Thanksgiving 2018!

This year it was the whole group party!  We missed 10, added 2 and enjoyed a wonderful day.  We decided to try it at the church again and this time it worked really well.  We went to our YSA building and the gym has a big door you can close in the middle of the gym.  We used one side for eating and the other side worked well for basketball!  We ate, played board games, had a concert by the grand kids, plays by the grand kids and badminton for young and old!  We spent pretty much all day there.  Before when we got a church we had to share half of the day with another family and that was not nearly so successful.  Hopefully we can do it this way again when we have the whole gang coming!  

So thankful for all of this wonderful family we have.  The thing I'm most grateful for this year would probably have to be Bean's blessed recovery and rejoining of the family.  That is a glorious blessing that we will always be so grateful for.  He was so lost to us...and now he is back.  

Final Grand Edventure date of the year!

It was kind of a repeat.  Kai wasn't available for the original date so we reconvened the group minus Noah and went to a DSU men's basketball game!  We stopped off to buy plenty of candy on the way.  The boys had fun, but got a little antsy half way through and escaped to the hall for some wall ball.  They came back just in time for the DSU boys to make a fantastic comeback...almost!  After the game Kai tried for a shot to win a basketball and it was another almost win!  

Auri - our new "grand puppy"!

Supe and Beacher got the cutest little Brittany Spaniel - Auri.  Supe inivited us to go out on a walk with him and Auri and "cousin" Griff on a sunshine November day! 

There's a cougar in the rock behind us!  Look close to see it!  

Grand Edventure date - Piano Guys

Not sure this qualifies as and "edventure" but it was a fun (but very cold) evening with Tasia, Olyvia and Kennis.  They had to wait a long time for their date to come, but I think it was worth it to them!  We even got to be part of making a new video for the Piano Guys that night!  

Moccasin and Grand Canyon camp out...Brrr!

Got to stop by a job where Paul and Bean are building a fireplace for the Kaibab Paiute Tribe.  I love to see how a master can take what looks like a pile of rocks and turn it into something beautiful.  I also got to meet the little town of Moccasin which is nearby.  

We left from there to go camping out on the Kaibab close to Jacob's Lake and near the view points of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  It was beautiful but pretty cold!  Paul is also a master at camp cooking and the food was great!  

This was a fun new discovery!

Halloween 2018, Eliza # 6 and Ryan?

Paul, Bean and I did the YSA Stake party and then on Halloween night we went to a movie since no one comes to Trick-or-Treat at our house anymore because of the neighborhood trunk-or-treats.  I did Halloween with 84 kids at school and then on the way home I caught up with Moss Christie and Eliza to wish her a happy birthday in a building Moss was measuring for work!  You do what you can when life is crazy busy!  We also got Ryan's birthday in there somewhere!

Mom's funeral and graveside and Corona Del Mar

A lot of flying back and forth went on during October to visit, help with, have the funeral and then lay Mom to rest in California.  We also managed to visit with lots of family and even celebrate Jay's birthday during all of this time.

Aunt Georgia's family put on a lovely luncheon after the graveside in California.  I didn't get many pics at the lunch.  It was so good to see Denny and Gordon's families at both of these places.  We don't see them much, but they are wonderful people.  Mom had a way in life of keeping everyone connected and funerals have a way of doing it after people are gone.  

Paul and I arrived several hours earlier than Janet and Marilynne for the graveside and took the time to go to Corona Del Mar - the beach of my youth and our first date.  It was such a nice chance to just relax amid all of the happenings.  And after it was all over we went to get Paul a new phone (he dropped his in a tide pool at the beach) and then visited the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.  

Paul was trying to take a picture of this little fish when he got his phone in the water at the beach.