Friday, November 6, 2020

Halloween 2020

 Ben was a monkey for Halloween although I think he ended up looking more like a little brown mouse.

I had bought a little hat and planned on putting homemade ears on the sides thinking he might keep that on better than this headband with ears that I bought, but when I tried the hat on he immediately tried to take it off...so the headband it was :)

This was Friday for school...

You can barely see his tail below...

Josh dressed up in all black with a cape but I failed to get a good picture of him :(

Halloween was Saturday.
Abby spent the day in her room with a sore throat :(

I have become lazy in my old age and don't initiate pumpkin carving like I used to.  Matt asked to do it though so I conceded.
He worked hard on it and then Andy helped him finish it up.



I think it turned out pretty great!

A couple of Matt's friends asked if he could go around the neighborhood with them so he had to hurry and find a costume...of course he chose Andy's T-Rex from a couple of years ago.
Apparently it fogged up so badly that he could hardly see where he was going :)
I think a lot of people decided not to participate in trick or treating this year because of COVID.
I didn't have a problem with it so Josh handed out candy.  We only had about half the amount of trick or treaters that we normally do.
Matt said there were a lot of houses that didn't have lights on or just had signs that said something like "See you next year".
It was kind of weird...like this whole year has been :)

Andy took a great shot of their pumpkin all lit up!
(It rolled off the counter inside and got a split lip :)

Abby's 16!

This lovely young woman turned 16!
I can't believe it!
We went out back and had fun doing a selfie session...



This is my fave...

She decided on Olive Garden for dinner and an ice cream cake from Cold Stone.

Looking contemplative here...


Checking out her new earbuds...

Excited about some new books...

I regret that I didn't get more pictures...I don't know what I was thinking :(
But, birthday pictures aside, Abby is a fabulous girl!
She's super helpful and pretty responsible.
I'm so grateful for my daughter!
(I just don't know if I'm ready for her to date:)

October Odds and Ends


Abby and I went out for a treat before the Women's session of General Conference.
We tried out the Ice House Frozen Custard and really enjoyed it!

Some more friendly bouquets...

Jo and T came and stayed for a week and a half with us while they worked on Grandma O.'s house getting it ready to be T's art studio when they move here in the spring.
Ben loves Jo and T and when they come to visit.
He doesn't look very happy here because he was having a rough day but he enjoyed snuggling up to T.

They brought an escape room game for us to do together.
We'd done something similar with Andy's parents so the kids knew what to do.
It was a great way to spend an evening!


Abby went on a walk with them up the canyon and they brought back an array of leaves!  We arranged them for some pictures :)


This spring I felt like my flower beds were a bit sparse so I got on my favorite bulb website Colorblends and ordered 475 bulbs to beef up my beds.
They deliver them when it's time to plant so they showed up on my doorstep one day in October.
First, I felt like I had to tear out years worth of old, woody lavender, candy tuft and jupiter's beard to clean out the beds.  Those are some tough root systems to rip out!
After a day and a half of that, it was time for the fun stuff!


I love planting bulbs...tucking them in for the winter.
I put about half of them up front and the rest in back in our box beds for cutting.


T found an old chair at Grandma's that she wanted to keep and repaint.
Abby happily took on the task...



The kids also went over to the house to help paint on Saturday (Josh joined them that evening after work).
I am told they were very helpful...

...even though they did have a bit of fun while they were at it :)






Abby had a young women activity painting pumpkins...

Workout Buddies and So Much More

I posted before about the beautiful hike/bike ride with these ladies.  We workout with each other 3 times a week and have too much fun!  We also enjoy doing lunch together.
Not too long ago, one of them finished renovating a cabin up the canyon and invited us all for brunch after our workout.
It was so amazing and so beautifully done.  What a perfect retreat!
We had a blast!


Early in October one of them asked me to teach her how to make my caramel apples for her grandson's birthday party...so, we invited everyone of course!








It was fun teaching them the process!
One of them later made 80 for a stake event that she had coming up!

They're such a great bunch!




The next week three of us were able to go to Vintage Marker Days together.
What fun to shop around with friends who love similar things!