It's been kind of a crazy but wonderful month so I've gotten a little behind. 

We started out the month with a trip to Arizona for Olivia's baptism.  Isn't she just beautiful?  I can't even believe that she is eight.  The time is flying by so quickly and the grand kids are growing and changing.  Anyway, I just couldn't be any prouder of this sweet little gal.  She is sweet, kind, gentle, helpful, thoughtful, funny, and smart.  She is always thinking of others and likes to do nice things for you like make you a little present or draw you a picture or write you a sweet note.  She has brought so much love and joy to our family!

 We tried to get a family picture after the baptism....Emily and Sam weren't having it.  Sam just wanted to get out of his church clothes and Emily was ready for a nap. 

 We had everyone over for lunch after and had a real nice afternoon.

 Sure do love these moments when we are all together.  Love these kids more than words can say.

 We got Olivia a set of her own scriptures with her name on them and a cute bag to carry them in.  She was so sweet and grateful to everyone.

 Kate had gone to Arizona a week earlier and was helping Camille out while Kellen was out of town.  They got real crafty and made these cute vases out of mason jars.  We went and picked out some flowers and put together some arrangements for the party.  They turned out really cute. 

Sam is doing much better.  I think he is getting over this tantrum phase and was just fun to be around.  He really is just the cutest little guy.  He's funny and so incredibly smart.  He thinks about things a lot and really has a tender loving heart.

 This was on the way down to Arizona.  Being with these two is always a good time.

 Camille is such a cute mommy.  She is so fun with the kids and really plays with them. Sometimes I just think my heart is going to bust with love watching them .

 Camille wanted some new shelves for the living room so Kelley and Katie just busted these out.

 Olivia and I went on a bike ride one afternoon and stopped off at the park so she could climb on the goal posts.  I guess they are working on seeing how high you can get up the pole at school.  She's pretty strong and could sure go a lot higher than I could!

 We went to the Nordstrom Rack shopping one day and Emily really got excited in the jewelery department. She was so funny and just totally thrilled over all the sparklies!   She just kept saying ooooooooooo! She is the best little bug...You'd think when it was time to go and we had to put the jewelery back she would have had a fit, but she just waved bye bye to it. Seriously the most pleasant little soul.

 

 On Sunday, we went to see Ali's baby be blessed.  Garret did a good job. They are such cute new parents.  We went over to their house after for lunch and I gave her the stitichery picture I had made for Eliza.  It turned out pretty cute...Kelley made a beautiful frame to finish it off.  I wish I had gotten a picture of it...it was the one ... "it's not a slight thing when those who are so fresh from God love us" with her name and birthday on it.

 Sam and grampa had fun wrestling and playing.  We were having such a good time, we didn't want to leave, so we stayed a few extra days.  The weather in Arizona is pretty much perfect right now, so that was a nice break from the cold in Utah.  We left Thursday morning from a balmy 78 degrees and slowly watched the temperature drop to 34 by the time we got home.  That doesn't help at all when I'm already so bummed about leaving Camille and her family.  We have had a real cold couple of weeks since we got home.  Not really normal for November...it has felt more like January. 

I sure had a wonderful week down there though, and I'm grateful that we could spend that time together.  I've got some great memories that will keep my heart warm...

Well here it is, the summer is over.  It's time to pull up all the plants in the garden and get ready for chilly temperatures.  That's kind of a problem though when the garden is still going strong and giving us lovely basil, tomatos, peppers and kale.  But we knew there were going to be freezing temperatures this week so we picked everything we could, then Kelley cleaned out the garden.

 

Candice treated us to many batches of wonderful pesto from this Basil plant.

 

 

This cherry tomato plant was pretty amazing this year.  It was just loaded with tomatos and they were just like candy to munch on.

We also had enough tomatos to do another big batch of this wonderful sweet pepper relish.  I found this recipe online...Harry and Davids Sweet pepper relish... and it's really just yummy.  I want to eat it on everything.

 We did carrots and potatos this year which has been really neat (some of the carrots were pretty mutated cause I planted them too close together and didn't thin them Ha! They still tasted good!) It was nice to just be able to go out to the garden and get some potatoes for Sunday dinner!  So what we haven't eaten, we left in the ground and we will get them out in the next little while.

 My hanging baskets are still just blooming like crazy too so I'm just going to leave them up till we get a hard frost.  Then I think I'll try to bring them into the garage ...they are just to pretty to let go!

Gosh I sure do hate to see the summer end.  I don't know why, but this year it seems like everything has just been extra beautiful this year.  Not just in the garden and in the flowers, but in the sunrises and sunsets...our amazing mountains and lakes. the plains of Nebraska and Kansas that I have never seen before were so beautiful with their neat rows of corn that went on forever... the warm beach weather with an abundance of beautiful shells and birds, and the fall leaves were nothing short of spectacular this year.  It just fills my heart to the brim with gratitude for this amazing world that we live in.  We are very blessed.

We went over to check on the bees and get them ready to bring them home.  It's been a rough time for the bees this last month. 

On conference weekend, Kelley went over to the farm to check on them and found that a swarm had come in and taken all the honey.  I didn't even know they would do that!  Some of the hives were weak, so I guess that opens the door for other bees to move in.  It was the craziest thing...Kelley picked up a hive that still had some honey in it and brought it home so the bees couldn't steal this honey too.  He pulled up in the driveway and came in to watch the next session of conference.  When we looked out at it after that session was over, it was covered with bees.  I guess the same bees had followed him home and were after that hive too.  Kelley got the hose and started squirting them, then they flew into the back yard and were getting after the top bar hive we have back there!  Kelley sprayed them but it didn't deter them much.  It was awful to watch...the bees in our hive were trying to protect their hive and the other bees were attacking them.  They would get on each other and fight in the air.  There were dead bees all over the ground. 

This adventure with the bees has really been a learning experience.  We are finding out new things all the time about what bees do.  They seriously amaze me every time I see them... It's not always pretty though.  We had wax moths get into some of the weaker hives too and killed them off.  I think the saddest discovery we made though was when we checked the hives in early spring and found several hives had starved to death.  We were so sad. We didn't know how much they needed to be fed over the winter to keep them alive.  We know now and will keep them fed well through the winter.

Anyway, when we looked at the hives today,  they seemed healthy and strong.

Kelley and KC loaded them onto pallets, then we went home.  Kelley and KC went back after the sun went down and the bees had gone back into the hives and loaded them onto the truck and brought them home.  We will keep them here for the winter where we can keep a better eye on them.

 There were a few funky formations in some of the hives...not sure what that is?



Thursday after we got home from fishing, Candice came over to make her costume for work.  They have a big costume contest every year and she has been the winner the past several years, so the pressure was on to come up with something unique and awesome. She had seen a picture of a costume someone had made that was a paint brush and thought that would be something to try.  So she got the supplies she needed (everything but the bristles for the top because I had asked Kelley and he said he had some old brooms in the garage we could take apart and use.)  It was a little bit challenging glueing the bristles on, but Katie, Kelley and I would gather up bunches of them, then KC and Candice glued them on and it looked pretty good! 

 It didn't stay on her head very well so we made a nice chin strap. We all got the giggles when she put it on. Nothing I like better than listening to the kids all laughing together.

 She made a painting pallet too that turned out really good!

 I was totally surprised when Candice text us yesterday and said a girl dressed up as "sharknado" had won.  Oh well,  we had some good laughs  putting it together anyway

 I decided to get a head start on the popcorn balls so I wouldn't have to be doing them all day on Halloween so I started popping corn.  I got about 6 big tupperward bowls filled, then started on the caramel.  Kate jumped in to help and would bag them up as soon as they were cool enough.  That sure made things move along a lot faster and I was grateful for her help! 

 We powered through and got them all done that night...160 popcorn balls.  It was sure a lot more fun with Katie helping me.  I have enjoyed having her here with us so much!

 Kelley, Dan and I went up for one last day of fishing.  There was supposed to be a big change coming in the weather so we wanted to get one more decent day of fishing in.  (Also, it was the 29th of October and they were supposed to have the boat off the lake by the 30th  Ha ha these guys push it to the limit!  When we got up there, all the docks but one were taken out and there were only a handfull of boats there. Dan called the marina while we were up there just to see what they would do if he left the boat there any longer...conversation went like this:  Dan:  So if someone(certainly not me) were to leave their boat longer than Monday, what would happen to it?)  Guy at marina:  We would tie it to a rock!  Ha!) We have really been lucky to have such a beautiful October.  The days have been warm...in the 70's and not any big storms, so we sure can't complain.

 When we got up there, it was cool but pleasant in the sun.  The water was so calm, it was really beautiful up there.

 We went to the favorite spots but were not even getting a nibble.  Seriously nothing!  So we kept moving around, trying different places, but with no luck at all!  We were about ready to give up and headed over to east portal as a last resort.   I got a bite right away and reeled in this beauty!  We decided to keep it to give it to Judy.  Kelley caught a couple and I caught another one too.  We stayed for a while longer (Dan does not like getting skunked!) but the wind had picked up and it was pretty cold  (so grateful for that cabin to get out of the wind!)  Dan finally gave up and we headed back to shore.

 I hate to see this season end.  It's sure been a fun summer! 

We had a fun Young Women party the other night.  The girls all dressed up so cute and the leaders were pretty awesome too.

It was great to see a few girls that don't come out very often. 

We put together some cute treat bags for some of the widows and widowers in the ward and took them around to them.  My car load went to Judy's.  It was good to see her up and around after her knee surgery.  While we were there visiting with her, JoAnn came over.  She was the other one we were going to go visit so that worked out!  They are both such special ladies...dear friends forever.

After we came back to the church and played some games and had treats. 

I found out during the evening that Darilyn had been accepted to be in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  She hadn't said anything to us about trying out for it and probably wouldn't have mentioned it except that she has to be released from YW.  She has been such a blessing to the young women.  In the short amount of time she has been with us, she has had a great influence on them.  From the first week her and her husband came to church, she stood out of the crowd.  She speaks her mind and is smart and knowledgable of the gospel.  She has an amazing voice and has helped us with teaching the yw their new song "Come Unto Christ".   She even wrote in a lower part when some of the girls complained that it was too high. She is a lot of fun to be around and the girls all love her.  She will surely be missed by all of us...but I'm so happy for her! What an amazing experience for her to be able to be in the the MoTab Choir!