Our Halloween Shindigs & Such

 As seem to often be the case, we attended multiple Halloween celebrations this year. The first was a week before Halloween at my parents' house. We had the traditional Halloween dinner, along with some spider treats that Allan and Katie brought. These treats were particularly a hit with Austin, who kept asking me for more spider treats most of the following week.

After dinner we all carved our jack-o-lanterns. Well, at least most of us did. My aunts decided to put black silhouettes on their pumpkin instead of carving it. Some other carvers in the family ran into difficulty with finding bad spots in their pumpkins that had to be completely cut out. My brother Ben, the statistics major, was responsible for the equation jack-o-lantern. As he explained, "Well, some people find math scary." Nate and I carved the Mater jack-o-lantern.

We also dressed up for the occasion, or at least most of us did. We went with a pirate theme this year. Technically, our getup wasn't complete though without Moglie, but we didn't take him with us to the party. After some more Halloween treats, a couple people went to bed, and the rest of us watched a short movie.

Tuesday evening we attended our ward's Halloween Carnival. We decided we liked that better than the trunk-or-treats we have gone to in the past. There were lots of activities all inside the church building for kids to do after dinner, such as eating doughnuts off a string, glow-stick bowling, fishing for prizes, and bean bag tosses. The carnival was a lot warmer than trunk-or-treating outside, and I felt it was a lot more social too. I didn't spend the evening emptying hoards of candy into the sacks of a steady stream of kids that I hardly had time to greet.

Friday night we did take Austin out trick-or-treating though. We all dressed up and headed out. Trick-or-treating with Austin is so much fun, and I don't feel bad leaving our house long enough to take him since we get so few trick-or-treaters on our street anyway. Austin was even prepared to make monkey sounds for anyone who wanted to hear him.

Celebrations Galore

The end of August and beginning of September brought about a number of occasions to celebrate for us. For example, we were able to celebrate the upcoming re-opening of the Ogden Temple by attending the open house with my family on Labor Day. It was especially nice to have the opportunity to take Austin inside the temple, although he tired of our tour before it was finished. During the tour, we also kept hearing a young boy behind us loudly singing "I Love to See the Temple" in a rough exuberant voice, which made us laugh. The temple was really beautiful inside and we enjoyed admiring the fantastic craftsmanship we saw there. Today we were privileged to attend the dedication from our stake center. We are so happy that this temple will be opening back up!

A number of my favorite people have birthdays right around this time of year too. In fact, after returning home from the temple, we celebrated a couple of those birthdays that are in the family, including Nate's, my brother Nathan's, and Gram's.

Nate with his new laptop desk

Austin gave his dad the latest Vocal Point album

Our good friend Lori also had a birthday. It wasn't an official birthday celebration, but we did get the opportunity to hike with her and her family that next weekend.

Unfortunately, we headed up the wrong trail. Instead of a fairly flat, easy, short hike to a waterfall, we found ourselves scrambling along a slick rocky trail up the steep hillside. We have no idea where the trail we were on went to, but after a good ways we decided we had gone far enough. We enjoyed the view from our vantage point on the hill, and even noticed a bench across the ravine...probably along the trail we intended to take. Hopefully next time we will get it right...

In any case, we had fun and enjoyed the company!

Additionally, we recently celebrated the birthday of our friend and neighbor Brother Zaug, who turned 100 on August 29. He has lived here almost his whole life, and we love hearing his stories about the area and the farm he was raised on covering the area where we now all live.

Family Time at Bear Lake

On the morning of Friday, August 15, we drove up to Bear Lake for a family gathering with my dad's side of the family. We actually stopped at the Limber Pine Trail on our way for a hike since that was where everyone else was at the time. We ended up not catching up with them, but we still enjoyed the mile and a half loop, which Austin hiked the whole way without being carried.

The Limber Pine that the trail was named after

After hiking, we continued to the cabin, ate lunch, and then headed to the beach. We thoroughly enjoyed spending the afternoon there!

Austin had a blast digging in the sand. He had so much fun that he didn't want to stop playing in the water and sand even after he was shivering and covered with goosebumps. Luckily, we were able to introduce him to a good digging spot that wasn't in the cold water.

We played frisbee in the water, relaxed, and played bocce on the sand. The family also rented a wave runner that we all took turns riding too, which was a lot of fun.

Allan and Katie, just off the wave runner

Friday evening we attended a local rodeo, which was fun to watch. Saturday morning after cleaning up our cabin, we got raspberry milkshakes before heading back through Logan Canyon. My brother Ben was headed the same direction, so we hiked the Wind Caves together.

Although the limestone arches at the end of the trail have been named the Wind Caves, they actually weren't formed by the wind, but by water seeping through the rocks, eroding away the limestone, and creating underground caverns. Eventually, the Logan river cut away at the rocks, exposing the caverns underneath.

Puppy Party & A Visit From Family

On Saturday, August 9th, we were privileged to attend our friends' Heather and Royce's birthday puppy party. They held the party at a park and rented a few puppies for everyone to play with. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we had a great time holding the puppies, visiting with our good friends, eating some cake, and playing on the playground.

Then that next week, Nate's parents and brother Timothy came to visit us. They are all about to leave soon on missions. Timothy has been called to Australia and Nate's parents will be heading to Reighley, North Carolina. We enjoyed spending time with them playing games, going out to Red Robin for dinner, and spending an afternoon at the water park. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures besides a few from Nate's ipod at the restaurant.

The Aquarium

On the Friday afternoon on August 8th, my parents generously took us to see the aquarium in Draper. One of the first things we went to see there were the penguins, since it was almost time for their feeding.

I loved the tree frogs, which stayed neatly hidden on the underside of  the leaves. 

The tropical birds were fun to see, though Austin didn't get much out of this section. There was a crane visible outside the window which was of much greater interest to him than anything inside the aquarium.

An employee in front of the anaconda was telling visitors all about this guy. Apparently, anacondas are very picky eaters. They have a favorite food, and that is for the most part the only thing they will eat. They will spend the rest of there time...weeks at a time...just lying in one spot perfectly still, ignoring anything else that goes by them that is not their favorite food. The aquarium's anaconda's favorite food in guinea pigs. It won't touch anything else it is offered.

These sting rays from South America are apparently more feared than piranhas by locals and natives. Their tails contain poisonous barbs that inflict a very painful wound.

We noticed a salamander about to catch a cricket, so we decided to video his attack. The way things actually played out though made us laugh!

The seahorses were fascinating, but their display was very dark making pictures difficult. Below are a couple pregnant seahorse dads. It is crazy that seahorses are the only creatures in which the males carry the offspring.

Garden Eels

Austin looking at the garden eels

The tunnel surrounded by water was particularly fun. We enjoyed watching the sharks, sea turtles, and numerous other odd looking fish swimming around us.

And of course the jelly fish light up in bright colors were fun to see too.

After leaving the aquarium we headed to Zuppas for dinner, and then we went home. We are grateful to my parents for the fun activity!