Do You Play Croquet?

For Nathan's birthday I got him a croquet set (he's been wanting one for years). Sunday evening we finally had time to get out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather as a family. It was really fun to watch the girls try to figure out how to get the mallet to hit the balls. Kayla played with us for most of a game while Allie just ran around randomly hitting any ball she could find. Nate beat me severely the first game, but by the second I was much closer although still a looser. We were having too much fun to remember to take pictures other than right at the start.
Afterwards we went for a nice walk around the neighborhood as the sun was setting and yes the mosquitoes were biting. I think the girls must share my blood because the mosquitoes don't seem to like them much, but poor Daddy made a delicious meal for a dozen or so of our gigantic blood sucking friends.
On a side note, if you notice the disgusting swamp in the background of the first picture you might be able to figure out why we have such a huge mosquito problem besides being close to the Stansbury Lake. We're trying to get Richmond to level this lot next to us to get rid of the standing water, but everyone on our street is having problems with the city way over water on the hill behind our fence. It is causing us all to have standing water at the back of our yards. One family's yard was so bad they had to completely tear out all their newly landscaped yard and bring in a bunch of dirt to raise the entire yard. We only have a small amount at the back of our yard, but we're among the more fortunate.