The Picture Says It All

 

Any idea what that is a photo of? Look closely. You'll see a delivery from Chick-Fil-A. And where is it? Outside of a Church. In Spokane, Washington. 

Here's what happened:

I had wondered when this was going to happen. The fact that it took over a year is a pretty good thing, I think. It sure had Troy and me laughing. It sure made for one happy missionary!

I won't make a habit of it, but sending him a treat like that just once (so far....) was kind of delightful. And now I am, as Chase said, literally the best. I do love him so. 

All-Hallow's Hijinks

Troy and I have had a lot of fun the past few years putting together couple's costumes. First came H.I. and Edwina from Raising Arizona. Then came Mr. Rooney and his secretary from Ferris Buhler's Day Off. Last year was less of a hit - we donned a green and  blue t-shirts and became the Kratt Brothers, complete with Romney as Zooboomafoo, our lemur. However, we didn't look much like we were wearing costumes. It was just that Troy looks so very much like Martin Kratt, we always wanted to try it.

This year I felt like putting a bit more effort into the costumes, but not so much as to kill me. We juggled a lot of ideas. Everything from Bender and Claire (The Breakfast Club) to Jareth and Sarah (Labyrinth). I would LOVE to be Sarah sometime, but I think it would have been too depressing to don a gorgeous white poofy dress and yet not look very much like Jennifer Connelly, especially as she was about 16 and I'm 50. The winning idea didn't hit until I opened a package I had ordered of a really cute Halloween dress. (Doesn't everyone have a Halloween outfit?) Someone said it reminded them of Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus. That was it! Ms. Frizzle! And Troy could be Mr. Rogers. No, they weren't on the same show, I know. But they were for sure PBS Kids buddies. (And according to my research, were deeply in love. See photo below.)

We were able to wear our costumes twice - once at the ward Halloween Party/Chili Cook-Off, affectionately dubbed Spooks-N-Beans. I am no longer in charge of organizing the event, so I felt ok about submitting a chili to the contest. I kind of knew it was cheating to enter this chili - it's the recipe of my sister-in-law, Whitley, and it wins every single contest it's ever been in. I shouldn't have put it in. It's just that it's so good. And I wasn't thinking when I offered any assistance needed to the event organizer - she asked me to be in charge of buying the prizes. I got spoons and dish towels and thought I'd be hilarious and get a cheap tiara for the grand prize winner. Which...I then won. I felt really stupid. Luckily there was a very cute granddaughter of a friend at the event and she was in desperate need of a tiara. Lesson learned. Next time I'll try my luck with a different chili recipe.

The other event was at my friend Becca's house. She threw a poetry group dinner which was delightful. She has gotten into Halloween only in the past few years, like myself, and we both have found that once we settled on a vibe we liked, we both became pretty gung-ho about the holiday. 

Oh, and we got a surprise appearance from Romney at the Spooks-n-Beans. She was up in SLC (not a rare thing, as you may have noticed) and she and two buddies decided to throw together a Kiki's delivery service theme and they showed up. Really cute.

In other good fun of the season, Romney came home for one last Lagoon trip. She and her buddies donned costumes and headed to Farmington, where they learned that guests were not allowed to wear costumes to Lagoon. So...they went to In-n-Out and then went and watched movies all evening. Isn't Romney's sweatshirt cool? Her roommate made it using bleach! She asked Romney to wear it around as an advertisement. She obviously got her friend Nicholas interested and he bought one too, along with two or three other people.

I'm glad Troy and I didn't end up dressing up as characters from The Breakfast Club, partly because I felt a little weird about wearing costumes from a rated R movie to a church function, but also because for official Halloween, Romney and friends also went with a Breakfast Club theme. I think they look fantastic.

Romney played Allison. I should have gotten her some pixie stix.

Cute Emma messed around with a couple of different ideas - she was a witch for the chili cook off. And on Halloween night she got invited to do some trick-or-treating with old Jr. High friends. She dressed as a hobbit and had a lovely time. She is so stinking cute.

 

Happy Birthday, Mr. Missionary

 

This adorable missionary had a birthday at the end of October. I can't believe my wee little preemie baby is now 21 years old. Isn't that crazy?

When Chase first left on his mission, I felt like we were constantly counting UP, like 1 month, 2 months, 3 months....and there were all of the firsts like his first Thanksgiving away, first Christmas away. Well, we are on the opposite side of that now. We are counting down. 10 months left. Both birthdays away, check! Both Thanksgivings away, check! How the heck did this all go so quickly? And yet, when I think about the entire seasons ahead of us before he comes home, it still feels like forever and ever and ever. That was exactly how my mission felt. The time behind me was faster than an overflowing river, and the time ahead of me was solid ice that would never pass. In spite of all those relations to and thoughts about time, it just keeps marching ahead at the same pace.

Here is the goofy face Elder Chase loves to pull in pretty much all mission photos. He's at his favorite little Mexican spot in his area in Spokane.

It was quite hard to know what to send for his birthday. We have already sent him loads of socks and ties and a few games and things like that. I did find a couple of treats to send his way. He had been telling us about a talk he listened to about Shackleton and his amazing survival story in Antarctica. When I was in Maine with my sister I found this little story book that I thought was very cool, and bought it for him.

Also, the 30th anniversary of Chase's all-time favorite movie came and went, and I found this magazine a few months ago. I've been saving it for his birthday every since.

And naturally, new socks. How could I not? Is it even a missionary package if there aren't socks in it? 

We are incredibly proud of Chase and so grateful for this time in his life. We miss him like CRAZY but I also know this is a time to be cherished. He recently told me that he's never been happier in his life. I know things will get more complicated when he gets home and has to juggle real life with all he's learned. so although I'm dying to see him, I also treasure this. I just love him so much. 

Happy 21st, Chase!

Temples and Tarzan

We have a wonderful friend and neighbor, Christy, who long ago worked with my dad at the University of Utah. She's such a lovely and kind person. She bought a condo in St. George because she likes to stay there for long stretches of time and volunteer as an usher at the Tuacahn Theater near the mouth of Snow Canyon. It's such a fun place to see plays. And Christy has taken notice of the fact that our family are theater fans. She's able to earn points somehow for free tickets and she chooses to share a few with us each summer. Isn't that nice? This was the second year she has sent us to Tuacahn, and we already have dates lined up for 2024.

In a happy alignment of the stars, the tickets coincided with the open house for the St. George temple. That's the temple I went through for the first time, 29 short years ago. It has been completely remodeled, and I really wanted to see it as well as show it to my daughters before its rededication. It was actually so hard to get tickets! Luckily we worked it all out, and I was able to keep Emma out of school for a Friday for the trip.

Sadly, it also just so happened to be the same weekend that Peter and Sheri were going to be away, taking a break-neck trek across the Grand Canyon and back again in just two days. We were bummed that we wouldn't be able to spend much time with them. But since we were coming Friday morning instead of Friday evening, we did get to see them for a little!

First came the temple open house, which was a very popular event. There were so many people there! Cara came along with us - she and Emma held hands pretty much the whole time. Oh how I love how much they love each other! Despite the long wait and the very warm air, we really enjoyed seeing the temple. It's such a beautiful place.

That evening we saw our first show - The Hunchback of Notre Dam. Our first surprise was that our tickets were not in the location that Christy and I had discussed on the phone. We were in the PRIMO seats! They had cushions, came with complimentary water bottles, and were seriously front and center! Thank you Christy!

The play was amazing. I mean, AMAZING. The voices, especially Frolo's. The set! It was all very breathtaking. Interestingly, the music from the Disney movie was used, with some additional songs. However, the plot of the play stuck much more closely to that of the novel, sad ending and all. We were absolutely blown away. 

Saturday gave us some hang-out time at the house, including some snuggles with their old dogs and lots of playtime with their sweet new puppy, Tucker. He is so darling and sweet, especially for a puppy. It's sad how old their first two dogs are getting! Gabby just wanted to snuggle and sleep. I know the feeling, sister.

On Saturday morning, I dropped the girls off at the farm down the street, where Halloween is celebrated all fall long. Cute Siena got a job as one of the performers, a witch who became known as Twitch, since she was the only teenaged-witch of the group. They have a breakfast you can buy tickets to called waffles and witches. I only got two, and was happy to have Romney and Emma see the show. I think they felt a little silly, since almost every other guest was 8 years old or younger, accompanied by a parent. But they had fun watching Siena do her thing.

That evening was Tarzan. We did not get the fancy seats this time, which had its advantages and disadvantages. The only downside was that we had seat-neighbors who seemed to be really sad they were at the play and would have preferred to be watching hockey on their phone, which they did for the first few minutes. Luckily the guy knocked it off 5 minutes into the show. The advantage was that that although we were a bit farther away from the stage, we were right underneath the wires that carried actors through the air down to the stage. So we had gorillas and Tarzan and Jane flying right above us.

The show was once again magnificent. The best part was that the actor playing Tarzan was the original actor from the Broadway show. He was just wonderful! 

 

Oh, one last thing. I can't write about this weekend without mentioning an event that I consider to be a real miracle. I'll try to keep it short - I have a dear friend who lives in Texas. She has a daughter who got home from a mission several months ago, and is now living at BYU in Provo, going to school. I've meant to contact her forever, but haven't. This cute girl came to mind as I was preparing for the trip, and I tried to contact her. It turns out I didn't have her number, so I contacted her mother in Texas. Mother let me know that it just so happened that the daughter was waiting for news on whether or not she had gotten into nursing school, which was her dream. Over the weekend, the mom let me know that daughter, just as feared, did not get into nursing school. I decided to put together a little care package for daughter to drop off on the way home. Now, this might not seem like a big deal, but when you think about it, it absolutely was. I hadn't thought about this gal for ages. Then to suddenly not only think of her but actually do the work to get in touch? Just when a major disappointment came her way? And I was in a position to see her, hug her, put my arms around her when her mom was so far away? It was clear to me that there was a purpose in her not getting into nursing school this time - her Heavenly Father knew what was happening. He hadn't forgotten her. He knew, He cared, He sent a message to make sure she knew this. I was able to bear witness of these feelings to sweet Nicole and assure her that all would be well. Just as Chase wasn't able to serve a mission right when he wanted to, she needed to wait. For a reason. It made us all cry.

Ok. Miracle noted.

Strut-Worthy

Just because the summer was over, didn't mean didn't still have work to do on The List.

A couple of bigger items on there were putting in some new pathways. One was in front of the chicken run, with a patio area in front of the coop, and then finally finally replacing the pathway in front of the house between the driveway and the porch. Long ago I had wanted to put in a cute path and I used bricks and all this fake rock that had been on the wall behind an old wood-burning stove in the living room when we bought the house. I did the pathway absolutely 100% incorrectly. I don't think I put anything underneath it at all, and it basically just disintegrated away. It became such a challenge to walk on that it was just easier to walk around it on the grass. Not ideal.

So, I thought I would be really brave and just start digging. I started with the chicken coop. And I re-learned something that I will not be able to adequately express in this post - it is unreal how much dirt comes up when you do a little digging. The area doesn't seem that large, but the PILES and HEAPS of dirt you end up with just don't seem physically correct.

The other thing I already knew but had to experience once again is that the amount of paver base and sand and also the number of paving stones needed for projects is astronomical, and always adds up to more than you can fit in your vehicle, and also always adds up to more than the math you do says you need.

Basically I commuted to The Home Depot multiple times a day for a while. This time I was without my trusty teenage son and had to do all the lifting and lugging myself. Actually, that's not quite true. I think three times in the parking lot, I found myself getting wordlessly helped by a man who saw my middle-aged self trying to lift things into a minivan and just had to intervene. They were so nice. 

Anyway, trying to dig the right amount of dirt and buy the right amount of materials and get it to the house and get an even layer of dirt at the correct depth and getting everything level is a major, massive, horrible pain in the rear end. However, once you get to the part where you are laying the paver sand down and tapping those paving stones into place, it's all worth it. I love creating those pathways. They look so beautiful! And then, you add that polymeric sand, which, by the way, we have now dubbed "crack sand," since I can never remember the word polymeric. It fills in all those cracks, and solidifies after you sprinkle it with water and makes it all one surface. It's tremendously satisfying. 

The walkway back by the chickens is nice, but we really just wanted to add another layer of predator-prevention around the perimeter of the coop. It's the walkway in front of the house that we love the most. It feels so luxurious so have a flat and sturdy surface to walk on. Troy even declared that the only proper way to cross the walkway was to strut down it like a runway for models. I concur. Strut worthy!