Always up for a road trip

Yesterday Kenzie took a tour of a college about 100 miles away. It included spending the night in the dorms. Seemed like a good excuse for Roger and I to have a little getaway so we stayed in a nearby hotel.
It's a very small town, without much to do.
But we did take a stroll down Main street and a quick peek inside the 2 or 3 stores there.
I pretended to be a super cool photographer and snapped some pics of the details in the old buildings.

This JCPenney store had a big display window in front, on both sides of the door, totally filled with a sweet little Christmas village.

We drove about 20 minutes more to an even smaller town to visit the graves of my grandparents. (And various assorted great grandparents, aunts and uncles)

Then back to the college town for a surprisingly yummy dinner (there are NOT many dining choices in this town!)

With this handsome dude

A little shut eye and then we headed home early to get ready for the Halloween festivities.
It was a nice little 24 hour getaway.

Carved

I wish I could say that we were super smart and waited till the weather got cold to carve our pumpkins.
Have you seen what happens to a Jack-O-Lantern in 70 degree weather? It's not pretty.
The truth is, we just do a lot of things at the last minute.
And so it was with carving our pumpkins.

Jaxon was inspired by one of the jack-o-lanterns on the happy meal bucket he got earlier in the day.

 Emily turned to the internet for inspiration.

And Kenzie was inspired by her big, green pumpkin.

This had to be our CLEANEST pumpkin carving endeavor ever. There was nary a seed to be found on the floor. Our kiddos must be growing up. *sniff*

Jaxon needed help with his. But he did manage to do a bit of the carving all by himself.

Emily carved hers with almost no help at all.

And Kenzie really brought out her pumpkin's inner ogre.
All lit up!

Jaxon insisted on putting a ghost on his pumpkin. We had him put it on the back. As luck would have it, it reflects it's ghostly image perfectly in the window behind the pumpkin. :)

Thanks again to our friends, Becky and Drew, for growing such awesome pumpkins for us!

Tuesday was Christmas

Okay, not really.
But last Christmas we tried something new for the grown kids with families.
We gave them family passes to Discovery Gateway Children's Museum.
I figured it was better than more STUFF that would be forgotten a month after Christmas.
It was HIT and they have really enjoyed having the passes to use all year long. They've asked for passes to someplace else this Christmas.
I love it because we can get together there for some fun.
Tuesday I took Jaxon and we met up with Heather and Kayleigh and their babies.
SO MUCH FUN!
I just love those faces.

And I got to enjoy chatting about life with the mommy daughters.
It was a great day. :)
I need to figure out a similar idea for the grown daughter who doesn't have kids yet. Hmm....

Fall Break

The kids had a 4 day weekend just this past weekend.
Kenzie went to Cedar City to hang out with her older sister who goes to school there.
Emily, Jaxon and I spent Thursday just hanging out here at home.
I bought this sock puppet kit at DI that same day that I bought the big wreath.
$2 well spent to occupy the kids for 2 or 3 hours.

Once we figured out that the liquid glue in the kit was not suitable for this project and broke out the hot glue gun, they had a blast.

After that, Emily spent the rest of the afternoon making eleventy billion paper doll chains. I swear I could hear the trees sobbing.

Friday we went on a little road trip with some neighbor friends to a U-pick raspberry patch.

Jaxon surprised me a little. He's never picked a berry in his life. I gave him a quick lesson on how to pick the berries that were ripe and then he was an instant berry picking pro! He picked for about 15 minutes and then decided to tag along behind me and play in the dirt.

Emily held out a little longer.

$2 per pound for fresh raspberries?!? SOLD!!!

Saturday morning we went with the same neighbors to a local farmer's market. picked up a bunch of treasures there. I'll be so sad when all the farmer's markets close up for the winter. 
Roger was so impressed with our raspberry haul from the day before that he wanted to see the patch for himself.
When the kids and I got back from the farmer's market we all headed out for a family drive and we picked a few more.

After berry picking we took a drive through the mountains to see the Fall foliage. I love it. Fall is SOOO my favorite time of year.
I wish I could have gotten some pictures of us amongst the Fall colors but the Mommy was a bit cranky that day and just trying to soak up a little PEACE. Plus Jaxon had fallen asleep in the truck.
But we did get out and stretch our legs at Bridal Veil Falls.

The leaves weren't as pretty there as they were farther up the canyon, but still very nice.

The following picture is really bad (cheap camera...from too far away) so you'll just have to take my word for it that the blurry white ball you see inside the circle was a ram. We watched him graze on that ledge for about 15 minutes and then slowly make his way up the steep rock face. Most of the time he seemed to be balanced precariously on the edge of it. Crazy ram!

Sunday was spent doing chores around the house and then dinner with the kids and grandbabies in the evening. So good to be back to family dinners after "The Crazy 2010 Summer of Buying/Selling Houses".

Books

When my father's mother passed away a few years ago, I was asked if there were any things from her home that I would like to have.
I am SOOO not a hoarder. (I can't look away from that show when it's on TV. Weird, huh?)
Really, I get a kind of perverse thrill out of getting RID of stuff.
So when I was looking around her house I was very selective about what I chose to keep. I try to keep things that are both meaningful AND useful. After all, these momentos should be out and touched and used so that they can spark these memories every time we use them. If they were packed away in a box I'd get far less joy from them.
I took a pretty yellow pitcher that is always on display and used occasionally.
And a sweet little decorative dish that is perfect for Easter display and use. Though it's in my china cabinet year round.
I took a quilt. The truth is, I'd have taken ALL the quilts if I had been allowed. And if we'd had room in the truck to drive them from Missouri to West Virginia and then home to Utah. The quilts are one of my top ten memories of my Grandma.
I took a beautiful oil lamp that I am trying to figure out how to display to it's full potential.
This is all very tricky since I also despise dusting and try to avoid too much knick-knacky clutter.
There was also a box.
A cardboard box packed full of some of my father's things. I had no idea really, what was in the box but I just took it. The whole thing, without any evaluation. He passed away just before my 15th birthday and I have so few of his things.

These books were in the box.
When I first saw them I thought they might have been his but they weren't.
Today is the first time I've taken the time to really look closely at them.
It looks like they belonged to a young girl (judging by the subjects and the handwriting in the books) named Marguerite Haley. One or two of the books also have the name Tommy Haley written in them.
All the books were published between the late 1800's and early 1900's. They're in terrible condition. Broken and missing bindings, tattered pages, lots of childish scribbles inside, even some mold and what might be bug (moth?) damage.
But they are somehow magical....like time traveling.
In Elementary Physiology and Hygiene published 1906 I found this chart that shows the food values which can be obtained for ten cents.

I wish I had a better camera but it's a fascinating list. Maybe you can click on the picture to enlarge it.
Beef sirloin 25 cents per pound
Butter 25 cents per pound
Cheese 16 cents per pound
Rice 8 cents per pound
Potatoes 1 cent per pound

So fun to see.
And this one...

Mace's School History of the United States published 1920 was most interesting for the personal things I found inside it.
An order form from Sears, Roebuck & Co from 1925

And these pressed flowers. WOW! 85 year old flowers tied together with a little string.

I wonder what Marguerite wished to order from Sears, Roebuck & Co.? Maybe something nice for the lad who gave her flowers? We'll never know.
This Progressive Course in Spelling Complete by J. N. Hunt published 1910 was fun to thumb through.

It has all these great dictation and memory exercises.

I think I'll tie them up with string and use them in my decorating. A little more dust will just add to their magical patina, don't you think?
I don't know why my Dad saved these, or what they meant to him. But I'm glad to have them now.