The month of September began with a trip to St. George, Las Vegas, and then back to St. George. It was a trip we have had planned since about February with my some of my brothers and my sister, Deon. On Wednesday, September 1, we drove to St. George, checked into the World Mark Estancia and then headed to Don and Dana's home for dinner. We met Deon and Gary, Sam and Kathy, and Dave and Suzette there for dinner. (Ed and Debbie came in later that evening.) We barbecued hamburger to go along with corn from our garden, some fruit, and chips. Of course, we had to have peach sundaes for dessert as is a tradition for these St. George trips with family.
The reason for the stop in St. George, before heading to Las Vegas for some activities there, was to see Beauty and the Beast at the Tuacahn theater on Thursday night. For something to do during the day on Thursday, we piled into two cars and drove an hour to Cedar Breaks National Monument. Paul and I had driven there earlier this summer and felt it would be a good excursion for this group. We packed a lunch to eat at the entrance of the monument and then drove to the three look out points. The vistas were beautiful and the company even better. It was a great way to spend the day before going to the show.
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| Kathy is an avid Jr. Ranger fan. She collects the booklets at every park she visits and tries to complete the exercises in it to earn a pin. She has a whole hat full of pins. |
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| A magnificent panorama taken at one of the stops |
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| Dave and Suzette didn't join us for this little trip, nor did they go to Vegas with us. |
We met for dinner at Freddie's Steak Burgers and then headed to the Tuacahn Theater. We were so glad we decide to stop in St. George to see this show as it was magnificent. The sets, the costumes, the acting, and the singing were as good as we have ever seen. It was probably one of the best shows we've seen at this outdoor theater.
Friday morning, we each headed in our own cars to travel to Las Vegas. We had tickets to see the Donny Osmond show at the Tropicana and then on Saturday for the BYU football game at the brand new Regeant Arena. The Donny show was wonderful as he sang so many of his old popular songs. He has made 35 albums and took requests for songs from those albums. At one point he did a look at his career, the ups and the downs, through rap and video. It was amazing and brought back so many memories of our younger years when we would see them on television.
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| All of Donny's albums |
Saturday, we just lounged around the Worldmark condo - even taking a dip in the lazy river. The Fuller's and ourselves took a trial run to check out the best place to park for the game. We found that the parking lot at Mandolin Bay hotel was the best as it was right across the street from the arena. We left for the game very early so we could eat dinner at the food court at the hotel. Todd flew into Las Vegas, took a cab to the hotel, and met us for a quick Subway dinner. He took off early to scout out the new arena but, we, being much older and therefore much slower, leisurely walked across the bridge to the arena a little later. The arena was amazing and the game very exciting. It was especially fun because we won the game against Arizona. After the game, we took Todd back to the airport where he insisted he could find a place to sleep before his 6:00 A.M. flight. He said later it was the worst night of his life. He should have stayed with us at he condo but an Uber would have been hard to come by (and expensive) that early in the morning.
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| Paul cooling off in the lazy river. Las Vegas was so hot you could not walk on the cement around the pool without wearing shoes. |
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| Sam all decked out for the game. Masks were required in the arena |
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| Subway dinner with Todd |
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| Waiting outside the arena for the 4 who took an Uber from the Mandelin Bay to the arena. Paul had all the tickets on his phone so we all had to all go in together. We waited for them about 45 minutes in the heat. |
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| Ryan brought his family and one of Julia's friends to the game. They were lucky and found a hotel right across the parking lot from the arena so parking was not a problem. |
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| Todd had tickets with Ryan's family |
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| Inside the arena before the game |
Sunday morning, we left Las Vegas early enough to make it back to St. George in time to meet Ryan and family for church. Luckily, they had a 1:30 sacrament meeting. After church, we met the rest of the group at Don and Dana's for a barbecue chicken dinner. Dave and Suzette joined us again and we had such fun visiting again. We were tired from the lack of sleep the night before due to the late night game, so we returned to our condo early.
Monday, after breakfast, we did some shopping for groceries so we could cook a spaghetti dinner for the group at the condo and then headed over to Don and Dana's. We facetimed Sonnie while we were all together so she could see and talk with her brothers and sisters. Her birthday was the next week so it was a kind of birthday wish for her. She was thrilled. We watched the first half of the movie, Cruella, and then left to start dinner preparations. After dinner, we drove to the Tuacahn theater to see Count of Monte Cristo - A very dramatic musical where you had to listen to the lyrics of the songs to understand what was happening. It was a great production and very different from Beauty and the Beast.
Tuesday, Paul and I met Ryan and Katie and Nathan for a late breakfast at Tiffany's Creperie. They had wanted to take us there when we were in St. George a month earlier but we didn't find the time. We were glad to go this time as the crepes were amazing - huge and delicious. I was glad I ordered one with egg and avocado instead of so much sweet. The others were wonderful as well, though.
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| Eggs benedict folded crepe |
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| Nathan was glad he stayed home from school that day as he loves these crepes. He almost ate the whole thing. |
We went back to Don and Dana's to finish watching Cruella before leaving to see if we could take advantage of the case lot sale at Smith's. We got a couple of things but not everything I was hoping for as they were sold out. After relaxing at the condo for a couple of hours, we left to go to Dave and Suzette's for dinner. Sam and Kathy had purchased some homemade chicken pot pies and Suzette made a green salad and set out some fruit for a delicious meal before the last show at Tuacahn. That show was School of Rock. It was loud and colorful and fun, in parts. We were a little disgusted that they had put in a gay couple as parents of one of the children. It was not necessary to the plot and it turned us off a bit. Deon and Gary and Ed and Deb loved the show. Paul and I felt it was not our favorite but it was ok. Sam and Kathy and Don and Dana hated it. I don't think they laughed once throughout the whole show. The next morning we all packed up, said our good byes and left for home. A fun trip with family.
We got home on Wednesday in just enough time to get beds made for Andrea and Casey and Jillian and Maggie to arrive in Heber. They were on their way to take the girls to BYU-I but came to Utah first so Maggie could buy a car. She has a small online business with her incredible art and makes enough money to finance a car for college. The prices for cars in Utah seemed to be lower than Oregon, hence the detour on the way to Idaho. They arrived Thursday night and were out all day on Friday car hunting. They were successful in finding what appears to be the perfect car for Maggie. It's a small Jeep SUV, 4 wheel drive, and relatively new with low mileage. We had dinner that night and visited as they were leaving the next morning to have breakfast with BYU cousins (Casey's nieces and nephews) and then on to Rexburg for dinner with the BYU-I cousins, more Westovers.
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| The three girls with Charlotte at BYU |
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| The big purchase |
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| The girls and the new car - looking good Jillian. |
Also happening as soon as we got home from St. George was the delivery of our new area rug for our living room. As we were driving up the canyon on Wednesday, we got a call from Guy Blaine, the carpet man. He came by on Thursday and helped us lay it and cut out a part of the rug for the electrical outlet. We love the look. It brightens up our room and is lovely to walk on. It was time for a change after 15 years.
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| The new look |
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| Grateful that Paul took time to help me peel the majority of the peaches we processed. |
We attended our first official BYU home football game that Saturday. It was against Utah, a long time rival. Over the years, the total games played against each other was 18 - 9 wins for Utah and 9 wins for BYU. This was the tie breaker game. After seeing the team play against Arizona in Las Vegas the previous weekend, we didn't think there was a chance of BYU winning.....but we did!!! It was an amazing game - stressful but so exciting.
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| The game was played on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the world trade center and the pentagon. |
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| The half time tribute to all who lost their lives that day was incredible. The combined bands from Utah and BYU formed the outline of the United States with members of the military spreading the flags. The remembrance also included a moment of silence. |
After the game the students went wild and stormed the field in celebration of a long time, overdue win against Utah. We stayed around for quite a while just to take in all the joyous action on the field.
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| Fireworks were shot off with the win |
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| The crowds just kept coming until the entire field was covered with students. |
The Arizona State with BYU was held the next week with another win, thanks to Arizona's 17 penalties for 134 yards. This is the first year we have played and won three Pack 12 teams. Sam and Kathy are fun to go to the games with as they are true blue BYU fans and really get into the spirit of the games.
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| Notice the 'Y' on Kathy's cheek. They came early enough to do some of the activities taking place outside the stadium before the game - like face painting. |
Sunday, the 19th, Jon's boys (minus Taylor) came up for dinner. Charlotte and and Aubrey and Katie joined us. It was such a great Sunday afternoon. The boys arrived first and were so talkative and excited to be in our home. When Katie and the two girls came, the conversation was even better. The all started looking at the old reunion scrapbook and reminiscing about all the fun times we had as a family when they were all younger. I served chicken in cream sauce and it was devoured along with a couple of dozen rolls. After dessert, everyone left to get through the canyon before it got dark but not before expressions of love and the promise to do this again. We were grateful for Jaron who arranged with his brothers to come and brought them all up to our home.
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| After dinner they all went downstairs to play pool and foosball together. FUN TO SEE THEM INTERACTING TOGETHER |
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| The cousins just before saying goodbye |
Ryan's birthday was Wednesday, the 22nd. He had a convention in Park City where his company was doing a presentation to some brokers for dental practices. He came up on Wednesday to have a strategy meeting with his partner and then the next morning attended the day's activities at the conference. I couldn't stand for him to go his whole birthday without some kind of a celebration so I baked Hostess cupcakes for him and set them out for when he arrived at our home. He was thrilled that we would remember him that way.
Also on that Wednesday, we drove to Draper to have dinner at Kathy and Curt Morgan's home. This was the dinner we try to have every few months with my siblings - Kathy, Sam and Deon and our spouses. We had a couple of errands to run on the other side of the mountain so we picked up Deon and Gary in what we thought would be plenty of time. We forgot about commute traffic on I-15 and ended up being 40 minutes late. We are so glad we live on the Heber side of the mountains where we can pick and choose the time in which we travel to Provo or Salt Lake. The dinner at the Morgan's was good and we had a fun time together. There is never a lose for conversation when we are all together.
Ryan stayed with us Thursday night, left Friday afternoon, and then drove back to Provo Saturday afternoon with his family to attend the BYU game against South Florida. (It's a good thing he loves to drive.) We also attended the game after having dinner at Kitchen 88 in American Fork. The game was great the first quarter and even the second quarter was respectable. During the second half, Florida figured out how to move the ball and scored on us three times. Our defense looked sick. Luckily our offense did well, being able to score 4 times in the first half and 1 time in the second half for the win. It was a hard game to watch.
Ryan and family stayed the night with us on Saturday after the game, and spent a leisurely Sunday with us the next day. Todd and his family came up in the afternoon to join us. We had a ham dinner together before the Ryan Millars needed to leave to make it back to St. George before it got too late. We love having them relatively close.
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| Aria was at the dinner table but hiding from having her picture taken |
That last week of September was a zoo. I felt like I was on a continual deadline of getting things ready for company and dinners. Beside taking a dessert to the dinner at the Morgan's, making hostess cupcakes for Ryan, doing a big Sunday dinner for 12, we hosted a ward dinner group at our home on Friday. Our ward had an activity where the ward was divided into 12 groups with each group assigned to a host family's home for dinner. We had 10 people come to our home. Two people brought Hors d' Oeuvres, one brought salad, one brought sherbet for a punch, and I provided breadsticks. The ward bought Costco Lasagna for each host family to cook. We had a great time getting to know one another which was the purpose of the activity. After dinner, we all went to the bishop's home for dessert and more visiting. A great, and much needed, ward activity.
This month, Paul got it in his head that he wanted to get rid of a flower bed on the berm behind our home. It was there because of a big rock right in the middle of the lawn. We had created a bed of annuals around the rock for a color spot. He said the flower bed was an area he was always having to pull grasses out of and wanted to decrease his work load. I finally gave in so, on the last Monday of the month, he got Joey Hyer to come over with his front loader to move the rock. They had to drag it across our lawn in order to place it in a barked area of our yard. With annuals planted around it next year, it will look good and give us another color spot in our yard that will be more visual than the one on the berm. Over the last two years, we have gradually turned the berm into a totally grassy area. It used to have two planter boxes full of annuals that were pretty but a lot of work.
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| Getting ready to push the rock into its place. |
On Wednesday evening, the29th, we traveled to Sandy to watch Jaiden play football for Bingham high. He is on the freshman team and plays defense as a corner back. We were glad we made the effort to go see him play. He did well and the team won the game 44 to 0. While we were there, Bradon and Gavin came over to see us and then later, Taylor spent some time talking to us. We haven't seen Taylor for many months so it was good to see him. We left at half time due to the cold and my cough but we could tell that Jaiden loves the game and is good at the positions he plays.
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| Jaiden was # 24 at the front left corner of the picture |
The very last day of the month, we decided to drive Guardsman Pass to see the fall colors. We picked up Deon and Gary and drove up the mountain till we got to the fork in the road. We had always gone to Salt Lake but this time we took the fork to Park City. We were glad we did because we saw some new and beautiful vistas. The colors of the hills were amazing - red, orange and yellow against the dark green of the evergreens. We were in awe and so glad we took time take that drive on that day. We ended up at Zuppa's in Park City for lunch. A fun afternoon.
And this brings us to the end of another month but I can't close this post without a collection of memes from the month.
