GORGEOUS OCTOBER!

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

Langston Hughes

(I was looking for a quote about autumn. This made me laugh and I kept going back to it so I had to include it. Not sure what someone sees in the butocks of an ape.)

I still can't figure out this blogging. This picture should be down a lot farther. Anyway, we got to go to the Newport Beach Temple and do a session.

What a beautiful month!

Bound the quilt and did a little decorating for

Halloween.

This was part of "Our Town" this month. We went to Pelican Lake Cafe near Ouray. The food was great, huge portions. Couldn't get this picture right side up.

I have never been to Pelican Lake. It is beautiful as you come over the hill and see the lake. I think that these are potato storage warehouses being built by an Idaho potato farm that came down and bought and ton of land and are now growing potatoes. If the figures which I heard were correct, we are all in the wrong business.

Part 2 of "Our Town." They reopened the Quarry after 5 years and it was free during this month so we went one weekend. The weather was about 65 and it was incredible. The visitor's center and the quarry exhibit hall were beautiful buildings and very well done. I am excited that tourism will be coming back to town.

Took part of the drive around the Monument. Stopped and hiked to the petroglyphs.

Walked down to the river. This picture didn't catch the beautiful green color of the river and the gorgeous golds of the fall trees.

Are you ever too old to be amazed at all these dinosaur bones in the hillside?

Now for California: Elise and I flew down to spend a week at her sister Amy's home in Hawthorne. She lives 5 minutes from Manhattan Beach and we ate at North End Diner (shown on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives). It was a fun restaurant. We had such gorgeous weather, unseasonably warm.

The view as you come down to Manhattan Beach. They have a boardwalk where we walked and admired all of the gorgeous homes.

Point Fermin Lighthouse (I think). We couldn't get very close.

Wayfarer's Chapel along Palos Verdes Drive.

Point Vicente Lighthouse.

Crystal Cove State Park. This was just a few minutes after the picture above at the Newport Beach Temple. The fog was on the shore and it was freezing cold.

This bobcat walked in front of our car at Crystal Cove State Park with a rabbit in its mouth.

I think this is Malibu Beach.

This was my beach attire on Malibu Beach. Can you tell I'm not from California? I joined the girls with string bikinis. In my defense, we had left Utah very early that morning and had gone straight sightseeing without changing.

Getty Villa.

Disneyland! Guess which rides?

California Adventure. They had just opened The World of Color which is a fountain/light show in the pond directly in front of this ferris wheel. It was an incredible show. A suggestion: don't go down on the boardwalk - we think you would be able to see better if you were up a little higher.

WE DID IT!

It's come and gone! We trained long and, some of us, hard, and it showed in the results of the Little Grand Canyon Marathon and 10K.

This picture was on the card. Don't know who this nice gentleman and dog are but maybe the photographer does or maybe it was a test picture.
Brad was the first to come across the finish line in approximately 42 minutes. Photographer was helping with infrastructure for the race and therefore could not get a picture of him coming across the finish line!




Brock was right behind at approximately 44 minutes. He says he slept only 1/2 hour the night before and is requesting a rematch with Brad.

Bryce was not far behind at approximately 50 minutes (these numbers are from memory and I plead old age if they are wrong). They all beat the times they were going for by a large amount. They did great!

This picture is just to prove that I actually did it and no one has any proof that I really didn't stop the whole way! Don't know my time, I think about 1 hour 5 minutes.

The photographer missed Patti crossing the finish line. I believe it was about 1 hour 11 minutes. Both old women (older) finished in times well below what they thought and I'm darned proud of both of them.

Tandi was amazing as always. She got first place overall in the women's marathon and probably about 5th overall. Brad tied for 2nd, Brock was 5th and Bryce was about 14th. (The above picture is blurry, but if you notice the objects quite far in the distance, they are as clear as a bell. I thought it was just my eyes. Hmmmm. Sorry guys.)

The runners are joined by the future runners. All in all it was a VERY successful run and a fun weekend with great company. Hard to imagine that it won't be in the back of my mind all the time now that I need to go run. What's next?

Bear Lake

Scott, Bobbi, Josh Cottrell, Brad, Mom and Dad

Our last trip of the summer was to Bear Lake before Brad was done working. I didn't take any pictures AGAIN of his office on the beach. We stayed with Mom and Dad in Harbor Village. Played tennis with them, they are amazing. Went to Paris, Idaho to see the Tabernacle, what a beautiful building.

Then tennis started. We headed to St. George on Thursday for a tournament on one of the hottest weekends of the year. The girls did so good playing for two days in 105+ weather.

Casey McClellan

Ashlyn Breakfield/Kris Jenkins

Chelsie Hall

Mady Lund/Ashley Angus

They are a fun group of girls! You really get to know someone when you are in a car for 14 hours!

Alaska 2

A few months ago, Elle (one of the girls from tennis) came over and she used my machine to make quilts for her sisters that live in Australia that were both having babies this year. Then she found the little outfits in Florida when she visited. It was a fun project and I learned a lot about my machine!

Flowers in the front yard. Why do they bloom and die so quickly?





The cruise ship sitting in port in Seattle. They are monstrous vessels.

Our stateroom where we lived for 8 days.

Here's looking back from our balcony as we pulled out of port. I am leaning past our partition and didn't notice till tonight that I am such a good photographer that I caught our neighbor's belly in the picture!

Skyline of Seattle.

Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau.

The train in Skagway that we didn't take. There were waterfalls everywhere.

This bear ran in front of our bus on the road to the Yukon. We stopped and watched him eat on the side of the road. That was our only wildlife sighting other than the whales and a bald eagle that flew ten feet off our balcony.

Calving at Glacier Bay.

This was my quarantine day while we were cruising Glacier Bay. Long story. Just a warning - don't EVER, EVER ask for Imodium on a cruise ship unless you are on death's doorstep.

Glacier Bay. These pictures don't show how expansive everything is. Kind of like the sky in Montana. The landscape is just larger than life in Alaska.

Can you see the whale's tail? Probably only if the picture is as big as your screen. We saw them all afternoon coming out of Glacier Bay. The only one I saw completely come out of the water was when I didn't have my camera, just the binoculars. We got up at 6 one morning and froze sitting at the front of the boat to try to see some whales and we saw tons more on a clear and sunny afternoon.

We did not do our homework for this trip. We were so busy before we left and didn't even think to see where there were going to be lighthouses. The day before we ended the cruise we thought to ask. We caught this one just in time and then the next was just as we came into Victoria. I don't know how many we passed that we didn't know about!!

What a beautiful trip and how lucky we were to be able to go and see that part of the country and a tiny bit of Canada. Here's to 30 more years of marriage!