Halloween 2009

As most of you (if not all) should know, Lee and I haven't been able to have kids yet and because it's just the two of us we haven't been able to get some real enjoyment out of holidays. Its not nearly as fun to celebrate holidays with just adults if you don't have friends around who would do things with you. As we are now in Nevada and the "non-children activities" around here are almost exclusively going to the bars and casinos, Lee and I don't get to join in the fun most of the time.

So, after talking about it one day and remembering what holidays were like when we were kids, I decided to invite the kids next door over to make Caramel Apples for Halloween. They came by this afternoon and we had a lot of fun. It didn't last long, but the kids enjoyed themselves and so did we. They even confessed that they had never had Caramel Apples, although they had had apples with caramel dip. That was great to hear that I could do that for them.

This evening our fun with the neighbors continued. The parents are unable to drive at the moment so Lee and I joined them and drove them around trick-or-treating! It was a blast! We took them down to our church where the Spring Creek Wards were doing "Trunk-or-Treat" and the kids got quite a haul there! I was really surprised how many people had shown up to hand candy out of the trunks of their cars. Because we don't have our own kids, this was the first time we had gone.

It's a great place to get a lot of candy in one spot, but it still wasn't the same as trick-or-treating so from there we drove around town a little taking the kids. For those of you who haven't been here, Spring Creek covers A LOT of area, and the houses are quite spread apart with no street lights in the entire town, so it's just easier for kids to be driven around. We took them to a few more places then back home again!

This was probably the best Halloween we have had in several years and we're so grateful to our neighbors for allowing us to be part of their family for a little while.

On the right you can see the effect of the glowsticks as they appear in the dark; on the left, I have enhanced the photo so you can see a little of the background.

(I apologize for the quality of the photos, camera phones don't take the best pictures)



On a different note, our anniversary is coming in 4 days! I can't believe it's been 4 years already!!!!!

This Saturday we had an exciting trip out to Ruby Lake! What should have taken a few hours total, took us about 7!

Lee and I went up to the Ruby Lake area w/ my dad to look for and harvest Pine Nuts. It was a really pleasant trip there, and nice to get out of the house. Along the way we saw the most spectacular sight, just like we were in a nature film. We spotted a golden eagle about 30 feet in front of us, about 10 feet off the road. It was taking off with a rabbit which it dropped when we startled it! It was so amazing to see it in real life!!! Lee swears he looked it right in the eyes as it was passing us. To see such a magnificent creature so close to us was very awe inspiring!

When we got there we couldn't find many pine cones which were ready to harvest, but we decided to get what we could so that we could sun-cure them at home. We wandered around trying to find some trees that had cones close enough for us to reach and managed to get about 1/2-1/3 of a grocery bag full. We were going to move further up the road to look for more, but when we got back to the truck Lee discovered that it had a flat tire! The funny thing was that my dad had just had to replace his other tire the other day so the spare was flat, too! We looked around on the other side for a little bit for more cones since we were there, but had to scrap looking further up the road. Lee thought about pumping it up and my dad hooked up his little air pump. We got up to 20 lbs pressure in and decided to head for home.

We managed to travel every 3-5 miles before stopping and filling more air in the tire until we got to the ranger station where they filled the tire full. From there we were able to make it every 8-10 miles between fillings. About 1/3 of the way home the tire finally blew! My dad put the spare on and we limped back to Spring Creek doing the same thing with the second tire.

What took us about 1 1/2 - 2 hours to get there took us another 4 - 4 1/2 to get home! However, it was a still a great day and we had a lot of fun. Can't ask for more than that, can we?

Near the end of August, Lee's grandfather passed away and we took an emergency trip to Utah for the funeral. While there, I finally got to meet Lee's siblings and biological father.

The trip was a mixture of feelings. I met Lee's grandparents on our second date over 7 years ago. I was fond of Lee's grandfather and we were sad that he had to pass and will miss him, and it was hard to see his grandma upset and missing her husband. However, it was great to contact the members of his other-side of the family whom I had not met previously and whom Lee had lost contact with.

The funeral took place in Bountiful and we made it there in time for the viewing on Monday night. The funeral was the next morning. Lee was honored to be asked to be a pallbearer. After the funeral, we all traveled to Spanish Fork where he was buried.

When everything was over we posed for pictures and exchanged phone #s with Lee's siblings and have since had contact with them through phone calls and texts.