Princess Eilonwy

Brittney is the best sister-in-law anyone could have. She is an amazing resource. Peter has been teaching her to become a photographer recently. I asked her to take some pictures of Brynne and Barrett in their Halloween costumes before the big night. We took these on the trail right behind my house.

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me the the name of the book(s) from which Brynne's costume is derived. Double bonus points to anyone who can identify her three props and triple bonus points will be awarded to anyone who can specifically name two of the three props. What are said bonus points worth? Probably nothing, but you never know.

Spiderman

Once again, Thank you!, Thank you!, Thank you! to Britt.

Brynne's New Love

Brynne received an invitation to a birthday party for her friend Lucie. Lucie decided to take her four best friends horseback riding. I went along because Lucie's mom Pascale needed help driving all the kids over to Coalville. Brynne was super excited for the party because she had never ridden a horse before.

Check out that huge grin as she waits for

her turn to be helped astride a horse.

The horses.

Brynne on her horse named Martha.

Brynne and Lucie as they headed back to the corral.

The guides took the girls out on about an hour ride. They started out on the rail trail and then rode around the edge of Echo reservoir. Brynne had a fabulous time. She LOVED horseback riding. She is now asking for horseback riding lessons for Christmas.

St. George

Earlier this month the kids, Caddie and I joined Peter, Brittney, Hannah, James and Bethany on a trip to the magical place called St. George. Brittney's parents Rob and Jana McQuay live down there and so of course Hannah and James spend quite a bit of time there. Barrett was so excited to finally have the chance to visit the place that he had heard James talk so much about. We had hoped that Justin would be able to join us, but as things turn out he had to stay home and work. He ended up working a ton of hours while we were gone. We went over UEA weekend, which was especially early this year. However, that didn't stop it from being super cold and snowy in Park City almost the whole time we were away. That made us extra glad to be down in the 70 and 80 degree weather.

Rob and Jana were so kind to allow all of us to invade their beautiful home in Entrada. For any readers who are not as well versed in the High School Musical movies as we are, Entrada is where most of HS Musical 2 was filmed. My girls were so excited to go swim in the pool where Sharpay, Troy and Gabriella swam. We had a really great time. The kids went swimming twice, Rob was brave and let each of the girls take turns driving his golf cart, we learned how to play Texas Hold'em, we had a late night sing along with Rob on guitar, Rob and Jana treated us to lunch at the gorgeous country club, I took Caddie for a walk up beautiful Snow Canyon every day joined by Bethany and either Brittney, Rob or Peter and we even fit in a little sightseeing, shopping and relaxing. One of the highlights for the girls was playing dress up with all of Jana's clothes. Jana is much nicer than I am because I would never let three little girls raid my closet, but pretty much anytime we were home the girls were in her closet. She even let Blythe and Brynne wear two of her dresses to lunch at the country club. They had so much fun dressing up. I even supplied clip on earrings for the girls to wear that I inherited from my Grandma Chudleigh.

Hannah (in Brynne's clothes) and Brynne and Blythe

(in Jana's clothes) at the country club.

James and Barrett (his hair was out of control that day).

Jana reserved a private room for us.

Blythe

Brynne

Brittney took this one of Barrett and me.

Brittney, me and the girls in front of one of Jacob Hamblin's wagons. He was one of the earliest settlers of the St. George area and was especially noted for his ability to make peace with the native americans. We toured his home which was one of the largest in the area at the time he lived there. Somehow neither Britt or I thought to get a photo of the actual house.

The girls swimming in "THE POOL."

These girls are best friends.

The kids behind the waterfall.

The day before I left I posted a status update on facebook about leaving for St. George. I got a comment back from my cousin Kirsten who lives in Gilbert, AZ telling me that she was also going to be in St. George that Saturday. St. George is about a 5 hour drive for us and an 8 hour drive for her. They left Arizona with their four kids at the crack of dawn on Saturday so that they could attend the birthday party for the son of some of their best friends who just moved to St. George to in order to open their own restaurant called, The Bent Fork. Are they the nicest friends or what? They also were dying to eat at The Bent Fork, which is a Southwest/Italian fusion restaurant. Kirsten invited us to have dinner with them on Saturday at their friend's restaurant. I'm always a bit leery of taking Barrett to a new restaurant, but Kirsten assured me that it would be fine since she had an in with the chef. So we went and the food was delicious. If anyone finds themselves in St. George I highly recommend having lunch or dinner there. I had the turkey enchiladas and Blythe had a Chicken Parmesan sandwich, which she loved. Their signature dish is green chili lasagna, which sounds a bit strange, but Kirsten's husband John ordered that and said it was delicious. I think the little kids all had pizza and I know they had a great time visiting with each other. Brittney's parents joined us and it seemed like they knew half of the people dining there.

Here is most of us outside The Bent Fork after dinner.

We hit In 'n Out Burger on our way out of town the next day and had an uneventful trip home. We were sad to leave the warm weather to return to freezing temperatures at home, but everyone was happy to see Daddy and Ruby again.

Pierced Ears

Blythe has been wanting to get her ears pierced. Several of her friends already had their ears pierced and I decided that at almost 11 she was mature enough to take care of them. Justin's mom Kathy was in Utah for a week taking care of her mother and wanted to know what Blythe wanted for her birthday. So we asked if she wanted to take Blythe to get her ears pierced. She agreed and so on Monday, October 12th we went to Koi Body Piercing Studio.

Justin was a little unnerved by the fact that I decided to take Blythe to an actual body piercing studio. He was worried about what she would be exposed to. However, I did my research and decided that this was going to be the safest place to have her ears pierced with the least risk of infection.

I really wish I had taken my camera along because the very pleasant young woman who pierced Blythe's ears was indeed a sight to behold. Blythe told me afterwards that she was creeped out by the woman. So Justin can rest easy that Blythe's not going to want to look like her in a few years. Her earlobes were stretched out with holes in them the size of quarters. She had jeweled studs in her cheeks and throat not mention multiple earrings and nose rings. Kathy said that at first she thought the Koi employee was wearing a brightly patterned long sleeve shirt, but then realized that her arms were completely tattooed with images of Geisha. We were however, pleased with how professional she was. I had show her Blythe's birth certificate and my driver's license.

We picked out surgical implant grade titanium studs to use for the piercing. These earrings pose no risk of causing a metal allergy in Blythe's earlobes. The piercing was done much differently from how I had mine done. There was no earring gun involved. She used a long needle and held Blythe's earlobe with a pair of miniature tongs with a triangular shaped hole in the part that gripped her earlobe. This flattened the lobe to make it easier to pierce. After inserting the needle she somehow attached the earring and it was done. Blythe said the first ear didn't hurt at all, but the second one did hurt, which surprised her. Several days later I did notice some bruising on the back of the second ear. Another thing that was different from what I expected was the after care instructions. NO rubbing alcohol and NO twisting or rotating the earrings. The only thing she does is spray them with sterile saline solution twice a day. She was also told to leave the earrings in for a minimum of two months, but preferably six months. She was told that the longer she leaves her original earrings in the better her ears will tolerate any type of metal and will be less prone to infection. She's decided that she will change her earrings on her half birthday.

Here she is.

Other ear.

Close-up of her new earring.

A really nice feature of her studs is that the back side

is a smaller ball, which is much more comfortable for

sleeping on than a traditional sharp stud back.

When she went to school the next day she wore her hair down and decided not to tell her friends, but to wait and see how long it took for them to notice her earrings. Her two best friends Madison and Kaelena noticed right away, but her friends in her class didn't notice until later in the week when she wore her hair in a ponytail.

Fall Color

About a month ago I took my camera with me while I took the dogs out on the trail behind our house. We had a great time enjoying the glorious fall colors. The maple trees really outdid themselves this year. Here are only a few of the pictures I snapped.

Caddie alert and ready for adventure.

Happy dogs!

I almost felt like I was back in New England.

I love the contrast of the dark evergreens against the red foliage.

Gorgeous!

My attempt at being artistic.

I feel like the mouse Frederick in the children's book by Leo Lionni who saved up memories of summer and color and beauty for when the dull dreary days of winter came. The red is already long gone and only the aspens at the lowest elevations still have their leaves. The long winter is approaching and I know I'm going to be so glad I took my dogs on that walk and that I thought to take my camera along too.

Eternal Optimist

Gardening in Park City is a challenge to put it mildly. Especially when vegetables are involved. There aren't too many people with kitchen gardens. Justin has gardening in his blood and he isn't about to let an elevation of 6,500' stop him. His mother is a master gardener and has a beautiful vegetable garden. His maternal grandfather was renowned for his huge tomatoes. At his funeral in August, I heard a funny story about how he would take his enormous squash and draw faces on them and hide them in his wife's bed for her to find.

Justin has three small raised beds in the backyard and he has constructed plastic cold frames to go over two of them. Every year he attempts to grow tomatoes. He even goes to the Red Butte Garden plant sale just so he can get a Siberian tomato plant. This spring we learned that a Siberian tomato under a cold frame can still suffer frost damage. Luckily, the plant bounced back only to be faced with a frost in mid-August. This was our tomato harvest.

Not really worth the effort you think; am I right? If it were about eating tomatoes you would be right,but it's not. It's about the challenge and trying to outwit Mother Nature.

Luckily, our summer squash plant was a much better producer. Check out this puppy. I think it actually weighed more than Caddie when we brought her home.

The girls have dubbed it,

"The largest squash ever grown in a small garden in Park City."

Fortunately, we managed to pick the others when they were still a good size for eating. Squash is not one of the kids favorite vegetables, but they ate quite a bit of it. I even took to making summer squash casseroles and taking them to family parties. The squash pictured above is still sitting on my window sill and I think it's destined for our compost pile rather than our dinner table, but the girls were too proud of it to let me cook it. Besides, I think it probably would have been a bit tough.

Next spring my eternal optimist will be out in his garden with his walls of water, PVC pipes and plastic sheeting determined that it will be the year he gets a full fledged tomato crop. When he does I'll be more than happy to celebrate with some BLTs.