Halloween!

It's Halloween weekend, one of our favorite times of the year.  We carved pumpkins yesterday and Wes and I went to our annual party at Deer Cliff.  Clint plans to man the door tonight and tomorrow night when the trick or treaters come!  Aaargh, mateys!

Here is the Deer Cliff crowd!  We didn't win any costume prizes this year, but our table did win 3 door prizes.  As always, it was a great time.

Marty and Kathi had awesome Fred and Wilma costumes:

We had a hard time finding Troy and Shauna all night because they were dressed up as Where's Wendy and Waldo:

Kent actually wore this sweet corduroy jacket back in the day!  He came dressed as "Dude" and he brought Kathy, his lovely Flower Garden, (or is that a bloomin' idiot???):

Curtis and Susan dressed up as a Hospital Patient and his Hot Nurse!

Here we are in our Dharma Initiative jumpsuits.  No one really knew what we were, but that's okay because to us, nothing is as cool as LOST, nothing!!  Namaste, and Happy Halloween!

Livin' The Dream

Two things I love about my husband are 1. he's always positive, and 2. he's easily satisfied.  This year his new favorite expression is "livin' the dream!"  If he has an awesome motorcycle ride, he's "livin' the dream!"  If he grills a delicious steak, he's "livin' the dream!" If it's a gorgeous day out on the lake, he's "livin' the dream!"  Whenever Wes and I sit out on the porch on a nice summer evening, we're "livin' the dream!"  Yesterday another dream came true when our new hot tub was delivered.  Wes has wanted one of these for years and finally decided to do it.  He is just giddy about it!  The kids are pretty excited too.  So come on over and join us!  When you see the steam coming from our backyard, you'll know we're "livin' the dream!"

Fall Leaves

Ahhhhh, Fall.  It has been a glorious one this year and the colors are just spectacular.  I've visited a few canyons recently just basking in the beautiful place we live!  Here are a few reasons I love the Fall just from my own yard:

Couple Costume Ideas

I am entering a costume contest on the dahling dating divas blog, where you can find LOTS of couple costume ideas!  Click on my post title to get there.  This is our Halloween costume from a few years ago.  I am the matador and he is the bull!

Mission Photos!

We haven't seen new photos in a while, so we were very excited to get these in the mail today.  Elder T sent a smattering of seriously weird pictures, everything from his decorated missionary Easter egg to missionary haircuts in progress to all the cool cars he has seen to the sword his companion bought in Chinatown.  It seems like he's having a good time along with being a missionary.  He is so happy!  Here are some of the photos we especially liked:
Maria was one of his investigators in his Spanish area in Covina:

He was so glad that he got to drive a car all summer so that he could have the air conditioning!

His first apartment came with a dog!  So of course the dog had to dress appropriately!

He wants to make sure Mom knows he's brushing his teeth!

He got to visit Chinatown a couple of times:

He was also very impressed with the Los Angeles Temple.  His district was able to spend a day there:

This looks like a nice area, we wish we had one of these in our front yard!

This is his favorite drink, and here he is imitating Abuelita:

I'm not sure why he took so many photos of this old gravel pit, but I thought this was a cute one:

Preaching to Southern California:

Kokanee Salmon

After General Conference, Wes and I drove up to Porcupine Reservoir to get a look at the Kokanee Salmon.  They are currently swimming upstream to spawn, and it is such a cool thing to see if you want to hurry and take a drive up there!  I had no idea that we even had salmon here.  They are smaller than the ones we saw in Alaska, but just as fun to watch as they try to jump up over rocks and make their way up the river.  We saw hundreds of them.  They are bright red and the stream is very shallow.  They were so close, I wanted to reach out and touch them!  Except we're not supposed to disturb them while they are spawning.  The lake was low, but it was a pretty night.  We left just as a storm was coming over the mountain.  We live in an incredible place, and we are so lucky to be able to just step out and enjoy nature and these incredible sights all around us.

We walked over a bunch of mud cracks where the lake had dried up: