October Happenings

Time to wrap October up in one post.  It was a pretty great month really.  Getting into the swing of things with school.  Enjoying the beautiful fall weather.  And a fun trip thrown into the mix.  Oh yeah, don't forget Halloween. 

The great elk hunt happened in October.  Not sure if I mentioned before that Jake and Zack both drew out for the limited entry bull elk hunt.  This was exciting news.  But also stressful.  And kind of not great timing.  This is Zack's first hunt ever and Jake's first real hunt in a long time.  So I kind of wish they'd drawn for such a good tag a couple of years from now.  But oh well.  They spent lots of time scouting, putting trail cameras out, scouting, etc.  Lots of not fun stuff.  And then the actual hunt came.  And they did lots and lots of walking.  And more walking.  And didn't see any elk.  Not one.  So that's a bummer.  According to Jake elk are an endangered species.  We try not to mention elk these days.  Kind of a touchy subject;)  And I still don't understand why people like hunting.

October was also the month of Operation Save the Chickens.  Raccoons discovered our chickens.  Horrible raccoons.  Before we could blink we were down from 8 chickens to 3.  Sad!  So we got serious and began operation save the chickens.  We fixed holes under the fence, tightened the fence, and put a pallet in front of the coop door.  Now every night the chickens have to go in the coop.  Zack forgot to put them in one night and we lost another one.  Jake reminds him every day how guilty he should feel.  So now we have chickens that have to be let in and out of the coop every night.  Super convenient.  Darn raccoons!  I'm trying to get Zack to invent something that will somehow fix this problem.  He's on it.

We also had the annual witchy poo party.  Grandma and Grandpa always pull out all the stops and the kids love it.  Fun games, lots of treats and yummy food, and of course the witches brew.  Which even Sage said was too sweet to drink, so we're talking intense sweetness here.  In other words, perfect for Halloween.

And then there was actual Halloween.  Sage was Mal from Descendants (all the rage these days) and Kate was a pirate.  Zack was deemed too old to trick-or-treat so he handed out candy dressed as Zack.  I took the girls trick-or-treating with some friends and these friends don't mess around.  We went to way more houses than we ever have.  The girls were exhausted by the end.  And then Halloween is over and we have piles of candy and I think, "Why?"  Glad my kids like it, but if we had to get rid of a holiday I would choose Halloween.  Bah humbug!

Sage with her BFF

We went and saw Thriller with some friends

Operation Save the Chickens

Zack's awesome pumpkin

Witchy-poo party

Purple hair

Costume parade.  Sage was freezing but of course wouldn't cover up her costume with a jacket

Trick-or-treating friends

Fabulous 40!

I'm 40 years old.  This is old.  There's no pretending you're young when you hit 40.  I have less than half of my life left (I hope to live no older than 75).  You spend a lot of the first half of your life growing up, figuring things out.  Now I feel like I get to apply the things I've learned, and keep learning of course.  By the way, when my mom was 40 I was 18 and in college.  Craziness.  I definitely don't have an 18 year old.  I did figure out that by the time I turn 50 all of my kids will be graduated from high school.  Big happenings coming up!  I've got to be on my game this decade!;)

Anyway, I had the best birthday ever.  We celebrated a couple of days early with the kids because they were heading to St George with Grandma Tracy.  Sage made a big sign to hang up and bought me some chocolate truffles.  Kate made me a cute card and Zack gave me oragami hearts and flowers.  Loved it all!

For my birthday I was selfish and planned a trip to San Diego with Jake.  I figured turning 40 was a good excuse to plan a fun trip.  Jake was a good sport and went along with it.  We had a great time!  Turns out we still like each other after all these years.  It was good to get away with just the two of us.  Jake let me decide what we did every step of the way.  We went running along the bay, swam in the pool, at dinner at the best mexican restaurant ever, went on a boat ride in the harbor, toured the USS Midway (amazing), went to the zoo, went to a cool museum with a video game exhibit where we got to play Pac Man, Space Invaders, and Donkey Kong, ate at the place where they filmed all the bar scenes in Top Gun (Jake didn't understand my excitement over all the Top Gun pictures everywhere - it was awesome - except the food was gross), went to Old Town (super cool), went to the beach, and walked around the Gas Lamp District.  Longest sentence ever.  Anyway, it was all wonderful.  The perfect amount of go and do mixed with some relaxing.  Obviously we like to go and do a little more than relax;)

The poster Sage made me for my birthday

Happy Birthday!

Best mexican food ever

USS Midway

See the lady behind Jake?  They were so annoying and kept getting in our faces while they took 10 million pictures

San Diego

San Diego Zoo

Jake was loving life

The actual piano from Top Gun

I was in heaven

Old Town 

All decorated for Dia de los Muertos

Gas Lamp District (a million restaurants and bars all in one place)

What the kids did while we were gone (bless Greg and Tracy)

Nine Mile Canyon

While the boys were off hunting the girls and I got to go explore Nine Mile Canyon, just outside of Duchesne.  We went with Greg and Tracy and Laura and her boys.  We got to spend quality time together all in one car.  Well, Greg may have ditched us for a while in another car.  Can't imagine why;)

We got to go with a bunch of Tracy's friends, one of whom is an expert on the canyon and everything you can see.  There were all kinds of cool petroglyphs.  Even one of santa and his reindeer (for realls I'm not lying).  We made lots of stops to see cool things, enjoyed beautiful scenery, and made a couple of scrambles up some hills to see more rock art.  We had a great time, but I think its safe to say that we were all exhausted by the end of the day:)

One of the mountain scrambles.  Greg even made it up with his bad knee!

Sage's rock bed

Rock art!

Sage really likes to pose for pictures

This one is called the tree of life.  There's a tree and what I would call an iron rod that people are holding onto.  Cool!

Another mountain scramble