The rest of the weekend went like this...

...fun and relaxing (but went by way too fast)!

Friday night we went to the Idaho Botanical Gardens. It was so fun to walk around and see all the lights. It was beautiful! At the end of the night Grandma found some cool glasses for the kids. When you put them on to look at the lights it turned the lights into different shapes. We had stars, snowmen, santas, star of david's, and snowflakes. They were so cool!

Saturday Colleen coordinated a girls spa day at Grandma's house. We did our toenails and got our hair done. It was fun and I really like doing my neices hair. My nephews came too but didn't want their hair done or toes painted!

All too soon it was time to head out. We went to say goodbye to everyone and do hairdos for church. We took too long packing and getting air in the tires of my car so we didn't have time to do hair at Brian and Lucy's house. So sorry girls!

The kids also tried stalling to keep us there longer ( so cute but heartbreaking at the same time!)

We will be back in just a few weeks for Christmas!

Thanksgiving Boise Style!

Colleen and I had a great Thanksgiving being able to drive home for the weekend! I cannot remember the last Thanksgiving that I got to go home for.

We had a great time with family and the dinner was Marvelous! Thanks Mom for feeding us so much and so well! This year was a million and ten times better than last year's meal at Del Taco!

The table set up... The Bird getting carved...

Before it was time to go to dinner we took a walk to the park and played a little bit to work up an appetite!

After dinner, we took a nice walk around the neighborhood.

We also played with blocks.

Then it was time for dessert!

What a great way to spend time remembering what we are thankful for and spending time with so many of them!

Concert Weekend Goodness!

I had the privilege of going to two concerts this weekend at The Avalon Theater in Murray. Friday night was Jon McLaughlin. Amy, Ally, Adrienne, Dede, Coventry, Melissa, and I all went. We were quite pleased to find that there were benches to sit on inside the theater. The crowd was quite small, sound pretty good, and entertainment amazing! I love the way Jon's fingers fly over the piano. He is very talented and you can tell he was classically trained by the way he plays. I didn't get a picture of Adrienne....

Dede and I

Melissa and Coventry

Ally and Amy (apalled at the opening band maybe?)

Jon jamming on the piano

We all bought these cool wristbands!

Jon's set list!

I actually asked a girl who had his set list if I could just take a picture of it. (LOL)

Saturday Colleen and I spent most of the day in Park City at the ski swap and then the outlet mall. We were excited to find a Cafe Rio in town for a tasty lunch.

Matt Nathanson was at The Avalon Theater Saturday night. We were a tad bit disappointed to find a sell out crowd at Matt's concert just because it was a lot more clausterphobic, hot , and uncomfortable compared to the night before. However, the opening band was actually really really good and Matt was Awesome. He is so funny and I love his music.

Amy, Adrienne, Ally, Dede, and I went. This time I only got a picture of

Adrienne and I.

Matt singing solo

Close up of Matt

I actually asked the sound and light guys for Matt's set list. Unfortunately whatever printer they printed it on wasn't working too well......

Fun night and what a perfect weekend!

Halloween Chronicles

On Tuesday, Colleen and I went to the ward Halloween Party. They had Primary teachers decorate doors of classrooms at the church and then the kids did trick or treating inside. This is what my door looked like.

They had a chili dinner and a dessert contest so there was lots of yummy food! I was surprised how many people dressed up. The adults went all out. Some of my favorites were:

Mary Poppins and Chimney Sweeper (husband and wife)

Bees ( husband wife and cute little baby were all bumble bees)

Bacon and Eggs ( husband was bacon and then the pregnant wife was an egg with her pregnant belly being the yolk)

Iron Man ( this guy had the LED light under his shirt on his chest and a mechanical arm and hand that had all sorts of cool lights.)

Bat Man ( this little kid had these bat wings that actually popped out and opened up super big and then folded down inside the pack on his back. It was seriously cool!)

My kids from Sunbeams were:

a cougar, a transformer, a unicorn, 2 princesses, and arielle from little mermaid. Sooo cute!!

I dressed up as Raggedy Ann and Colleen was "her other personality."

At work, we had a Halloween Carnival for all the kids and then those that earned the privilege had a dance that night!

Here is a picture of my department. From left to right:

Becky (pizza) Kimberly (Hawaiin girl) Rich (James Bond) Ashley (Transformer) , Emily (Scarecrow), Coventry (Baseball Player), Me (Raggedy Ann), and Craig (can't remember what he was exactly...)

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!!

October Delights or Frights?

I think each of these are October delights but others might deem them frights. I will let you decide.

#1 is the first snowfall of the season on the mountain tops! It looks gorgeous! I once had a professor that said Mother Nature was putting on her wedding gown when it snowed. Snowboarding season is on it's way and I can't wait!

#2 is my good friend Matt Lewis- you may have heard of him as he has a band called the Matt Lewis Band. He is truly talented and if you haven't heard him check him out! He just released his third album this week. Anyways, he accompanied me in taking the girls from work Ice Skating and looked hilarious in his get up!

#3 I have been reading hair blogs lately and loving all the fun ideas. They are all posts on how to do little girls' hair. Well, since I don't have any little girls' hair to do, I have been playing with my own. This was yesterdays "DO" and I thought it was fun! Kind of a bad pic but you get the idea.

#4 I have my Halloween Costume and it's only the 12th of October! But, SHHH it's a surprise as to what it is!

Happy October everyone!

Camping-- October Style!

For my really tough job, I HAD to go camping in October. Terrible huh? We left Tuesday Sep 30 and returned Thursday Oct 2nd. We camped in Snow Canyon, Ut which is in St. George. The weather was perfect and we had the perfect campsite ( well, after we set up our campsite and then explored the campground, found a better site, got permission, and then moved). The kids were awesome and it was really fun. We spent all day the second day in Zion's National Park. I had never been there before and really enjoyed it. We stopped at Cedar Breaks National Monument on our way back. Here are just a few of the gorgeous pictures of our trip.

This is the view from our campsite.

This place was incredible and I wish we had more time to spend there. I definately want to go back!

We rode the shuttle from the visitor's center and could get off and on as much as we wanted. It stopped at every stop along the way for people to get on and off. There was a shuttle every 6- 8 minutes at each stop so you never had to wait long.

The first hike we did was called the River Walk. It was incredibly beautiful! This is looking back towards the way we came. This was by far my favorite. The scenery was just beautiful!

This is looking up the wall of the canyon we hiked through. The walls were super duper high and so pretty. This was a bit of a water fall coming down the rock with maiden hair fern growing ( I think that is what it is called).

This is the viewpoint from the top of the second hike we did. This was called Weeping Rock. Apparently sandstone is very porous so it soaks up the rainfall. But it has to have somewhere to go so it falls out the bottom. I am standing under an overhanging rock where the water just seeps out. It looks like it is raining and you do get a bit wet standing under it. They have done studies on this water and it takes a thousand years for the water to travel through the sandstone and out the weeping rock!

The third and final hike we did was The Emerald Pools. I am sad to say I did not take any pictures on this one.... My leg had started hurting that morning. It was a weird pain in what felt like my achilles tendon. As the day wore on and we did more and more walking and hiking it got worse and worse. By this time I was practically in tears and having a hard time enjoying the scenery... We did see some deer and wild turkeys on this hike though.

After driving up to the Subway and driving through twice, we headed back to camp for a very late dinner. The Subway is a tunnel that goes through the mountain and is over a mile long. It is really cool. We drove through it and then not wanting to end up in Colorado, turned around and drove back through it.

Thursday morning we packed up camp and headed home. We took a detour in Cedar City to go see Cedar Breaks National Monument.

We found this cool train to ride on. Ben is the principal of the school and accompanied me on the train ride! It wasn't going anywhere fast though.

The drive up the canyon to Cedar Breaks was incredibly beautiful! We had a hard time capturing the beauty with the camera (plus the windshield was spattered with bugs).

But the Fall colors were magnificent! I love Aspen trees and even more so when they turn yellow and orange!

It was quite cold at the top of the mountain where Cedar Breaks National Monument was. We discovered that they close for the season in just a few days and planned our trip perfectly to get to see it.

The view was incredible!

These are all the staff from the trip. From left to right: Rich (my boss), Me, Brenda, and Ben.

What a great trip! I can't wait to go back and see more of that beautiful place. I highly recommend camping in October in southern Utah!

Just Playing Around

While in Boise, I also had the chance to hang out with my Brother, Sister in Law, and their 2 adorable girls. We were just playing around with some giraffes......

and taking some crazy flying pictures......

Sure was fun playing with you guys!