October 2023

October 3 - Can you find Penny or Hallie? Penny loves to army crawl under the table, we say she puts herself in baby jail. Hallie loves to play at the McDonald's play place.

October 4 - Shauna and I decorated our parents door for a Halloween Door Decorating contest at Parkwood Meadows. We sure do appreciate Nikelle for using her Ciricut to cut out the lettering and the bats!  I'm so glad Shauna was still here so I could help her!

I got to take cute little Declan shopping and to eat at Texas Roadhouse.  He chose a Lincoln Log set and ate really good at Roadhouse. He wasn't sure about riding the saddle, but did it.  He loved the brownie! He turned 6 on the 7th! Love you Declan!

Beautiful sunset!

October 5 - We took Ryder and Hallie to Goshen to get some spuds from Uncle Bart! This is the last year he will grow potatoes!

We went over to Aunt Merralee's house to go down the slide and see if we could see some of her 21 cats.  They found about 14 of them! They had a great time "playing with the cats". 

October 7 - I got to go to the Pocatello Temple! I love this picture with the sun behind the temple.  

Jared and Blake were winterizing the boat, so they had a little picnic in the boat!

October 8 - We celebrated Aubrey's birthday (which was on the 5th) She isn't fond of pictures, so the kids all took their turns blowing out the candles.

October 9 - Hallie loves to choose her own clothes! She was "helping" mow the lawn, so she thought she needed to wear some boots, these just happen to be Molly's boots.

October 10 - Beautiful phases of the sunrise from different parts of the eastern sky!

We had a Chile Cookoff and ward party.  There were some fun games for the kids.  Molly loved making Tawnie into a mummy with toilet paper.

October 11 - Maden was inducted into the Jr. High Honor Society where he is serving as Treasurer.  We were able to go to the induction ceremony.  We're very proud of you Maden! Everyone thought it was funny that the ceremony was held in the same auditorium that Blake graduated high school 50 years ago.

October 12 - Hallie wanted two ponytails and clips in her hair, then of course, asked me to take a picture.  Penny was so proud of herself because she had pulled up to stand in the pack and play..

October 13 - Cindy and Ken had these beautiful flowers sent to me for my birthday! I love them, Thank you!

October 14 - Another gorgeous sunrise! Blake and I went to Olive Garden to celebrate my birthday! We went to meet Randy, Courtney and Ryder's new dog.  Her name is Happy and she has brought a lot of happiness to their family.

October 15 - My 65th birthday! The flowers have opened up some more and are so beautiful!

Brian and Aubrey were so kind to have dinner and yummy cakes for me.  Maden put the candles in so they formed a 6 and a 5. 

After dinner, we played a fun game of catch phrase.  Even Paris decided she like me and came and sat by me.

It seems that I celebrated all day long.  Michelle was kind enough to have me come over for a birthday brownie and games.  Jared and Nikelle came and my nephew Adam and his wife Laura were there from South Carolina.  Thank you everyone!

October 16 - I had to take some more pictures of these beautiful flowers!

October 17 - Miss Penny found another jail to put herself in.  Hallie went over to play with some neighbor girls, they decided to go across a barbed wire fence, Hallie had a little mishap with her pants.  She wore one of my shirts while I fixed her pants.

October 18 - Blake and I flew to Knoxville, TN and then drove ro Gatlinburg so he could attend a medical conference.  This is in the hot tub and swimming pool at our hotel.

October 19 - This is our hotel.  We stayed on the 15th or top floor.  I think we were just about a week too early for the fall colors to be at their best.  The top pictures are taken from the lobby of the hotel and from the railing on the 15th floor! It was quite impressive.  My sisters Suzanne and Tricia came to spend a couple of days.  They were only on the 4th floor.  If you look close, you can see Tricia way down in the lobby, and Blake and Suzanne and I way up on the 15th floor.

After Blake's meetings ended for the day, we went down the crazy hill from our hotel to eat at Bubba Gump's.  It was a fun meal.

We went to a place called Ober Mountain.  We rode a tram up the hill to a little ski hill.  They make snow, so there is really skiing in the winter.  We rode a ski lift to the top of the mountain.  The highlight of it all was watching some Amish on the ski lift and going down the alpine slide, they were having the time of their lives. You can see that the elevation is not really very high.  Suzanne got "lost" in the straw maze! In the bottom left picture, you can see our hotel on top of another hill.

October 20 - Suzanne and Tricia and Il took advantage of every photo op in the hotel and a little mall we went to. We took a trolly into town and walked around the Main Street and bought some souvenirs. As you can see, bears are a real thing there.  They warned us at the hotel not leave any food in your car, cause the bears will do whatever they can to get to the food.

I know this is silly, but after Blake's meetings, we dicided to go to the next town over to eat.  There were so many people in Gatlenburg for a number of reasons, like a fall festival, fall break from schools, a soccer tournament and craftsmen fair.  It took us about 1 hour to go 7 miles to Pigeon Forge because of backed up traffic.  We ended up eating at Texas Roadhouse! We found a different route on the way back and it only took about 30 minutes! It was so fun being with Tricia and Suzanne just having fun! Each evening, we played games and visited and laughed! Sisters are the best!

October 21 - Blake and I braved the traffic again to go eat.  This is how the traffic was the whole way!

October 22 - I took these pictures from our balcony before we left to go back to Knoxville to fly home. You can see there is a bit more color in the trees.  I'll bet the next week was amazing.  Oh, well.

October 24 - Another unbelievable sunrise!

I took some pictures of our roses and hydrangeas before the predicted frost hit us.  They were gorgeous!

October 26 - Randy and Happy came to visit.  Penny loves Happy! Hallie thought it was funny to put the spider she made at preschool on Happy.

This little Penny girl is always on the move, she had to check out the draw handles and the night light and pull Hallie's hair from the saucer.

And, yes this also happened! We're not ready for it!

October 28 - I took Ryder, Molly and Hallie to the Snake River Carnival.  They had a great time with the fun little games, and got quite a bit of candy and surprises.

I love all the current pictures of the grandkids! Our neighborhood did a Halloween Parade around the block.  Penny and I waited for Molly and Hallie to come back.  It was cold! Molly and Hallie were watching a show, and Penny was showing off her skills of standing up.  When I took the girls home, this was the moon shining through the trees, it was so bright!

October 29 - Celebrating Annie! She loves a donut cake! She got some fun gifts.  She will turn 11 on the 30th!

A beautiful sunset on our way home from Annie's party!

October 30 - I got to take Annie to lunch at Chick Fil A! And we went shopping at Target.  She chose to get supplies for doing her hair. She's growing up so fast! We did the traditional Reed's Dairy to vote on the decorated pumpkins.  I can't believe you are 11 and almost as tall as me!  We love you, Annie.

October 31 - Everyone looked so good in their costumes!

The kids always love the "Trunk or Treat" at Groveland Elementary.  It's such a safe, quick way to go trick or treating.