The Rest of October

These pictures aren't in order because I added them at separate times, but the memories are good, if somewhat scattered. We got to hang out with Grandpa Bowen one morning in Utah. It was fun to just hang out and be together. We'd love to be with him more often.

We went shoe shopping at the outlets when we met Dwight.

One of the most wonderful highlights of our trip. . . this place is a land of dreams. We took Chris and the whole Sheide adult clan, minus Peanut, the day after Tanner and Ashley got married. And they actually came with us! We were shocked.

This is the only picture we took from going to the BYU Spectacular, a really wonderful concert at BYU as part of their Homecoming week. We had planned on going with Matt and Jessica's family, Trish's family, and our kids, but we ended up bringing Chris and Lucy, and we didn't have enough time to eat with Trish and Jessica's families. Time just got crunched and we were sorry to miss out on the fun of being together. The concert really was incredible, and it was a blast to bring Chris.

Wallsburg did not disappoint! We went there the next day and a lot of beautiful fish were reeled in. Troy caught a monster, and this one isn't too shabby, either. I love Wallsburg.

A week after our trip was the Utah Fall break, so Peanut and Mom drove up to play with us in Washington with all Peanut's kids! It was so wonderful.  The timing was also cool because Peanut brought her kids to see Jenny and her new wife, and their cousin Holiday, and get to sightsee in Seattle a bit. This is our cute little 2-year-olds all dressed up for a Halloween dance that night.

At some point in October, Doug had a meeting with the administrators and DNS's and they made some delicious food with chefs. He had a blast and has told me he is excited to teach me how to make amazing chicken parmesan. I am in! That's one of my favorite dishes.

Here are our wonderful jack-o-lanterns the night before Halloween. The kids and Doug are so talented.

Isaac's. Amazing.

Lucy and Brook's. I never made anything that good as a kid.

At the ward Halloween party. Unfortunately (in my opinion) we had our party on Halloween night, which meant we couldn't be part of our neighborhood trick-or-treating. Here is the second year of Spiderman.

And our Blue Man Girl. If anyone asked, she was a shark. I wish we could have found a shark mask, but she looked really cool. It was hard to get that paint off!

He decided to be Black Panther for the evening, though he had been a ninja almost daily leading up to the big event.

This is a very typical look for the sink space in our house. I can never stay ahead of the dishes for very long.

We brought hand-me-downs for Valley when we went to the wedding. Totally forgot to give our other bags for Fisher and Cabell to Peanut when she visited us the next week!

We didn't think Doug could go with us on the trip, but he called me at 10:30 on Tuesday morning when the kids were loaded in the car and we were ready to go to say surveyors had left the building and he could go with us to Utah! It was such a wonderful surprise. I got to take this picture from the passenger side, which I infinitely prefer.

Cuties on the way to the temple. Good thing Lucy's wearing shorts in that picture.

Doug took great pictures from the wedding day, but here's one from the really beautiful ring ceremony.

The kids got to take polaroids and loved it! Lucy got the garter, which she wore like a headband.

Here they were on the way back home. The videos don't work well because our power outlets don't work in the car right now. I need to fix that.

Right away, I had to start making our Christmas cards because Breezy found a 50% off sale.

We borrowed cute Halloween costumes from the neighbors.

Cason liked soccer but definitely didn't get the idea of defense. He did score one goal thanks to a cherry-picking opportunity.

Peanut and Mom came for Fall break and we had a wonderful time. This was on Isaac's birthday, which fell on a Sunday.

This one is fine, but. . .

I love this picture so much!

I had to take a picture of the kids doing homework at the homework table. They don't usually do it together.

Here are my preschool efforts. I didn't do a great job on the elephant's mouth.

Lucy had the boys pose with her enormous bunny, Mr. Buns.

Our beautiful path.

We had Winter and Serenity over a few times and my kids love them!

Pumpkin carving the night before Halloween

Corban and I did a great job decorating our pumpkin without knives--even better, the decorations were easy to peel away, so now we have pumpkins standing as sentinels by our front door.

Isaac carved out an amazing Godzilla. Only Isaac could make a toy from the carvings on his pumpkin.

The might Thor was headed to his facility.

I took Cason, Corban, Chad, and Roman to the Children's Museum on Halloween. So fun.

This is from our fridge. Cheyanne got married on Saturday, and Lucy is just as beautiful in her soccer photo.

She is also really good at looking like a zombie.

Brooklyn's face was painted blue, so she looked like someone from the Blue Man group. I called her Blue Girl.

We have made some great memories this year. I am anxious as we decide where our family will go from here. If we are going to warmth, family, sunshine, and great work conditions, I can leave with hope. If we're settling in a few of those areas, it will be harder to be hopeful, but I'll do my best. We'll keep making memories. The kids want to go to Seattle, and I'd love to take them to the redwood forest, too. A lot of California is on fire right now. So sad.