October

This year for Vivint's year end party, they rented out Lagoon for the night. We went down with Dallen and a date and had a blast. Only bummer part was Brad got sick after the second ride. After we got some dinner, he did feel a little better and was able to go on a few rides. 

Cam went through the temple for the first time! It was so special and I am so happy Brad and I were able to go. We had a yummy dinner at my parents after. 

In between sessions of Sunday conference, we went with my parents and Cam on a hike/walk in Logan Canyon. It was SOO pretty!

We went to the cabin with the Galvins to spend the night one weekend. We had a lot of fun riding the 4-wheelers, playing games and hanging out. 

My friend, Meghan got married and she look absolutely beautiful! I went to her reception and it was fun to catch up with some old friends.  

Brad and I went to Brigham one day to babysit this cute niece of ours. Aideen is such a cute, easy going baby and we enjoyed our time with her. 

Brad went with Derrick to go deer hunting one morning and they got a deer! Brad said it was hard work hiking the mountain, and then dragging the deer back down, but it was worth it! 

I hosted bunco this month at my parents house. I am sad I didn't get more pictures, but we had a good time! Mikell even brought baby Kennedy for everyone to love on. 

One of many beautiful Cache Valley sunsets.

One day while Brad and I were driving home, we came across this horse and buggy in the middle of the road. We thought it was pretty random!

And just for fun.. the kids I nanny in the mornings. Makoi on the left, Malachi on the right. I can't believe they are already 3!

 And the kids I nanny in the afternoon. They love climbing trees and the girls are super big into cats right now. They also love the 'scary house' that we pass every day that is decorated so awesome for Halloween. 

Guess who came to town??!! Yup, this cute nephew and his amazing parents. I just really cannot get enough of him! Brody had to go to Cancun for a week, but we enjoyed having Ky and Evan here for a week and a half and we did a lot of fun things while they were here. 

We hiked up to the wind caves since Cam claimed he had never been there before. What?? Brody stayed home with Evan. 

While I was babysitting the Hess' one afternoon, my mom, Ky and Evan joined us in going to the pumpkin walk. This is always one of my favorite Fall activities to do. They always do such a great job! 

We spent Saturday getting ready for Cam's farewell. Then the Densleys came over for dinner. It was fun seeing Shep and Evan together since they are so close in age! 

We love our 'little' brother! Cam gave his farewell talk and did an amazing job! 

After sacrament about 100 people came over for some lunch. Luckily it was good enough weather for some people to go outside. I enjoyed catching up with some of my cousins who I don't get to see very often. 

Drew got home from his mission to Cancun! He was scheduled to arrive on Oct 30th at 7pm. We got a call from Ann that afternoon saying that he missed his connecting flight because his plane was not able to land due to thick fog. So we were told he would get to Salt Lake at noon the next day. I arranged my work schedule so that I would be able to go pick him up. We got another call at 5am from Ann to tell us that he would actually be landing at 9am. I wasn't able to get work off so last minute so Brad had to go without me. I am so sad I missed it, but I am so happy the whole family is back together! It has been almost 4 years! 

Our cute nieces and nephews on Halloween. 

We had our annual Halloween party this year at the Vivint building. This year we chose to do a 'survivor' theme. We gave everyone 'buffs' to choose their teams, played games, had a hidden immunity idol, and even had tribal council where everyone voted for the best costume! We also gave the winning team one million dollars.. in the form of 100 grands. :) We had a great turn out and it was a fun night!
Brad and I dressed as an old couple this year and I am happy with the way it turned out. 

{Mariana and Luke won best costume dressed as stick figures}

Krista and Clayton, Mariana and Luke, Derek and Rose, Mindi and Nick, Rusty and Natalie

Claudio and Tamires, Derrick and Kelsey, Sam and Kado, Mikell and Nick, Jason and Andy. 

Relay Race: They had to untie a bunch of knots, throw glow stick necklaces onto witch hats and complete a {hard} 9 piece puzzle. Winning team got one point.

Not pictured: a memory game where they had to hold up pictures in the correct order. Last person standing received one point for their team. 

Food Challenge: We are mean hosts and made everybody eat a gross food. Everyone was a good sport about it though. Whoever finished first got a point for their team. The food items that we had included: Vampire blood (tomato juice), zombie eyes (Spanish olives), devil’s heart (whole beet), cow’s cud (canned spinach), Frankenstein toes (Vienna sausage), pig tongue (tongue shaped spam), spider eyes (tapioca pudding w green food coloring), goblin guts (baby food), pumpkin puke (baby food), and bat intestines (sardines).  

Balancing: They balanced balls on a ping pong paddle. We played boys against girls. We made them turn in circles to make it harder. Last one standing got a point for their team.

September

We went to the Ogden Temple open house with Dallen and Ann and it was so beautiful!! We had dinner at the Wheelwrights after and enjoyed seeing and catching up with everyone. Baby Aideen and baby Carter sure did get big over the summer! 

We went camping one weekend with our friends- the Ponds and Rasmussens. We haven't been camping since before we got married so it was fun! We went up Providence Canyon and rode our 4-wheeler, had tinfoil dinners, s'mores and just enjoyed each others company. 

Brad and I decided this summer that we wanted to take a vacation to the Northwest and/or Alaska. I have family in Washington (plus Brad had never been), and we have some friends that moved up to Alaska this summer that we wanted to go visit. When I found plane tickets to Alaska for really cheap leaving from Seattle, we decided to just do it all in one trip!   

VANCOUVER/PORTLAND
Thursday, Sept 11: We drove to Vancouver Washington and on the way, stopped at the Gorge to do the Multnomah Falls hike. Stacey and Brody met us there after and took us to this cool waterfall where you have to walk through a river to get there. It was so pretty, but the water was pretty dang cold! The Lakes were so nice to let us stay with them in their beautiful home for a few nights. 

Friday, Sept 12: 

We went on a beautiful bike ride with Stacey and laid out by their pool. That night we went on a date with Stacey and Todd to Portland where we walked around the rose garden, went to dinner and got ice cream. 

Saturday, Sept 13: 

We went to the Saturday market in Portland. It was fun to walk around, get elephant ears and people watch. We went to this awesome donut place called voodoo donuts and we had to wait in line for about 45 minutes but it was totally worth it! They have all sorts of donuts there, including ones with cereal, candy and even bacon on top! We watched Divergent with the Lake's that night.

CANNON BEACH

Sunday, Sept 14: 

We headed to Cannon Beach and on our way out, we stopped at the firestation to see Todd at work. The rest of the Lake's decided to come and spend the day with us. We had a picnic, went on a hike, hung out on the beach, fed the seagulls and ate dinner at Pizza Feta. After they left, Brad and I sat on the beach and watched the sunset. It was so awesome and such a beautiful, sunny day! 

Monday, Sept 15:
We went to Ecola State Park to this awesome look out spot, then went down on the beach while it was low-tide to walk on the rocks and find starfish. Then we went over to Hug Beach. It was an awesome (less crowded) place with some cool caves. We hung out there and had a picnic before it started to get really cold. We walked around the shops, ate dinner at Mo's and then had a fire and s'mores on the beach. 

Tuesday, Sept 16:
We spent the day in Seaside-which is 15 miles north of Cannon Beach. We walked along the beach during low tide and found a lot of sand dollars and a few jelly fish. One of them was so big, we couldn't believe it! We did a little shopping at the outlets, sat on the beach, then headed back to the Lake's to spend the night. 

SEATTLE
Wednesday, Sept 17:
We drove to a city called Bremerton so that we could ride the ferry into Seattle. It gave us an awesome view of the city! Then we headed to Bellevue (10 miles west of Seattle)- where my brother is currently serving his mission. My mom had sent us with a suitcase of stuff for Jake, so we dropped that off at the Mission office. Then, we may or may not have driven around in hopes of running into him, but had no luck. We went back to Seattle to catch our flight for Alaska. We got to Anchorage at 11pm and our friends, Sam and Karen picked us up. They live just 5 minutes away from the airport. They were so nice to let us stay with them in their 2 bedroom apartment. 

ALASKA
Thursday, Sept 18:
Karen and Sam had to work all day, so while they were gone we did the Flat Top hike. It was pretty dang hard, but it was awesome at the top! We showered and hung out until they got home, then we went to Moose's Tooth for dinner. Karen had young womens (she is the president!) so I decided to go with her. We watched Fox and the Hound. Sam and Brad went downtown to watch the Salmon swim upstream. 

Friday, Sept 19:
Brad and I went on a walk on the Campbell Creek trail. We really wanted to see a bear (don't worry, we were prepared with bear spray and a gun) and Karen had told us that she has seen a bear on that trail before. We had no luck though. We walked around downtown, went back to see the salmon, and went to the souvenir shops. We made enchiladas and cookies before Sam and Karen got home from work. We went on another walk (bear hunt) with Karen and Sam and saw 2 moose. Their friends came over that night to hang out.

Saturday and Sunday, Sept 20-21:
We went to Sam's mission presidents cabin that was about an hour and a half away. We rode the 4-wheelers, went on a walk, had dinner, and watched God's Not Dead. Sunday morning we went to Talkeetna to have breakfast and walk around the shops. Then we watched Hercules/took a nap, cleaned the cabin, and headed back to Anchorage. We had dinner and played a card game. 

Monday, Sept 22: 

Brad and I decided to do a day cruise called the '26 glacier cruise' that left from Whittier. The drive over was SOO beautiful!! We had to drive through a tunnel to get to Whittier that was just over 4 miles long, and it's a one way road. It was pretty cool. The cruise was 6 hrs long, they fed us lunch, took us to see a bunch of glaciers and we even saw some sea animals. It was awesome! 

This one is called Surprise Glacier and we got to drive up pretty close to it. It was so beautiful. 

Steller Sea Lions

Tuesday, Sept 23: 

We went to Byron Glacier and got to walk right up to it. It was so awesome and we had lots of fun and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Then we headed to the animal conservation place since we weren't finding any bears in the wild. My favorite animals we saw were the baby moose, the fox, the eagle, and of course the bears! There were 3 brown bears and 2 black bears (but we only saw one). We got to see them feed the black bear which was cool since they were both hiding before that. We went to dinner with Sam and Karen to Bear's Tooth. It was cool, cause it was a restaurant and a movie theatre in one. We ordered our food, and then they brought it to us in the theatre! We went to the movie 'Planes'. We all went on a walk (another bear hunt), played games, then our flight back to Seattle left at 1245am.

This was the closest we got to seeing a bear.. a bear print. The Tyler's let us use their little Toyota to drive around in all week. They are the best! We had a great time in Alaska and visiting our friends and we didn't want to go home! We are already planning our next trip there. 

SEATTLE
Wednesday, Sept 24:
Our plane landed at 5am so since we didn't get any sleep, we decided to park our car in a church parking lot and sleep for a few hours. Our GPS actually took us the the institute building in Seattle. When I woke up, I went inside to use the restroom and saw some missionaries. I started talking to them and come to find out, one of them was companions with my brother! I couldn't believe it! So it was fun talking to him for a little bit. We spent the day in Seattle- had lunch on the Space Needle (which was awesome), walked around Pike Place and saw the gum wall. We decided to stop in Bellevue again to see if we could maybe by chance run into Jake. He told me what street they are on a lot, so we drove up there and found a 7-11. We hung out in that parking lot for about 10-15 minutes watching for missionaries, then went inside and got slurpees and a donut. We realized that his church was right behind the 7-11 so we decided to go park in there while we ate our treats. Literally five minutes later, we saw two missionaries ride up on their bikes. And sure enough, it was Jake! We drove over to him and got to talk to him for about ten minutes. I really couldn't believe we ran into him- it was such a coincidence! It was for sure the highlight of our trip!

The top two pictures are Jake's apartment and his church. I was going to send them to him, thinking there was no way we would actually see him! And the bottom right is our first glance at him. :) The top right is our first time in Bellevue before Alaska when we dropped the suitcase off at the mission office. 

 We stayed with our friends, the Coys, who live in Redmond on Wednesday night. Then we headed back home on Thursday. It was such an awesome trip and one I will never forget. I'm so happy we were able to make it happen.


The day after we got home, we started babysitting the Hess' for a few days/nights. On Saturday I took them- joined by Jaken, Lydia and Emma to the fun park. I had 6 kids between the ages 5-8 by myself for over 4 hours!! It's a good thing they all play really well together and they were super easy.