October 2018

Our ward throws a Halloween carnival for the primary and the young men and young women throw games for the kids to come through and play. They put together a mini haunted house for them to walk through. The parents get chili and cornbread. It's a fun night for everyone. Tyler went as Dwight from the office for the third year running and Ally was a Hawaiian tourist.

I just sat down to use my computer and big surprise it is at 4% battery life. This is the story of my life with my phone and my laptop. I go to use it and Ally has sucked the life out of it and then left it to die. Maybe when she's thirteen she will learn to recharge something she borrows. Apparently it's something she will master while she is twelve. Rant over.

This was October 1st and I was doing a burn from the scraps we have cleared off the property since April. It was a huge pile with lots of trees - aspens and pines. It was amazing to watch this burn down. It took nearly the entire day.

This has been a long awaited piece of mail. Carter put his papers in and we didn't hear back about where he was going for a month. It was getting to the point that we thought the mail had lost his papers. Carter was overjoyed to receive this letter in the mail.

The opening was lots of fun. We had practiced signing onto Facebook live with the family earlier in the month. Like three weeks earlier as we thought the call was going to come much faster. So all of the away family was prepped and ready to go. We had a few friends come over to watch live action. When Carter read Las Vegas none of us believed him as Jason had told him to punk everyone at the opening. We thought Carter was punking Jason because Jason had served in the Las Vegas mission. It took a while for all of us to settle into the idea of Las Vegas but Carter was super excited about it. He is also happy to not be speaking Spanish. He really didn't want to learn a language. He leaves for the MTC November 28.

We had some extra apples from our one tree that produced this year. These are the apple sauces we canned up. They had a little pink color to them as the apples were red. They are delicious.

Tyler and I went to Seattle for a study trial visit. His blood work is still looks good. We are glad he's been a part of the Trial Net study and they are watching out for Type I Diabetes for him. We had fun eating out and enjoyed the hot tub at the hotel. The Indian food we ate was yummy. We love the donuts from Pikes Market and the flowers were gorgeous! I brought home a bouquet of sunflower this time. I also stopped at the Polish Pottery store and picked out a little bowl.

This is the Tyler watching a movie waiting for time to pass. He is a champ and just takes that glucose drink down in about a minute. I'm not sure how he can do it so fast. The rest of the day is waiting while they check the blood as time passes. I brought a book to read. Ty forgot a book this time.

Young womens meeting. The girls played a fun clapping/hand swapping game. It was funny watching them all try to figure it out. I love how our young women all get along and are so sweet to each other.

We took a quick trip to Logan for Jason's baby blessing in October. We realized the Pollan and Livsey grandparents would all be pretty close at the same time so we scheduled time to take Carter through the temple for the first time while so much family was together. It was so great to have so many family there with us. Both sets of grandparents made it, Sonja, Jason, Amber, Charles, Deborah and Chortney. What a beautiful night.

The party continued and moved North to Logan. We all got to meet Connor (aka Carter) we all were getting their names mixed up all weekend. It looks like Connor might have red hair. He is such a sweet little tempered baby. It was fun to watch Jason play dress up with him, you can tell he really loves this little guy.

Logan Canyon was gorgeous with the end of the fall leaves but the air was so cold! We even had little whips of snow blowing around when we retreated to the cars and the hot tub at the hotel.

Nana Pollan and cute baby Connor. He definitely got passed around this weekend. Many adults and only one little baby.

Ally wishes she lived closer to Logan so she could be their babysitter. Hopefully she'll get a few turns at it. She sure thinks Connor is darling.

Blessing day for this sweet baby. He wore the cutest little sweater outfit. He did decide to cry for the first time all weekend during his blessing. Jason did a great job though even though Connor didn't appreciate the situation.

A missionary needs a whole new wardrobe. We took off to Missoula to do some shopping thinking they would have a better selection in the "big city." Ironically we ended up buying his suit at JC Penney which we have in Kalispell. We did well at Dillard's though with nice shoes and the luggage. Overall we spent the entire day but got what we needed.

Carter in his shiny new grey suit. Looking classy!

Hugging on the grandparents a we are preparing to leave Logan. We had to split right after the blessing as we had a long drive to finish in one afternoon. Papa was joking about looking up at Carter as he is much taller than the grandparents now.

We sure love this sweet JBP family. They are the best! So grateful we were able to make it down and have such a great weekend with them.

The Ruesch's and Sonja came up to support Jason on Connor's blessing day as well. Fun to get to see them for a split second before we leave town again.

Service project for Young Women's tonight. We got a few sewing machines collected together and the girls sewed up these adult bibs that will be donated to the old folks home in town. The girls did an amazing job sewing and were able to get these done really on their own.

Poor Tyler had his wisdom teeth and a weird adult tooth that didn't ever finish forming removed all at the same time. They had to go into the roof of his mouth to snag the extra tooth. He had a pretty smooth recovery as we learned a thing or two from Carter's operation. Benefit of being the second child. We kept Tyler off whole food for much longer than we did Carter. Really gave his tooth holes time to heal up before doing any chewing. He didn't get any of the big holes to fill in like Carter did.

We also did much more icing and Tyler didn't have much swelling to speak of. This is as bad as he got. He enjoyed the gatorades and popsicles for the first hour then he wanted a burger. It was a long week and a half before he could have solid foods.

Carter had a fun time carving pumpkins with his friend Hailey. He was very proud of this design from one of his favorite books. It is a Wheel of Time design. Turned out pretty slick.

Our yard has been gorgeous this fall. The yellow and red leaves are so pretty in the trees or covering the ground. Thank goodness for the riding mower that just sucks them all up. Makes "raking" a breeze as long as the leaves are dry. If they are wet the mower gets all bogged down and then I'm out there trying not to swear like a sailor. If I have to lift the mower base to many times in a day my back starts feeling it.

As luck would have it Carter managed to lose his old black suit while we were in Utah. It did need to be tailored a bit but would have been fine for his mission. We couldn't find that suit anywhere after our trip. Called both of the hotels we stayed in and had my parents search their house high and low. We tease Carter that he is watched over by St. Francis, the saint of lost items as most things he looses make their way back to him. His trumpet, twice; his bike, once; his wallet from the golf course got dropped off at the front door, his phone many times, the keys to his dirt bike, twice....the list goes on and on. This time though his luck ran out. So he's the happy new owner of a nice black suit. Luckily the JC Penney in town had his size and we found a nice tailor who made it fit just right.

Ally has been having an awesome time making hair scrunchies out of her too small clothing. She is running the sewing machine like an old pro. Her friends have been coming over and she's showing how it's done and sharing her material. It's been fun to watch her get excited about this project. Now she has many options that match all her outfits.

Tyler threw a Halloween party with the kids in the ward and a few friends from school. This is the only picture I got from it. Mom fail! The kids appreciated this chip and dip display. They had a fun hot dog roast out at the fire pits and when they were frozen to death they came in and watched a movie. We didn't get one trick or treater so it's good the kids were here to eat our bowl of candy.