October 2020

It was another busy month of finishing the harvest and storing food from the garden.  October is a busy birthday month.  We celebrated Avery's, Jayson's, Marshall's, Grants and Olivia's.  We couldn't be equally involved in all those special days, but we did what we could.   I finished a quilt for Emerson and painted a picture of Pebble Beach.  I worked on lots of family history and continued my online  piano lessons.  I also read many good books.  Every day I have been grateful for good health and for Craig's companionship.  I have been suffering from a sore tail bone for several months.  I keep hoping and praying that it will improve.  My foot has continued to give me some trouble as well, but I keep going and Craig and I love to walk every day that we can.  We couldn't have our family Halloween Party, but we took the Pumpkin walk to Dan and Danica's and Kevin and Melany's.  We also dropped off treats to  James, Ian and Joseph.  Craig and I spent a quiet evening at home on Halloween handing out treats.  Because we couldn't be with some of our family around Halloween, I wanted to include pictures our children  shared with us.

This miniature chair was at  the home of one of our ministering sisters.  It was a beautiful little chair.

September 2020

Craig and I had a very busy month.  We harvested peaches and Italian prunes and canned and dried fruit.  We also harvested many vegetables.  It has been a slow year for tomatoes, but a bounteous crop of cucumbers just kept coming all month.  We took two trips this month, one to Debbie and Jim's cabin in Montana and one to Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef.  The weather was beautiful in Montana.  We enjoyed visiting Yellowstone park and West Yellowstone.  We had a delicious dinner at the Firehole Barbecue.  I did a little painting, as well as some reading and family history.  Bryce Canyon was very enjoyable.  We took some good hikes on the rim of the canyon.  We had a swim at the hotel.  It was nice to have to the pool to ourselves.  We had some good food at the Canyon Diner and the Pines Restaurant.  We had some especially good raspberry pecan ice cream as well.  It was good enough to compete with my all time favorite, Roasted Almond Fudge from BYU.  The weather was perfect.  We drove to Capitol Reef the next day.  It was too hot to hike there and we realized the rocky steep hikes were a little more than I felt comfortable with.  We had a great dinner at the Capitol Reef Cafe.  It is an old cafe that doesn't look great from the outside, but the food was great.  We also enjoy a swim at the hotel pool.  Octavia turned one year old at the end of the month.  We were especially grateful that Melany was able to get by without the chemotherapy she was supposed to have.  It was truly a miracle.