended up helping to keep the Braves out of the postseason. The Cardinals fan a few rows in front of us made sure everyone knew about that. Haha. All in all, it was a really fun afternoon with my family. This was only the second ball game I'd been to with them, and it was fun to spend time with my dad during one of his rare weekends home.

Dianna's Wedding!

A few weeks back Darren and I had the opportunity to make a VERY quick trip out to Utah for Darren's cousin's wedding. We flew out late the night of September 16th, and flew back the morning of the 18th. It was quick, but it was a wonderful trip! We are so happy we got to be there for Dianna and Clay, and even see Darren's parents and his brother Jeff and wife Sheila.

The Marshalls (yay!) were married in the Mount Timpanogos temple in the early afternoon of the 17th. We had some time that morning, so we had the opportunity to go to breakfast with Darren's parents and even stoppped by Darren's aunt and uncle's (the Walkers) home before the sealing. Dianna, of all people, answered the door and sat and talked with us for a little bit. I was laughing inside at how relaxed she seemed and thought back to my wedding day. Definitely not relaxed...

The weather when we got to the temple was gorgeous!

The sealing was wonderful, and I know we all felt the love between Clay and Dianna.

Mr. & Mrs. Clay Marshall!

The Walker family!

In between breakfast and the wedding, and then the wedding and the reception we stopped by to see a family friend of Darren's parents. The 17th happened to be the day of the BYU vs. Utah game, and this was what we saw in their front yard...

Too bad the game didn't turn out as spectacular as the grass.

After resting for a bit, we headed down to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens for the reception. It was beautiful, the food was wonderful, and the company was fantastic.

We are so happy that everything fell in place for us to be able to be there for Dianna and Clay. We're just sad it was such a short trip!

Camp Out. . .or In

So, we had a ward campout scheduled for Friday, September 9th. The kids were all excited about it, but it rained, and rained and flooded all week. Enough so, that they cancelled school that morning. Luckily we didn't have to make the decision to not go. The ward did that for us! They decided that it would be safer (and more enjoyable) to not camp out in the rain and floods.

We all still wanted to have campout though, so we decided to camp in! Sarah set up a small tent downstairs, and we had a hot dog roast for dinner.

Please notice the extension cord going to the tent for adequate dvd player electricity...

After dinner we watched Mighty Ducks since my siblings had NEVER seen it for some strange reason. It was so much fun and I think they liked it. After that, we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores!

Sarah was the only one who decided to sleep downstairs in a tent, and then she only did that for a few hours before heading up to her bed. Being rained out turned out to not be all that bad!

P-Nats & Stephen Strasburg

As we were driving back from Kings' Dominion I got a phone call from Dallin. He (half yelling with excitement) told me that they had just announced that Stephen Strasburg was going to be the starting pitcher for our local Potomac Nationals single-A team that coming Friday, August 12. The P-Nats play just down the street, about 15 minutes away. We were SO excited! We had hoped this would happen after he started rehab assignments.

We got tickets for just about everyone in the family and planned on getting there WAY early. Darren, Dallin, Sarah and I got ready pretty early and got to the park at about 4:45pm. Just over 2 hours before first pitch. It was "Ian Desmond Bobblehead Night" so we were some of the lucky first 1000 fans to get those for free. Especially since we were in a crazy LONG line and were fan #600ish. We quickly found our general admission section, scouted out the best seats and sat down and watched the rest of batting practice and all of the warm ups.

The P-Nats mascot - Uncle Slam

Cheers erupted as they announced Stephen Strasburg as the starting pitcher for the game.

An overcapacity crowd of 8,619 was there to witness Strasburg's first pitch:

It was a gorgeous evening for a baseball game.

Seat capacity: 6,000. Standing room: 2,000. Somehow they fit 8,619...

Strasburg pitched like the ball was on fire straight from the beginning. We were all amazed when he consistently hit 97-99 mph.

Strasburg left after 3 innings of great baseball. 33 pitches, 26 strikes, 2 hits, 5 strikeouts and no runs. We all had a great time and even enjoyed ball park hot dogs for dinner.

Darren and Dallin

Me and Darren (with Sarah peeking in from the side)

King's Dominion

My brother Aaron turned 16 on the 19th, but we knew that day would be crazy busy and not really conducive to spending all day at a theme park, so we decided to go on the 9th.

Before we left, my brothers (Dallin and Justin) had an "Operation" to complete. We had a canteloupe in our kitchen that was going bad, so they decided to configure a catapult of sorts and launch it off the deck into our backyard.

In full gear. Those canteloupes sure are dangerous.

The configured catapult. Exercise bands and broom handles.

Unfortunately their first and second attempts did not go as planned. The canteloupe flew right down to the deck the first time. And then didn't even crack when it hit ground the second time.

I have attached a video for your enjoyment of the third and fourth attempts:

After the melon had been successfully destroyed and left for the deer, we got on our way. It's only about an hour drive down the 95 to get to Kings Dominion. Since Aaron invited four friends we had to take two cars. My mom had Sarah and Dallin and their friends, and Darren and I had all the teenagers. It actually wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.

When we got there, Dallin split off with his buddy Matthew, and Aaron went off with all of his friends, leaving me and Darren to tag along with my mom, Sarah and her friend Alyssa.

We did a couple roller coasters, but I quickly found out that I can't really handle them as well as I could when I was younger. Even the swings were a little too much for me. If you can't tell...

After lunch Darren and I decided to just sit with my mom while the younger girls had all the fun on the coasters. Which was fine by me! We did do a couple water rides and then floated the lazy river to end our afternoon. It ended up being a really fun and relaxing day. We didn't even get sunburned!