Canoeing Down the River; Levi Turns One; Missionary Reunion on Game Day

The City of North Salt Lake sponsored a canoe river run one Saturday and when Dallas invited Glen to join in with their family, he decided to go for it. Brooke had invited her friend.

Glen's canoe buddies were Spencer and Madison. 

The canoes were provided by the City for those people who did not have their own.

Life jackets were provided as well.

I guess it's good to have a "dry run" before getting in the river...???

And they are off!!

We had dinner at Longhorn with Glen's sisters and their husbands: Barbara and Rich and Maurine and Ray. 

We enjoyed another play date with my parents. We were so appreciative that a woman offered to take our photo at the picture wall and then laughed about how the whole point of standing there was to get the name of the play we were seeing in the photo. Oh well...

Glen and I had picnic lunches at the park two different days. The weather was so nice and the colored leaves provided beautiful scenery.

Our friends have raved over the fish and chips truck and so when I saw a notice of it at a location near us, we grabbed some food to eat at the park.

Glen gave the food a two thumbs up. I gave it a one thumb up. 

Our friend Jan wanted to borrow Glen's scooter. She had hurt her calf and was hoping this would help her be able to walk through stores without pain. 

Her request made me laugh as we had noticed her lawn had just been mowed--she mowed it with ice attached to her sore calf. And all her Halloween decorations had been set up--which she also did with her sore calf.

There's no keeping this girl down!!! She has more energy in her pinky finger than I have in my whole body!!!!

The beautiful sunsets are getting earlier and earlier as the days are getting shorter and shorter.

Joe Cowley is our ministering brother and since we haven't talked to him or Kim in a long time, we were excited when they invited us over to their home for dinner. I LOVE it when I don't have to cook!!! 

Here's a fun fact: Elder Sean Douglas who spoke in the Sunday afternoon session of general conference talked about his granddaughter Ruby who was born with her esophagus not attached to her stomach. She recently needed another surgery to reconstruct her hand which was not fully developed at birth. 

He said Ruby demonstrated great faith and confidence in her upcoming surgery because she said she knew Jesus would hold her hand.

Sweet story. Sweet little girl. Joe and Kim Cowley share that little Ruby as a granddaughter. She is the oldest daughter of their son Matt and his wife Buggy. 

My cousin Deanna posted these photos and an article about her mother's retirement from teaching. What a proud moment for my Aunt Anna Mae.

This is a photo of Natalie in action doing highlights at her cosmetology school. I love this photo as she looks so happy working on a client (which was a friend she recruited for the procedure). 

Ben and Haley's little Levi celebrated his first birthday. I was so happy they invited the Goldens and me over to be part of the celebration. Glen was working that evening and was unable to attend.

Kade picked off the orange and green and then ate just the white frosting--no cupcake.

Kade picked out this gift to give to his brother and Levi loved it.

Kade enjoyed this gift of Levi's. 

I had an eye appointment. Everything looks great except for the chalazion on my bottom right eyelid that just won't go away. Not only did I see the eye doctor, but I have also been seeing an eyelid specialist over the past several months. 

The good news is the lump in my left upper lid has gone away with the warm compressing and eyelid cleansing I have been doing. Fingers crossed that the annoying red lump on my right eyelid will calm down once and for all!!

We had a missionary reunion the Friday of general conference weekend. We had approximately 68 missionaries in attendance, most in person and a few on zoom. Some of them brought their spouses and a few brought their (hopeful) future spouses. We had 5 babies in attendance. Seven of the couples were missionaries that served in our mission who married each other. 

Dallas so kindly got the zoom meeting all set up and also recorded it so those missionaries who missed it might have the chance to watch if they want to.

We mixed and mingled for the first hour. The second hour we went into the chapel and had a devotional. I shared my thoughts first.

Then, as usual, Glen was the cleanup hitter scoring a homerun out of the park with his message. The missionaries love hearing from him and he never disappoints!!

I know I was using baseball lingo, but instead I should have used football jargon because football was foremost on Glen's mind when we got home from the reunion. 

It amazes me that Glen would even schedule something on a BYU game day. Remembering back to when our children were falling in love and looking toward marriage, I told each one of them that they better not plan their wedding on a BYU game day or their dad would not show up. 

Now, here he was having a reunion on game day. WHAT????!!?? That Friday has traditionally been when a lot of missionary reunions are held and so I guess we were just figuring we had to stick with that tradition. 

Glen was sad to miss the two hours of warm-up talk leading up to kickoff. But, he was recording the game, so he was happy he could at least watch the game when we got home. 

Well... Something happened when he tuned in where he lost the recording. He only caught the last little bit of the game. He could not get it to work to watch the part he had missed.

Talk about a sad, unhappy and frustrated man!! He watched parts of the game on YouTube, but he said it was all grainy and it was a horrible way to try and watch a game. 

He vowed that we will NEVER have another reunion during football season. And perhaps (I couldn't help but think), we might have had a little better attendance if it hadn't been a game day. Who knows?

Now on to Halloween news. On October 1st, I noticed the home on Bountiful Boulevard had their skeletons out in the yard. That means that every day this month, there will be a different skeleton scene for me to enjoy.

The safety goggles on the sawing skeleton made me laugh. As if skull eye sockets need protection!

Nani has a home in her neighborhood who does the same thing, so we have been sharing our daily skeletal photos with each other. It's fun for both of us to see the creativity each day.