Millar Moments: OUR TRIP TO AVON, COLORADO AND SEEING SONNIE WERE HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS MONTH

We had been looking forward to our trip to Colorado for weeks. We booked a Wyndam Resort in Avon, Colorado which is twenty minutes from Vail, Colorado. We had never visited this part of the state so decided to take a short vacation there. We invited Deon and Gary to go with us. Our first day was spent exploring Avon which consisted of many round abouts. It seemed like every corner our GPS lady was saying, 'At the next round about take....' We laughed a lot about that. Our resort was within walking distance of a lake but we never took advantage of it except to walk to it and look. SAD!! The walk there, though, was beautiful with lots of picture taking stops.

We loved all the sculpture seen along our walk

...and the brightly painted buildings

There was even a rock sculpture garden....

...and incredible flower pots along our walk

And then there was the lake

We ate lunch at a Subway and spent the rest of the afternoon in the resorts amazing indoor hot tub. It was huge and had a waterfall coming down from the ceiling. So relaxing.

The next day, we were off to explore Vail, Colorado. There are two villages - Lionhead and Vail. We explored both.

At Lionhead village, we took the gondola to the top of the mountain. The views were amazing. They have all sorts of activities for families as well as an amphitheater for programs. We were told many wedding take place there, too. We were amazed at the number of ski runs available for the avid skier.

After the gondola ride, we caught the bus to Vail. We were told to get off at a certain stop and we would find places to eat lunch and ice cream. We never found ice cream but we did find a deli type place for a sandwich. We, then, took the bus to the stop for the Vail gondola. We followed the map but when we got to what we thought would be the gondola ride, we found it was further down the walking path...a lot further!!! In reality, if we would have just walk straight up the street we were on for lunch we would have come right to the entrance to the gondola. At the top, the views were wonderful but there was nothing to do up there except look. We didn't spend a lot of time there.

When we got off the gondola ride, Gary and Deon were ready to get back on the bus that would take them to our car. Paul and I wanted to explore more so we split up at that point. Paul and I walked on to the Ford Park and Betty Ford's botanical garden. We were very tired when we got there but the park was beautiful and worth the walk.

It was then walking back to the bus to take us to our car. (We took over 12,000 steps that day) We found Deon and Gary relaxing in the car in the parking garage. We loved Vail and its Switzerland feel with flower pots hanging from a lot of the buildings.

That night, we celebrated Gary's 80th birthday by going to a Mexican restaurant that everyone at the resort recommended. It was the worse food we have ever tasted. Paul's enchiladas were either overcooked or had been sitting in a warming area far too long as the cheese was almost non existent. I had a taco that was not worth eating. At least Gary got his Mexican meal for the trip.

Because we had seen everything we wanted to see in Avon and Vail, Paul suggested we drive the 2 hours to Denver to visit our sister, Sonnie, who had recently been put into a memory care facility. We called her daughter, Jeannie, to arrange it. We were so glad we made the effort to do this. Sonnie was thrilled and based on her mental state, this could have been the last time that she would recognize us or know who we were. After she showed us her room and living arrangements, we took her out to lunch at Jersey Mike's. All she could say was that she loved being with us and that she wants to come stay in Utah with us for two weeks. Any other conversation was very difficult for her. When we got back to the care facility, I walked her to her room and said good bye. She proceeded to follow me back out to the front and to our car. The receptionist had to help get her back inside.

At Jersey Mike's

We left the next day and got back to Heber just in time for a funeral, a wedding reception, and a birthday celebration.
The funeral was for the son of ward friends, Dan and Betty Mathews. They are presently serving a mission in New Zealand. Not soon after they left for their mission, they received word that their son, Sam, had been diagnosed with stage four colin cancer. All the prayers and fasting on his behalf kept him alive longer than expected but he died in August. The funeral was on a Saturday and then the family celebrated a wedding for their daughter the next week. Sadness and joy for this family.

The birthday celebration was for Carly. We had her request for Sunday dinner of teriyaki chicken and fried rice. Afterwards we celebrated with a cake for her. Jon and Mindy, Clark and Olivia, and Braydon were all there.

Our next activity was attending the performance of Footloose at the Hale theater in Draper. We loved the performance. Afterwards, we had dinner at Texas Roadhouse in Orem. The Fullers went with us.

Shoes hanging from the ceiling of the stage

Another birthday celebration followed. On the Sunday before Todd's birthday, we had his favorite meal of pot roast followed by a Dairy Queen ice cream cake for dessert which is Todd's request for his birthday every year.

At the end of the month, on Labor day weekend, we attended the first BYU football game. Ryan, Katie, Grace, and Nathan came to Heber on Friday so they could go to the game on Saturday. We all dressed in royal blue to cheer on our team. We met Todd there before the game and visited for a while. (The Fullers and the Bulkeleys opted not to get tickets this year so we came by ourselves.) We have seats on the aisle which we thought would be great but not so. After this first game, we vowed that next year we would not do that. We were unaware of the number of people who leave during the game to get food from the concessions. It seemed like we were standing to let people out of our row constantly to say nothing about the other people going up and down the aisle right next to us. We won the game by such a large score that Paul and I left after the third quarter.

We were glad we left the game early as Andrea and Casey had come to Utah to bring their girls back to school and they were staying in our home. We got there early enough to see everyone and hold our great grandbaby, Arthur, for the first time. Such a joy. Maggie and Kacey are such good parents.
It was great to have two of our children and
some of our grandchildren at church with us

Andrea will miss this little one
as Maggie and Kacey and baby Arthur have
been staying with them all summer.

We can now report that the construction of our Heber temple has begun. It had been stalled for almost 3 years due to arguments at the county council meetings followed by a lawsuit by the same people that are in opposition to it being built. They have used every argument possible and the church has answered every argument with a solution. The lawsuit was settled in favor of the temple being able to be built so can see it finally happening. We are told we won't see any above ground building for several months because of all the underground work that has to be done. All we see now is lots of dirt being moved around. We are so excited that someday in the near future there will be a temple in our Heber.
The first day of construction

One last thing that happened this month was the lack of water coming into our water feature. We couldn't figure out why the pond had disappeared. Paul started digging up the tubing that connected the water feature to the water source. When he got almost to the end of the line, he discovered a tree root that had blocked the tubing. He cut the root back and there was water again. He connected new tubing and now we have a functioning water feature again. Hurray!!!