October

What a beautiful October!!! Best weather I can ever remember in an October. We did some fun things this month.

We went and helped pick apples at the farmhouse of an older couple in our ward. It was so fun! Ashlyn had a blast helping pick with some older kids who included her in their fun. I sorted and chatted in the garage with some other people, and Collin was up in the trees picking up high. We took home 3 huge boxes of apples, made 25 quarts of applesauce, and still had tons of apples leftover. We ate them every day, had apple crisp, chicken-apple chili, and probably some other apple things that I can't remember right now.

Ashlyn and I went to the Twin Falls pumpkin patch one afternoon with a new piano teacher friend I have in Twin. Her little girl is just a little younger than Ashlyn and they had a good time. Let's just say this pumpkin patch did not even come close to holding a candle to the Boise ones, of course. But it was still a fun afternoon. I was lame and didn't actually get any pumpkins there. Our pumpkin came from WalMart this year! (let the record show....since it will probably never happen again!)

She preferred the big, fast slide!

Pumping water....who knew it was so entertaining. They really played here the longest.

We went to a little pumpkin carving party a family in our ward hosted. It was pretty low-key but still fun to hang out with some people and get to know new neighbors a little better. We just did one family pumpkin this year, and Ashlyn's request was that it be "mean." Nice, I know. So, I made a mean face, and then got done so fast I just kept carving and it turned into a "mean cat." There ya go.

Taking Lucy to the groomer and this is where she wanted to sit. Look at that shaggy dog!! Poor thing couldn't even see because her eyebrows were so long. 

Looking way too grown up and adorable with her yarn extension twist-outs! This was like, the end of October. Look how nice it is! The weather was awesome this month.

Ashlyn and I made a trip to Idaho Falls for Cory's senior organ recital. We also really wanted to go because Grandma Swackenberg would be there. It was really nice to see her and Charles, and spend some time with them. Cory's recital was great too!

Some fun Dad, Tara and I had one night. 

The big organ man in person! Cory's so talented. And I'm excited that there's another music major graduate in the family!

Tara also came to visit! We had been doing a little fitness challenge, and our big reward at the end was to get together for a fun weekend, and go out together. We ended up in a tie in the challenge, so we just went out to lunch and a movie and paid for ourselves, ha! We went to this awesome pizza place I found here, Slice. Then to "Meet the Mormons." 

We also had some other fun visitors in October! Lindsay came to visit with Addison and Joey. Addison has been Ashlyn's little buddy for the last couple of years, and Lindsay has been such an awesome friend of mine. We really miss them a TON! Addison's birthday wish was for "Ashlyn" and also a bike. So Lindsay brought her over for a day to play with Ashlyn and so they could ride bikes together! We loved having them visit.

Addison blowing out her candles! I think Ashlyn was a little jealous, what do you think? :)

Riding bikes! Again, the best weather for October!!

We have been making a few trips out to GMS to visit Collin. It uses a lot of gas to drive our big rig out there though, so we haven't been able to visit as much as I wish we could! But anyway, for some reason I took a bunch of pictures of his office last time, and so I figured I'd post them I guess. His office looked pretty sad and bare (to me) when we first went to see it back in August, so I've slowly been  working on putting up some decor in his office to make it a little more kid and parent friendly! (and me-friendly, I don't like bare walls! :)  ) So anything hanging on the walls (besides the big bulletin board) is my work. Nothing awesome but I think it's decent improvement!