Nilsson News

I think Jenn deserves the blogger award for this month!  I have been a huge slacker and I have a lot of things to blame it on, but I'll spare you that list.  I guess the biggest thing to report was our trip to Seattle for Garrett's Spartan and some extra vacation time. 
Mom and Dad arrived at our home on a Thursday night and before the sun was up, Garrett, Millie and myself were on the road.  We drove and drove and drove some more.  For about twelve hours to be exact.  Millie was a trooper and was content to sit on my lap in the backseat.  I loved the trees we saw through the mountains and then the rolling expanse of farm fields as we got into Washington.  Then we hit the city and I was driving.  Seattle is not Idaho Falls big and it isn't even Salt Lake City big.  It is Seattle 2 million people big and every last one of them was on the same road that I was driving on!  Yikes!  I wanted to hide but knew that would be a bad idea since I was the one behind the wheel.  The traffic was insane and it's that crazy all the time.  Somehow we made it to our hotel room and I only lost a few years off my life during the process.
The next morning was Spartan!  Garrett forgot to pack all of his life saving necessities into our car that sustains him through the race, so we packed his pockets full of Millie's little applesauce pouches and hoped that would be sufficient.  After the pep talk from the announcer where they do a lot of hooting and hollering and "arooing," the racers were off.  It was a 13 mile race with 31 obstacles throughout but the weather was perfect and overcast.  It was Garrett's best race and he completed every obstacle but one.  That is a major success!

After the race, we went and visited a miniature donkey farm.  We were in donkey heaven surrounded by 100+ donkeys and Millie had a blast roaming the pastures with the micro minis that were no bigger than she was.  It was very educational and we hope to implement some of the things we learned on our own farm.  This lady makes more money in nine months selling her high quality donkeys than Garrett makes in his job in a year.  I may need to change some things up a bit...

The rest of the trip we enjoyed botanical gardens, the zoo, driving through the Skagit valley farmlands and walking down by the wharf.  It was a wonderful getaway and we are so grateful to mom and dad for watching the other kiddos while we were gone.  I'm pretty sure the other kids had so much fun they didn't even know we were gone!

Fall is upon us here as well and we have been cleaning out the garden and working in the yard.  We did enjoy some time drooling as we walked through the parade of homes with the Harts and parents.  I think mom and dad found the perfect home!  Well, several perfect homes.  It was a good time!