Happy Halloween!

Yeah Packers, thanks for giving Courtney an awesome

Halloween.  

Halloween cereal, "Boo" berry for Boo, get it?

and jack 'o lanterns! Courtney's is the one on the right,

yea, it's the bathroom men and women's sign, holding hands.

Whatever!

Our Halloween was quiet and uneventful, not exactly the way I

like to spend my holidays.  I miss not making haunted gingerbread

houses, carving pumpkins, hosting a murder mystery or making Mom's 

homemade donuts.  We did give out treats, Chris manned the door so I

could enjoy Young Frankenstein and we saw over 125 trick or treaters and

three dogs. . .in costumes. . . oh brother!

We did have a month of watching Halloween movies, we watched

The Ring, Addams Family, The Others, The Haunting, Hocus Pocus, 

The Grudge, The Village, IT and The Haunting in Connecticut.

SPOOKY!!!

Copper Trees

 This is the sight that met us as we drove up to the church

 I've never seen anything like it, looked just

like copper, don't you think so?

 I thought the flag was a nice touch.

One of the prettiest signs of fall I've seen.

Aurora Borealis

Well, we did it, we finally did it.

We received a call the other night from the assistants,

one of the elders had called them and reported northern lights.

 My hero's, I've waited 16 months to see the northern lights,

 and they did not disappoint, it was worth the wait.

Chris took these awesome pictures.

Courtney

Some updates from Utah and our baby girl.

Kaitlin and Courtney. . . . . cooking?

This just made me laugh and laugh,

marker fight or family hugs?

Visitors from Canada, Jordan and Kyle

Courtney and Drew

Kaitlin and Courtney, ready for the dance

Courtney, Courtney and Drew at school

Progress?

So, I guess they are making progress on the temple.

Every time we drop by there is improvement.

It's supposed to be done in just over a month,

we shall see.

Sisters, Sisters

Today we welcomed all our sisters to the mission home,

to meet one another and to learn together.

Of course, I had to make it a Halloween theme

spider web brownies,

candy corn cookies,

orange colored butter cookies,

these were my new favorites, candy corn cupcakes.

aren't they adorable.

Candy dishes for the training, I do this for the zone leader

trainings too.

I found the cutest spider web server this year, 

I LOVE it.

Lunch was ready when they arrived, complete with

orange everything, including the serving utensils.

We had chicken salad on croissants,

orange jello and the desserts.

After lunch we did a training and then we did a little

sister bonding project.  The sisters all made some thank

you cards and Sister Woodruff helped them sew a rice bag for 

heating up for aches and pains. 

Then we ate supper, we had super nachos, with sweet pork,

 taco meat and all the trimmings. 

Fresh fruit, caramel dip, leftover jello and more desserts.

Big smiles and big appetites.

It was very fun to sit down with them and hear

their conversations,  just like your own kids.

We had a wonderful time with our sisters, learning together and

sharing our testimonies and spirits.

Cutie, Patootie

Dad, was playing with an app the other night,

and produced this cool effect on Courtney's picture.

Doesn't matter what you do to her, she's still a

"cutie patootie"!  Don't you think?

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

We miss you not being here with us.

Eating turkey, just isn't the same without you  ;)

State Choir

Courtney joined the State Choir.  It's a special choir,

with representatives from each high school.  They only take so 

many from each school and Courtney decided she wanted to

be a part of it.  They all learned the same music, extremely 

difficult music and then they got together in Salt Lake for three

days of fun, practice and the final performance.

They invite a guest conductor and this year is was 

Mack Wilberg from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Here's our beautiful daughter in her dress just before the

performance.  "Isn't she lovely, isn't she wonderful".

Do your best and know that we are with you in spirit, and

 so wish that we were there to hear you sing and watch you perform.

Harem

On our way out of town Saturday morning, and going 

home was not our choice by the way, we saw this awesome 

sight, not just once but twice.  There was one group just outside of

 Jasper, we didn't stop because we were in a hurry to get on our way.

But when we saw the same thing just down the road,

we had to stop.

This is a proud bull elk,

and his harem.  Count them, there are at least eight.

Vacation?

It has been a crazy couple of months, so we are so looking

forward to a little R and R.

The day after we got the elders and Sister Hayes to the airport,

we packed a bag and headed back to Jasper.  We look forward 

to taking pictures, trying some new restaurants, and maybe

 going to some new places we haven't been to before.

Driving into the park we came across this impressive scene.

This huge bull elk was crossing the river.  We stopped the

car, jumped out and took pictures.  He looked so amazing.

Then he slowly climbed out of the water,

shook off,

and scratched. . . both sides.  He could care less who was watching.

We stayed until all the other cars had packed up and left.

One car of young asians pulled up, got out of the car, watched him 

for a minute, looked over at me and asked in very broken english,

moose?

Our vacation was short lived, late that night we had a 

call from some elders who were trying to destroy each other

and so the next morning, after getting no sleep, we packed up our

things and drove back home.  Chris wanted me to stay and he would

come back, but I couldn't see me staying there for 8 hours without a 

car and him driving eight hours alone.

Maybe next year.

Fond Farewell

Today we went to transfer meeting.  The pictures we took 

yesterday didn't turn out so well, so we took them again.

I took treats for the new trainers and it was fun to see the new

missionaries meet their new companions.

We had a wonderful transfer meeting, with testimonies from the

out going missionaires.  And a beautiful song, upon my request,

from a few of the elders going home.

nice companion ties

We had a delicious lunch for the out going, I made pepper beef

sandwiches, had orange chips, orange frog eye and

orange buns. . . of course!

would you expect anything different

and frog eye salad complete with spiders

Next time we need to hide the markers!

We are trying something new, we had a bigger lunch and

then we had snacks for dinner, they seemed to like it.

It was kind of like a mini open house of mine, we enjoyed

mozzarella sticks, little weinies, grapes, carrots (orange),

Patti's bean dip with chips, green pepper jelly with crackers, 

taquitos and lemonade.   I didn't even have anything, not hungry.

But I made sure we had a yummy dessert, chocolate layered

yum, decorated to look like a graveyard.  That I had.

A fond farewell to a few of Canada's best, we will

miss you.