fall festivities! (part I)

Autumn snuck up on Meeker and surprised us!

After lots of rain, we woke up one morning to cool weather and turning leaves.

Then one morning, the boys woke up to find visitors had arrived in the night - Yaya and Papa had caught a late flight out west and stayed for a week-long family visit and plenty of fun fall adventures!

Not only did we squeeze in dinner with friends, a little bit of local shopping, a wonderful church service and community luncheon with good friends, a jaunt up the valley to look for wildlife and golden aspens, and a chemotherapy appointment in Grand Junction (whew!)...

... but the highlight was the annual Fall Festival, which included a morning 5K run!

the 2nd grade runners! (go #14!!!)

the 5th grade runners (Hamp is in the back in the orange cap)

Go Sammy!!!

This gang of 5th graders found the foot race to be too much work - so they socialized!

My favorite adventure of the week, however was watching all of the in-between moments that were full of laughter and coloring and making Jell-O with Yaya.

And a special 'thanks' goes to Papa for fulfilling his job of hanging a tire swing at the house... 

and consequently making his grandsons happy for a long time!