Happy Halloween

The girls had a great time getting dressed up for Halloween this year.  Ashling played a pirate, Annika was Belle and Ali ended up choosing to be Black widow from the Avengers.  

 A branch picture of the Youth from the Running Springs Branch with Ali in the front

We had a Chili cook off and Cameron volunteered to bring chili.  He was out of town and I nearly forgot and didn't have time to make it to the store.  Instead I threw together a bunch of ingredients including black and kidney beans, pork roast left over from dinner, tomatoes and lots of thrown in spices for good luck.  I just wanted to have something to bring.  I ended up winning the chili cook off...

Last day of our trip

I took the kids to the space museum in salt lake on Friday.  We enjoyed looking at all the exhibits.  Then later Cameron picked us up and we drove all the way home that night so the kids could attend their nutcracker practices in the morning.  

The Children's Museum

We met the Sampsons at the Children's museum in Salt Lake.  Ina and I had fun chatting while the kids ran around and enjoyed all the exhibits.  It is a great place but I was too busy chatting to take any pictures except for this one of Annika because she asked me to.

Later after we played all day we went back to the hotel and talked for a while before Ina left and Cameron and I got ready to go out with Natalie and Carrie (who was also in town.)  We enjoyed a great dinner and then spent the evening talking.  I am grateful for the great friends I had in high school that I can still enjoy today.   They were such great friends and they still are...

Day in Salt Lake City

Cameron was busy at a meeting and the kids and I decided to spend the day looking at Church sites.  We visited the Church history museum and enjoyed dancing in the kids part the most and Annika liked dancing to the piano music someone was playing.

Next we got a tour of the conference center.  

 We went and looked at the temple...

 we went to the top of the church office building and then ate lunch at chick fil A in the mall.

Horse back riding lessons

Ali has been interested in horses since the summer when two horses ended up residing on the same street as us... Quite often she would go with a friend and see the horses.  I thought they were petting them and maybe occasionally brushing them or feeding them but I found out they had on a couple occasions attempted to ride them bare back.   Nothing had happened to them in the process but I insisted that they should not do this ever again and promised we could try horseback riding lessons sometime.  We decided while on a work trip with Cameron to Utah that it would be a good time.  Melissa decided it would be fun to bring Ellie too.  

Here they are meeting the horse to ride.

Girls in cowboy boots!

 Ashling was the only one who got to ride without a rope.  

 What Carter and Annika did while the older girls rode horses.  

October trip to Utah

Cameron had a training in Salt Lake City that he had to attend and we all decided to tag along with him.  Here we are in the car... driving.  We spent the first night in Filmore... we wanted to stay in Cedar City or Beaver but since the St. George Marathon was that weekend it was impossible to stay any closer to St. George than Filmore.  We woke up at the hotel and hurried over to the indoor heated pool.  The girls enjoyed swimming for about a half hour before we made them hurry up and get ready to go.

Our first stop was the Nebo scenic loop.  We enjoyed listening to conference as we were driving there.    We loved that drive and it was a perfect day with fresh snow everywhere.

After driving on the loop we tried to take a short hike.  It was very muddy and the hike didn't work out so well.  We drove to Lehi and met with Jeff and Mandie to have lunch.  It was fun to see the kids enjoy each other again.  

After that we went to see Wade and Melissa's new house!  It is a cute house in a cute neighborhood.  The girls spent the evening together and the guys headed to the Priesthood session at the Conference Center.  

The next day we all watched the first session of conference together.  

After conference we had to say goodbye to Grandma Sue and Papa who were leaving.  Grandma had to take more pictures... they sure ended up cute!

 We also played a little soccer in their front yard to stretch out.  

After they left we decided to drive the Alpine loop and look at more fall colors.  

We enjoyed another muddy hike and a small snow ball fight... 

Monday the girls and I went shopping in Park City while Cameron had a meeting.  We then went on walk with a bunch of scarecrows in Park City.  

We then met Wade and Melissa at a pumpkin patch.  The kids had fun ... getting really really dirty on a slide, did a trick or treat hay ride and pet a million animals.  It was fun.