October 2023

We met up with Miki and Becky at Becky's mom's place to pick apples, eat soup, and chat. It was so fun to catch up with them and spend time with Becky's kiddos, and I loved the spooky lanterns.

Cole and his homies went for a T-dub ride in the fall leaves.

We made eyeball cupcakes to kick off spooky season.

We visited Grandma's grave for her birthday.

Caulder made delicious lembas bread.

Rand graduated from speech therapy. 🥳

We went for a beautiful bike ride in the fall leaves.

Cole made Rand an amazing zombie costume for the fall dance festival.

Rand picked out a horrifying Halloween costume. 

Daisy and Grandpa were adorable.

Tukk was adorable.

And we did another bike ride in Kamas with an attempt to get the best hamburger in Utah, again, but were disappointed... again. Apparently the restaurant closes down every year at the same time, and we've hit that week two years in a row! We're coming for you next year, hamburger...

 

Halloween 2023

Halloween started off with Rander's class party. We went as Bellatrix and guy who decided to dress up 10 minutes before the party started so we did the best we could.

Rand is still young enough that he loves having us show up for parties. 1/3 of our children still think we're cool! He was super excited to see us, and we had a blast playing games with his class and spoiling them with donuts.

This is Rand and his two best friends, Cooper (Michael Myers) and Jesse.

That night we took him trick or treating. He wanted to walk around at first, and I figured we'd be out for 30 minutes or so before we called Cole for backup to take us in the side by side. After 90 minutes and 2 miles Cole called to make sure we were still alive!

Rand loved walking around the neighborhood and got so much candy his bag broke. We had Cole come pick us up with a new bag and hit a few more houses in the Ranger. He ended up with SO. MUCH. CANDY. 

Caulder had to work, and Tukk went to a party with some friends, so no pics of the teenagers. But at least Rand will still hang out with us. Like Meatloaf (kinda) said, 1 out of 3 ain't bad.

 

Punkin Carving

We did our annual pumpkin carving in The Babe's shop this year. The boys LOVE using the power tools to carve. And by the boys I mostly mean Cole and The Babe.

I am very impressed with the way everyone's jack-o-lanterns turned out. I love this time of year!

 

Spooky Night at the Museum

We took Rand to spooky night at the Chieftain museum. Cole's family puts it together, and they do such a good job!

They have the cutest, spooky decorations, a Harry Potter room, digging for dinosaur bones – all sorts of fun Halloween stuff! Our favorite was the googly eyes on the old portraits of Santaquin founders, though. 

 

Hunting Success!

 Tukk's hunting tag let him hunt the rifle hunt, too, and we were able to get back up to the Bog for 1 more day of hunting. We headed out in the side by side and drove for maybe 10 minutes when we spotted a 2 point and Tukk said he wanted to go for it.

He and Cole hopped out and Tukk got sighted in. We heard the shot and the buck dropped!

It was super close to the road, easy to load up in the side by side, and Tukk had his first lovely experience of helping gut and skin a deer. 

We even had time for Rand to do some fishing. It's a good day when you're able to bag a deer and catch a fish by 8:30 in the morning!

Back 40 Adventures

We spent a day exploring the Back 40 at the Red Barn. Wagon rides, a petting zoo, a corn maze, some big trampoline inflatable things, a hay tower to climb, zip lines, and of course the highlight: donuts and ice cream.

 

Total Eclipse of the Heart

There was a solar eclipse in October, and it nearly reached 100% in our area. Kathy and Farrel brought us glasses, and we were able to watch it right through the living room windows. Everything outside got dark when it was at (nearly) 100%. It was so cool!