Everyone posted their Halloween pics on the site so we all got to see them! It was fun! Our only little trick-or-treaters were Jem and Kaia. They were so cute! We missed any from the Randall family this year. Happy Halloween 2025! (We were right in the middle of trying to get everything in place for Anna Lou's funeral. I didn't go to school to do my regular Halloween stuff and it just kind of got lost in the shuffle.)
This week was full of Fall fun. At school we went to Staheli Family Farm for a fieldtrip. Despite some trepidations about some children's behaviors, it all went well and was lots of fun. Other fun was taking walks at the Desert Garden's Halloween Scarecrow walk. We went one morning and then again in the evening with our SA Ward for FHE. It was fun both times. Then on Friday we went up and took the Brookside to Baker Dam hike for our morning walk. It was so beautiful, like always, in it's Fall mode. This year, because of the fire upstream at Pine Valley and a recent flooding event, there was lots of dirty water coming down along with some debris which seemed to be causing lots of "Indian soap" in the water. There was so much of it, but it was all still so beautiful and a refreshing way to start our day in the cool, clear air. Happy Fall!
We've been kind of chilling and recovering from our quick Fall break trip and then immediate company and all the stress of Anna Lou's struggles. We just slept in on Friday and Saturday and hung out around the house doing home chores. We took a nice 4.5 mile hike around T-Bone Mesa on Saturday morning. The sand was still packed from the recent rains, so it was a good time to do it. There were lovely views to enjoy as well as the cool morning air and clear blue skies. Happy Day! That night BYU played and I actually watched and they even won! Paul made us very delicious steaks on the smoker and I made good baked potatoes and veggies. Relaxing day.
We talked and talked about things to do for Fall break, but just couldn't decide. We decided it would be a good thing to go and visit Janet and Tony. Janet has beginning stage Alzheimer's and we want to enjoy her wonderful self as long as possible. She really doesn't seem too bad...Tony was retelling the same story more often than she was! But, it was good to see them both. They are wonderful people and made us very welcome. It was a long drive and a short trip. We left Thursday morning and made it to Boise, ID, to spend the night. Then we had a pretty short drive (4 hrs.) to get to their house on Friday. Kriston, Rebecca and Katy came over that night to visit which was fun. Evan, a son, stopped by to pick up the cabin key so he could go up and hunt for deer there. Late that night a grandson, Ian came to spend the night and see his girlfriend the next day. Saturday we drove up to their cabin to see if Evan had gotten a deer. Ian came along. We did more visiting on the drive up. Evan was not able to get a deer. We left the cabin to head home about noonish. We wanted to drive over to see Hell's Canyon Overlook on our way home. The map showed it a little out of the way, but not too much. It ended up being a much longer mountainous, curvy, slow drive than expected. We finally got back to Boise at 11 pm that night with a stop for dinner along the way. But, it was a beautiful, if very long, drive. We nearly ran out of gas and were in the red zone for way too long before we got to a gas station along the way. It was rainy too. Sunday we drove home the way we had come on the back roads of NV. We once again ended up in the red zone and had about a quarter gallon of gas when we finally got to the only gas station in a very small town. I hope we learned a lesson about running on the top of the tank, instead of the bottom. We got home Sunday evening about 6 pm. Between this quick trip and our last quick trip with Bean and our not very great last campout, it seems like we haven't relaxed in quite a while.
Company was coming in on Monday - Ross, Lerlyn and James. After they got here Paul, Ross, James and Roy gave Anna Lou a blessing of release. She's been in the hanging on more gone than here zone for the last several weeks. It's very wearing on everyone. We hope she can get on her way soon and stop having to suffer along anymore. This is the second trip down that James and Sheryl have made thinking it was her time.
We wanted to enjoy the leaves up close, so we went camping up by Cedar Breaks. It got a little crazy when the electrical parts of our camper weren't in working order, but we got by and had a great dinner with the help of the propane stove. We had our lanterns to see by. We took a nice evening walk. It got cold and windy, so we were glad to be snug inside even without the heater being in working order. It wasn't the best night's sleep, but still, we were warm and out there. On the way down we drove up to Brian Head Peak to see the progress on the restoration of the CCC building up there. They are doing a great job and have all the stonework portion done. Sorry, no pictures. I didn't actually get out to see it up close because the winds up there on the peak must have been blowing about 50 miles per hour. Stuff was flying everywhere. On the way down the mountain the truck started having problems shifting and it was pretty slow going on the way home. We had to take the truck into the shop. So, despite lots of things not being in good working order, we did enjoy the leaves and a great dinner! Ended up having to get a new gas pump. Very expensive. Found out we had read the charged gauge wrong on the battery, and it was NOT charged as we thought it was.
When we asked Bean what he'd like for his birthday, he said he'd like to ride the train from Durango to Silverton. The official name is the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. We put it off for a little while to be able to enjoy the Fall leaves. We took that ride on Saturday, September 27th. We picked up Bean in Cedar and drove over to Aztec to stay with Ross and Lerlyn on Friday. Along the way we stopped in Green River for lunch at Arby's and then stopped in Durango for dinner at a BBQ place we like there. Then we headed down to spend the night with in Aztec. Ross and Lerlyn had decided they wanted to come along so we all got up and went to Durango to start the train ride at 9 am on the steam train. It was a beautiful ride with so much amazing scenery to enjoy along the way and the Fall leaves were definitely part of that beauty. We got there about 12:30 and went over to eat lunch and then hung out in Silverton enjoying the town scenery until it was time to leave at 2:45. We didn't ride the train back. We took a really nice bus instead which was a good thing. It got rainy on the way down and it would have been hard to enjoy the scenery from the train in that weather, and we took a different route on the road, so we saw different scenery. All of it was great! We spent Saturday night in Aztec and then got on our way Sunday morning. We were able to listen to the Sunday School podcasts pretty much all the way home, so that was our church for this day. We stopped in Page to eat our picnic lunch at a park and stopped at the Dam to use their bathrooms. We had quite a bit of rain on the way home which we were pretty happy to have. We enjoyed more beautiful leaves on the way home especially coming over Cedar Mountain. We dropped Bean off in Cedar and then drove the rest of the way home. It was a great, quick trip! Happy Birthday Bean! We love you! Happy #37!
The morning started with the rodeo parade. We got to see lots of fun things and also Zade and Trigg marching with their school band! We had fun watching it with Beacher and the kids and her mom and brother. Pretty fun! The kids gathered up LOTS of candy!
Next we went mini golfing with Bean at Fiesta Fun. It was lots of fun...and amazingly I won and even got one hole in one! After that we went to see new stores at a new shopping mall and ended up trying J. Dawg's for lunch and Duck Donuts for dessert. Both really tasty. Then we headed home for a nap and then I took Bean home to Cedar. We went via some leaf looking up on Cedar Mountain! It was so beautiful up there! It turned out to be a really nice day.
Just these two have birthdays in September. We got together with Juge on the Saturday and enjoyed crepes at Park Place. She was getting ready for a backpacking outing with her family later that day, so we couldn't be long, but it was yummy! Happy Birthday Juge! We love you! The next Sunday we had a family dinner at Juge's and celebrated with Lou and a little more with Juge. Happy Birthday you two. We love you! Happy 50th Lou Anne!
The kids gave us a gift certificate for a helicopter ride for Christmas! We wanted to wait until the best time to use it. We thought about it earlier, but there were fires going and it was too smoky to see anything. Now seemed like a great time! It was really fun to see things from that vantage point. We did most of the tour over Canaan Mountain/Water Canyon area just outside of Zion. They cannot fly in the Zion Park footprint airspace. We saw the place where they used to do the mail drop over the cliff and also the notch where they dropped lumber down. We flew over Canaan Arch too. There were 7 of us (3 couples and one pilot) in the helicopter. It was pretty tight, but good. One girl got a little queasy with some of the turns, but I hadn't had any breakfast and that was probably a good thing. It ended up being about 30 minutes long - 55 miles. What an adventure!!! Thanks to everyone for such a fun adventure gift!
Afterwards, since we were up that way, we went to Zion and walked the Pa'rus trail. It was really crowded up there, but we finally found a parking spot. It was wonderful weather for it and so pretty. Then we drove to Cedar City and had lunch with Bean and drove up to see Yankee Meadow Reservoir. It's way low this year, very sad.
We had a nice weekly visit with Bean and enjoyed a beautiful car ride and lunch with him. We drove over Cedar Mountain and then on around and back through Zion. We stopped in at Mt. Carmel Junction and had lunch there at the Thunderbird restaurant. It was really good. Zion was grand as always and Cedar Mountain is beautiful as well. It was a nice afternoon with him after spending time with Juge earlier for her birthday.
