First Part of December (sadly in reverse)

Well December might be a bit more busy so I thought I would do a mid-month post. Of course the pictures go from most recent to latest and it's just too much trouble to switch them all around . . . 

Jonas turned 20! He celebrated his bday by driving out the night before to Blanding and then towing back his old Jeep. Nice. He made it home in time for orange chicken dinner and some peanut-butter chocolate cake. 

I really love my cute little Sunbeams class. This one, Hazel, is definitely a fav. She took my phone and took lots of pictures. Here are a few. :)

Molly and I, with a ton of help from Lori as well, organized another Creche Festival for our community. We were able to do it Friday night and Saturday this year. It looked beautiful, but is definitely a lot of work . . . 

There were some pros and cons about it this year. Pros: it's awesome. We had maybe 50+ more people come than last year. There were more non-members of our church that came than last year. We had about a dozen or so displays from a ladies group of the Methodist church and a pastor of another church. Very cool. Cons: it's so much work. (Is it really worth it?) Less participation and attendance from our own members.

We went and got our Christmas tree and it's lovely. :) Truly, it's a nice looking wild Christmas tree! The girls were happy about it and enjoyed their snow fight while Ben worked on securing our tree to Emmy's car. :)

This was round 2 where Emmy was able to give some payback to Lucy and pin her.

The look of defeat on Emmy's face after losing the snow wrestle to her li'l sis. She looks so mad, but she really wasn't. Funny picture.

Go Lucy, go.

And so it began . . . 

The Tree! I'll have to post some inside pictures of it with lights and ornaments. It's a beaut. I mean, scrawny and small, but pretty and well-proportioned. 

We actually got snow the first day or 2 of December. Yay! I herocially took all three dogs on a walk. Haha. Now December has been like in the low to mid-50s. I mean, nice for fall. But I want more snow.

November 2025

As my kids have gotten older, I just don't have as much to post. So I have my very unoriginal titles of month and year. Boring. But it is what it is. So, on to our November 2025 - which, according to our wall calendar looked dull. So why did it seem so super crazy!? Makes no sense . . . 

Cute doggies cuddling together ha!

I made bread . . . which is something I don't do very often anymore because my girls don't eat a whole lot of it. But it turned out great!

I went hiking (in November) with Heather and Jaymie and it was dreamy. Packed snow/icy conditions near the top, but nothing crazy. Lucky me.

I took my two lovely friends, Molly and Melissa, to Ridgway to see the Mountain Film Festival. The films were awesome but the northern lights we saw were equally so! Amazing! My first time seeing them. :)

Myself, Molly, and Melissa. I love these gals.

Our hood. Always something exciting when the neighbor's son comes for a visit (i.e., is not in jail).

Gordon is the cutest. And growing way too fast.

Three dogs - it's pretty great really. They are super chill (finally) in the evening time and it's so nice.

THE BIG SURPRISE - JONAS COMES HOME! Okay, well not home but to my parents' home for 

Thanksgiving. Jonas had found out the Monday before that they would officially be leaving deployment and flying into SLC on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Miles was driving down from Rexburg and so it worked out perfectly. Jonas didn't tell anybody (but Miles ha) and so when we finally arrived around 8:30pm - Jonas was there! YAY. So fun! It was so fun to have everyone there. But I am lame and didn't get a picture with my parents and Derek - who was also there. Lame, lame. But we had a lovely time in Midway with family! My mom made a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with a little help from us. :) We played games, hung out, kids drove the toy, etc. 

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I took the girls to Weber State University's campus to walk around and get a feel for it. Emmy has applied and been accepted there and so it was good to check it out. I am not sure Emmy is quite sold or sure of what she wants to do - it's hard getting a feel when the campus was completely empty! But it still was a good trip. Lucy's best-friend in Utah, Lila, met us there and hung out on campus with us - afterwards we grabbed some lunch and then did some thrift shopping and all had some good finds. 

On Saturday, Ben, the girls, and the dogs all headed back to Montrose early, early. 5:30am early. They left to catch our high school's football team's semi-final game. Which, sadly, they lost 29-31. Ugh. I managed to get the three of us left (myself and the boys) tickets to the BYU football game vs. UCF. It was really fun! It was Jonas' 2nd collegiate game, but both boys' first BYU football. So that was cool. It was a poor start for us, but ended great with a "W" for the "Y." 

Ben made this amazing banner for Jonas! Jonas and I drove home Sunday night and it wasn't my favorite driving, but we've driven in worse. It was good to be home. Miles headed back up north to finish up his final few weeks of the semester.

October 2025

Another October in the books! My calendar looks empty but it sure did not feel that way! I don't even know why, but life is just so busy lately. Maybe it's just me working more and all that? (I did just finish up working full-time for the past 3 weeks to cover for my coworker who had to have surgery . . . )

The pictures are in reverse . . . 

We changed around our back room - now we'll call it the "back parlor." Ha. The change started because we thought maybe we'd put the dogs back there. But then that was kind of silly to have a whole room dedicated to their crates . . . but we'd already made some changes (gotten rid of a table, etc.) and so we just went with it. It's really nice and a fun change!

Aiden Bugarin (Miles' best friend, my best-friend's son, one of Emmy's early crushes, etc.) got married in the Fort Collins temple. As Miles was the "best man," he made the trip - via airplane from Idaho Falls to Denver - and met us there. It was fun to see him mid-semester. The wedding was wonderful and the day was gorgeous. 

Sarah, now a mother-in-law! She has three boys and so now it will be nice to have a daughter in the family. Sarah looked so lovely and happy!

The newly weds - Emly and Aiden! Yay!

Before heading up to the wedding, we were able to stop by Jim and Diana's new place (we stayed at their home). It was really a nice place and it was so great to see them! They looked good and we got to take a walk outside to a nearby park. It was a nice morning and, again, just so nice to visit with them. We did get to see them at church the next day, too.

We took the three (!) dogs out an Gordon's first outdoor adventure. The dogs had a fabulous time and it was fun to watch them run free. :)

I was able to get out and hike with 1. Awesome friends and 2. My favorite local hike (Ouray perimeter trail).

Berry turned 100! Yay, she made it! She took a few of us out to dinner the night before her big birthday. And she's just the cutest. She went with her granddaughter (who had come out from California for the big celebration) to her favorite restaurant on her actual birthday. But afterwards I had arranged for a group to come over to her home and sing happy birthday to her. She was surprised and it was cute!

Cute girls/sisters in the beautiful fall season. 

Miles sends me some cool pictures of his cool adventures up in Idaho. A lot of them include his outings to some caves up where he is.

He and a group took a day-adventure to the Tetons. Lucky! Unfortunately it was kind of rainy day and Miles was the only one with a raincoat. But they still had a little adventure and got to see some of the beauty of the Tetons.

Go October! Now onto November . . .