FOOTBALL, TUACAHN, AND DECK REPLACEMENT MARK THIS SEPTEMBER

 As in every year, BYU football began. We attended our first game on the first Saturday of September. It was an easy win over Utah Tech. The fun part of the football season this year is that we have seats with both Ryan and Todd. Ryan bought 4 tickets for his family and Todd bought 3 so he could bring 2 of his children to each game. On this first game, Todd brought Aria and Avery while Ryan had only Grace and Nathan with him. Katie was in Scotland with her family. It was fun to be all together. The next game wasn't so nice. It was at 1:00 in the afternoon and was incredibly hot. Todd didn't bring any of his family and Ryan stayed in St. George because Grace had her homecoming dance that night. With Katie still out of town, Ryan felt he needed to be in St. George for Grace. I lasted one quarter of the game. It was so hot I thought I was going to pass out. I spent the rest of the game down in the concession area where it was a lot cooler. I watched the game on the jumbotron for a while. Don and Dana have seats just up from us and she lasted until half time. We met up and just sat on the concrete and visited. I did check the score every once in a while and didn't go back up to my seat until the middle of the 4th quarter. Not the best way to see the game but at least we won.

Todd's girls loved the spray bottle I brought.

Before the second game, we tailgated in our car
with Jersey Mike's sandwiches.

The next big happening in our lives was the demolishing of our deck. We had someone give us a bid which was reasonable. He could start the project immediately so we had him go ahead. When the floor was pulled off, the wood beams underneath were rotting due to water damage. Hence, they had to tear down the entire deck and even had to take down the brick towers to below the floor level. The cost of all this has almost tripled from the original bid. We took out a Heloc loan so we wouldn't have to take the money out of our investments. We'll pay it off when we sell our home. It's an interest only loan for 10 years. Our new neighbor has been a stink about the whole thing, complaining about noise and the dumpster that had to be placed in the street. He says he feels like he's living in a construction zone and that it has decreased the ease of their living conditions. We have complied with all his requests, even at having the dumpster removed before we were done with it. We took them a plate of special cookies as a thank you for being patient with us but that hasn't helped. We'll be glad when this project is over so maybe we can establish a good relationship with him.

The railings down

The exposed wood underneath

Setting up scaffolding so they could start taking
down the brick towers

The deck rebuild

During this deck project, we had the 
floor of our basement storage area
redone with an epoxie finish.

At the end of the month, we made our annual trek to St. George for the Tuacahn theater performances. This year they were doing Les Miserables, Nimo, and Grease. We always love these four days, not only seeing incredible shows, but being with my family. We all arrived on Monday. Deon and I made dinner for everyone that night. We served taco salad in tortilla shells with some fruit and cream puffs for dessert. It was a hit. Deon and I also committed to doing the desserts for the next three nights. Deon made her Texas sheet cake and I brought big chocolate chip cookies to make Pazookies. We bought pies from a pie shop in Veyo for one more dessert. Everyone loved not having to worry about desserts and loved what we served. 

So fun to just sit around as a family and visit

The first night's show, Nimo, was canceled due to rain the previous night. The theater people decided to cancel Nimo on Tuesday and do Les Miserables which had been canceled on Monday. Of all the shows, we were glad that Nimo was the one canceled. The other two shows were great as always. The talent displayed, especially in Les Miserables, was amazing.

The opening set for Grease

These ladies sat in front of us wearing Pink Lady Jackets.

On Wednesday, we all went to the Red Cliffs temple. We love being together in the House of the Lord. Gary did not go with us as he didn't want to expose himself with any germs that might be in such tight quarter as in the temple. He had just had his 5th chemo treatment the Thursday before we left so his immune system was compromised. After the temple, we all went our separate ways for lunch. The Fullers and ourselves ended up at Freddy's, always a must when in St. George.

Before leaving for St. George, we went with the Fullers to see the fall colors along Guardsman pass. They weren't as brilliant as they have been in the past but it was fun to be with Gary and Deon. We ended up at Jersey Mike's for lunch. 

We were excited, at the end of the month, to have Maggie and Kacee come stay with us for a few days. Maggie was showing her books off at a convention in Salt Lake. She has written and illustrated a series of graphic novels about a dragon named Rankless who was cast out of his clan. The books are about his adventures. She is working on a 4th book in the series. Apparently, she has quite a following as she sold out of all her book and most of her merchandise. It was a very profitable trip for them. We loved having them stay with us. We miss them not living in Provo as they used to come up to Heber most Sundays for dinner.

One of the days, Kacee dressed up as a
character from a new video game. Most people
who come to the convention dress up in costumes.

BYU luncheons started this month. This luncheon was the big one of the year with Coach Sataki speaking and Tuchanos serving the lunch. The lunch was good and we loved hearing from Coach Sataki. He is such a humble man and loves his players. It is obvious the he is the motivation behind the success the team has had lately.

One last thing for this month is that we traveled to Spanish Fork to Ryan's new home. He needed us to be there when Home Depot came to deliver a dishwasher and oven. He had also arrange for a couch to be delivered that morning. Home Depot was able to install the oven but there needed to be some additional plumbing done before they could install the dishwasher. When the couch was delivered, we took a picture of it to make sure it was the right one. It was not so the delivery man had to return with the one Ryan had actually purchased. We didn't mind going to Spanish Fork as we needed some more frozen orange juice and that Costco is the only one that carries it. Besides we love being a service to our children.

The first piece of furniture that was delivered. We
suspected it was not the right one as it's really not a couch.

The right one

And thus ends another month.