Halloween!

Last week we got our pumpkins.

Then we made our Halloween decorations.

Finally the big day arrived.

I knew it was Halloween because Stan pulled out his disguise. At least I think it's Stan. Hard to say with that complete transformation.

 It's got to be Halloween since Princess Makayla and Vampire Hailey stopped in.

 Except that Makayla indignantly insists she's Rock Star Makayla.

I bought this nifty pumpkin-shaped pizza at Papa Murphy's

 and made my world famous Witch's Brew

and then spent the rest of dinner encouraging these two not to touch the dry ice. Hmmm. I could never get my own kids to leave the dry ice alone. I wonder if it's genetic?

It was a nice night, maybe 50 degrees when we started out.

Amy and I had a lot of fun watching these two run from house to house, Hailey telling the owner, "I like your Halloween decorations!" and Makayla adding, "I like your house decorate!"

Finally it was time to come back home and check out the haul.

and warm up by drinking hot cocoa while trying to stay awake.

I hope your Halloween was as fun as ours!

Happy Birthday Amy!

I don't want to remind Amy how old she turned today, but just between you and me, she's somewhere in the area betwixt 27 and 29. 

Picture by Hailey

 In a stunning turn of events, Hailey and Makayla have today and tomorrow off of school, and Amy got a paid day off of work because it's her birthday.

I

 Clearly, today is a day meant for celebrating.

After a couple of weeks of cold, snow, and wind, even the weather was fabulous today.

What better way to celebrate birthdays/no school days than a trip to the corn maze???

We set off into the maze--how hard could it be?

It wasn't long at all until we were completely lost, the kids were bored and tired, and we were forced to sneak through  places we weren't suppose to go to find our way out.

Yeah! An exit!! I guess we won't be getting that rat in a maze job.

Fortunately, there were many other funner things to do. Ashley, didn't you drive this train in your corn maze employee days?

The girls loved this train.

They rode it till the cows came home. And then they rode it again. And again. And.....

We checked out the farm animals next.

 The cows just completely ignored us, even after we mooed.

We tried out the sandbox that was actually a corn box

and zoomed down 

the slides several times.

There were some go carts that were powered by foot pedals

or moms.

I was tempted to burst into song a number of times ("the corn is as high as an elephant's eye....")

We took a final ride in the bigger train

These two had a good time "scaring" the driver. He was a good sport and played along.

We left the corn maze and ran into this guy.

Although the girls seemed much more excited about this place.

Hailey "needed" a picture--it's the dog grooming store.

We ate at one of Amy's favorite restaurants- "Fancy Sushi". Amy showing her girls how to start a fire by rubbing their chopsticks together. Hey, it kept them occupied until the food arrived!

Stan enjoying his tempura.

Happy birthday, Amy! Love you so much! The best is yet to come!

A Trip To Manti

Stan and I took a quick but fun trip to Utah for nephew Matt's wedding.

We sadly said good-bye to Amy and our cutest local granddaughters

and happily said good-bye to our rapidly falling snow, which was busy murdering my garden.

We spent a day in Idaho Falls, where we discovered Megan sitting on Jessica's couch like she now is an adult and owns her own car. Oh wait. Yeah, I guess that's all true.

Aw, isn't that cute! She's pretending to do homework!

Jessica was also there, still hiding that large basketball under her shirt. She didn't want me to take a picture of her with her basketball-tummy, so 

I took this one instead.

Harvey was also there to welcome us, although I think he was more interested in the pizza than us. I'd be careful if I were you, Stan. Harvey looks hungry and you know how fierce he can be.

Krew was his typically delightful self, giving commentary on the Presidential debates,

showing us how to "fall on the ball"

posing in the new Target shirt we brought

and explaining to Grandpa how to replace the garbage disposal.

The dishwasher wasn't working either, because the broken, plugged disposal was causing it to back-up and leak. Apparently the new owners of the Backman home think the disposal and dishwasher should work. Stan is a disposal replacement pro, having replaced a few billion of these machines at our home and rentals over the years.

On Thursday, we continued to Utah where we viewed beautiful paintings by the famous artist Lisa DeLong on BYU campus.

Hey! We've seen this one before! Even discounting my slightly biased opinion, Lisa's work was the most beautiful and interesting art on displayed.

We even got a free booklet, detailing the philosophy of Artist DeLong and some other exhibitors at the art show.

On Friday we headed to Manti to the beautiful temple.

We got a kick out of the views from the temple: a cemetery

 and the high school rodeo arena.

We were delighted to meet up with some of our former traveling companions.

Imagine my delight when David appeared, carrying a cooler clearly full of ice cream. Alas, he sneaked away, and I never saw that cooler again.

Look at these happy parents of the groom.

Proof positive Stan and I were there.

The beautiful bride and happy groom emerging from the temple.

We went to a lovely luncheon, where I took frantic notes for our own upcoming wedding.

This is the same gorgeous place where the reception was held later that evening. In addition to our cousin Alan performing the wedding, we also saw Alan's wife Sheree, and later we had a chance to visit with our cousins Ted, wife Linda, and Gordon. 

Between the luncheon and reception, we took a nostalgic drive up Nebo Loop.

The afternoon sun lit up the trees

and the views were stupendous.

I have a distinct childhood memory of driving Nebo Loop with the family on a Sunday autumn afternoon and stopping at a turnout, where Daddy found some large rocks he put in the car and took home for our yard in West Mountain. Stan gathered a few rocks for me that we brought home and planted in our frozen garden.

Judy confessed to coming this way at twilight and gobbling at the turkeys on the turkey farms with her friends in high school. She demonstrated her technique for us when we came upon these wild turkeys. Apparently Judy only knows tame turkey talk, cause they ignored her

 and the herd of cows that had escaped and were wandering seemed disinterested, too.

We drove home on Saturday, stopping briefly to put Megan into a sugar coma.

We had a wonderful time!