October

October 4^th: I convinced my parents to join me up at Silver Lake to walk around the water, enjoy the fall colors, and snap a few pictures of me and my (current) favorite little man. Pretty soon, I’ll have two little men and won’t be able to play favorites. We had just missed the big rush of beautiful colors. It was already too cold up there for many of the fall leaves but, we still did see some incredible color on the way up. As we walked around the lake, we could all see that a storm was coming in but we were hopeful that we could finish the short walk before the rain came. About half way around the lake, the sprinkling started and then, as we were pulling out and driving away the pouring rain came. It was fun nevertheless and we decided to grab dinner together at a restaurant called Bandits Grill. My mom and I split a Mexican style salad and that thing was delicious. I think I need to go get another one tonight!

October 5^th: I started hearing buzz online from lots of LDS friends about a name change happening for the MoTab choir. They are now The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. Lots of friends (many of whom are in the choir) were posting things like #TabCaTS…oh boy. President Nielsen is trying to move away from the name “Mormon”…like several have done before him. We’ll see if this name change sticks. For a few years and after church sponsored websites like Mormon.org and the “I’m a Mormon” campaign, I thought they had officially embraced the nickname. Not so apparently.

October 6^th: We took advantage of General Conference Weekend and knowing that Bonnie and Steve would be available and spent the weekend with them. I brought up a sewing project, we scheduled a double date with Jeff and Stephanie, and had some solid family time. Bonnie was sweet and, knowing that we were coming, she swept her leaves into a pile in the backyard for Patrick. We had a lovely time and I made some serious progress on my Handmaids Tale costume for Halloween J

October 8^th: Columbus Day or, as some have rebranded it Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I spent with my parents and Patrick in Alpine. My mom and I continued to work on my dress (sewing up parts of it and ripping out seams at least 3 times…I’m new to dresses). In the afternoon, we took Patch to the Museum of Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. I had been there with him and Scott when he was a little over a year old. This time was completely different. He loves it there, I can tell. He wanted me to climb in the giant play place with him. With my 36 weeks pregnant belly and loose/ sore joints I struggled to navigate around but, watching his little face as he showed me around was too precious to miss so, I suffered through it. We also wandered through “Kidopolous” where Patch found the music recording studio. They have computers set up to percussion instruments and you select the instrument and what beat you want it to play on to make cool rhythms. Patrick had a blast making noise. I’m going to say that it’s because he is destined to love music as much as his parents…not just because he’s a 3.5 year old boy. J

October 11^th: We really upped our Halloween décor this year. Scott and Patch installed a giant rope spider web off of the side of the house that extends across the garden this year. I purchased a giant spider to go on top of it and Patch was enthralled with the whole thing. He’s oddly obsessed with all the spooky things surrounding Halloween and doesn’t seem too scared when it comes to the Halloween books we read him that month. Good for him I guess.

October 12^th: Patch and I attended a group baby shower with my neighborhood mom friends. There were 4 of us who had our first babies all around the same time and we hung out pretty regularly when the babies were under a year old. I had Patch, Olyvia had Frasier, Sue had Molly, and Julia had Emmett. Shortly thereafter, Miriam had her baby boy and after that Aubri Sain had her 3^rd. So, all of our babies were in nursery at church at about the same time. Of the 6 of us, 5 were pregnant again so, Julia threw us a baby shower. Aubri is on her 4^th, Olyvia is on her 3^rd, and the rest of us are on our second. Anyway, it was such a fun shower at Wheeler Historic Farm. Julia made the cutest box lunches for each of the moms and kids. We lucked out and got some lovely weather. The sun was shining and the kids had a blast playing together on the jungle gym. When we were all done eating, we went over to explore the farm and look at the animals. The kids were great and it was madness watching all these toddlers doing their thing.  At the end of our little gathering I managed to convince all the ladies to come help me unload Sue’s new Purple mattress from Scott’s truck into her little sedan. By some miracle, 3 pregnant ladies and Julia were able to do it. Olyvia held Julia’s little baby and the rest of the kids roamed around inside the cab of Scotts truck…a dangerous prospect. It worked out J miraculously, we loaded the mattress and were all SO PROUD of ourselves. I brought Patch home, put him down for a nap, and mom and I continued working on that Handmaids Tale dress while watching the show. It was a lovely day.

That evening, we decided to go to Get Air and play at the “bouncy place” as Patch calls it. I couldn’t really participate but found myself doing just a bit of jumping and chasing after Patrick. Patch had a late nap so, it worked out well to run over to a place where we could expend some energy and stay up a little later than usual. Patch and Scott both seemed to have a good time.

October 14^th: We did a Sunday hike up Millcreek canyon. Since we stopped attending church, we figured that trying to get up in the mountains every Sunday as a family would be a good idea. It’s a way for us to still have family time together while also feeling close to God.

October 16^th: I attended one of the first performances of Jekyll and Hyde for Salty Dinner Theater and reviewed it for them for Front Row Reviewers. It was such a fun show! The comedy was great and my girl Kassandra tore it up. She was so fun to watch. Before the show started, Scott and I had dinner at the restaurant with Patch so we could spend some time together. We ordered him macaroni and cheese but it came in these breaded and fried little pockets….weird!!! My dinner and icecream was delicious J

October 18^th: my hernia changed colors ever so slightly and there was some localized heat coming off my skin. Fearing infection, I headed to the ER to get checked out. (As I’m writing this, it’s Nov. 30^th and I still have not seen a bill *gulp*). They hooked me up to some monitors and listened to the baby’s heartbeat. The doctor told me that since it’s not an intestinal obtrusion, we shouldn’t be worried. He told me what to look out for and what it would look like if it were to get serious and, I was on my way home.

October 20^th: The annual Pumpkin Walk up in Logan was delightful. I managed to make Patrick’s spider costume (and convince him to settle on being a spider in the first place) just in time for dinner and then the walk. The cousins came over and had a fun time playing in those same leaves in Bonnie’s yard. Even Grandma Gene was down in the leaves playing. (It was my idea to invite her :D and she rode up with my parents). We met up with Mark and Sue (part of that mom-friends group who had the shower just a couple of weeks before) at the pumpkin walk and had a good time visiting with them and looking at the displays. I was confused as to what the theme was this year but I was still impressed by a number of displays.  One in particular was done by a ward that had something like 19 missionaries out. They created a display of all the different places their missionaries are serving and I was just impressed that ONE ward had produced so very many missionaries serving at one time! I dressed as a bumble bee since I wasn’t confident that people in Logan would understand my Handmaids costume. I also brought my facepaints and threw some paint on a few of the cousins last minute. That was pretty fun.

October 26^th: My parents were back in Tahoe checking on their property there so, I was “working” from home and spending time with Patch. I convinced Mary to join me a Jump Around Utah with her kiddos and Patch. They love that place. Patrick usually plays really well with Mary’s kids and I was able to answer a few emails and phone calls since Patch was occupied. That evening we had dinner at Andrea and Gary’s and they looked after Patch for us while we attended Matt and Sarah’s annual Halloween party. We brought dinner ingredients and since Gary is trying to do a modified Keto diet, I was trying to be careful to provide him with a tasty meal that met those requirements. I decided to make nasi goreng and Andrea made fun of me saying that the next time we cooked over there, we should choose food that had like 5 ingredients. Haha. At Matt and Sarah’s party, there was a costume contest and karaoke and, shockingly, Scott and I only got like 3 votes for our Handmaid’s costume (Scott dressed as the driver). Booo. Oh well, we still had a lovely time at the party and….side note…. boy can parents in their 30’s have a wild time if they want to when their kids aren’t around.

October 27^th: I finally buckled down and made my jalapeno jelly. We harvested the garden completely weeks before that and my jalapenos were starting to look a little wilty so, I made it happen! That night, I got roped into performing at a Halloween party as one of the Sanderson sisters along with Alisha and Jaime Haderlie (some Salty Dinner Theater friends). We made some dollars and ate some delicious food. Aside from that, I was just amazed at the party host’s home. She, dressed as cat woman, gave a guided tour of the house and it was seriously impressive. People who have a lot of money often seem to do strange things with their homes but, there were some really cool things too like a door directly from her pantry to the garage for easy unloading of groceries. How brilliant!

October 31^st: Halloween! I made Patrick some orange colored oatmeal for breakfast complete with a face made out of chocolate chips. I made myself a quick costume to wear to work and since all of my coworkers decided to wear pajamas and right now I just sleep in an oversized shirt and undies, I decided to dress as Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s- complete with tassle earings (instead of earplugs with tassles on them) that I just cut right off of my honor chords from high school graduation. Hehe. We trick or treated that night in Dan and Mary’s neighborhood with the kids and they had a great time. Patrick kept wanting to hold Scarlett’s hand and my mama heart just burst. I was getting attention for my costume (finally) and more people seemed to appreciate it that night. Mary made chili for dinner (very tasty and spicy chili that she was convinced was not spicy) and once we got the kids sleeping, we watched Psycho…a classic from Mary and Dan’s teen years when Scott and I were probably a liiiiiiittle young to have seen it.

Twas a wonderful October. Now, as I mentioned before, it’s already November 30^th as I’m writing this so, I will just plow on through and catch up on November happenings.