This and That in October!

The McClellans went to Utah over a Fall break.  They went to a BYU football game.

They were also able to go to the Provo City Center temple.

Elizabeth is a super fan.  Can you see her in these two photos on social media?

Nathaniel's tiger costume

Kathryn after her choir sang at the Almond Bowl

Amanda and Nathaniel at Michael's soccer game. Grandpa went to one of the games while I was out of town.

Darryl is teaching Amelia how to drive their boat.  This is her driving with Daniel wakeboarding.  She also drove and pulled Darryl on the wakeboard.

Primary program: This was Michael's last one.

Lily having fun with her pumpkin.

Sarah and Camille are in Band and they marched in a parade.

Sarah went to Homecoming.

Bethany and Aubrey had fun with magna tiles!

Jacob loves doing gymnastics tricks!

Hannah is in a play in December: Christmas at Pemberley and she has been rehearsing with a British accent.  We were very impressed.

Joshua is in Band and Drum Line.  He practices a LOT!

And last but not least John's family spent some time in Sequoia National Park and they had a great time and saw some amazing trees and scenery.

It's hard to get a whole Sequoia tree in one photo!

Aubrey liked the hiking and asked her Dad to take her on a longer hike.

It sounds like she is a great hiker and enjoyed the journey to the top!

What a great month of October!

Sisters Weekend!

It's my Mom's birthday today.  She would have been 99!  

Some of my sisters got together for a fun weekend.

Interesting view out the window.  One of the volcanoes near Portland on a cloudy and smoky day.

Thanks to Becky for picking me up and driving from Portland to Olympia. I felt like I was in California.  There was so much brown along the way and I was looking forward to seeing some green.   During our weekend we received some of the first rain they have gotten since late spring.

It's always peaceful and pleasant at the Bates' home in Olympia!

After a nice lunch and visit we headed to the condo in Westport which is right on the beach.

We had a good walk one morning right on the beach and it was even a little rainy.

Here is the view out the condo's living room window.  So beautiful with some sun shining.

One day we visited the Cranberry Museum.  This is a big area for growing cranberries and is dominated by an Ocean Spray plant.

We thought this was interesting at the museum:

After our visit to the museum we drove through the area to see the cranberry bogs which are almost done being harvested.  That reddish color in the picture is the cranberries.

We went for lunch at Bennett's Fish Shack in Westport.  It was highly recommended so we thought we should try it.  We were a little disappointed but we had fun eating there anyway!

Another walk along the paved bluffs.

And we even got one selfie.

One evening we watched this Swedish movie with English subtitles.  

We saw some beautiful sunsets.

Another day we walked along the wharf in Westport.  There are a lot of fishing boats.

And we did a puzzle!

We learned a new fun card game so ask me about that and we can play it!  

We also stopped to see the whale bones at this museum and learned some amazing things about blue whales, the largest and loudest animals on the planet!

This is part of the skull of a blue whale.

I tried to get a picture of the building described above.  

But the main thing we did besides eat and sleep was to talk!  And we did a LOT of that!  It was so fun to catch up on everything in our lives and families.  And a highlight was talking about our experiences of being ordinance workers in three different temples.   We enjoyed Zoom meetings of Becky's Sacrament meeting and our ward's Primary program with a view of Grandpa on the stand with our class.  

It was all wonderful!

Happy Birthday to my Mom.  She loved the ocean!  

Party Time!

It feels like we have just hosted three parties!  

John and his family were here on two weekends, and it was his birthday one of the days so we had some fun times!

Saturday, October 8th:  John's 40th birthday!

The Melanchuks were able to join us.

Outfits were not planned but it was fun!

Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles!

Sunday, October 9th: Perrys join us for post-birthday celebration

John got a new hatchet throw game for his birthday

Intense game being played inside:

Carcassonne is a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it.

Meanwhile others were having fun outside.

And another group photo

One of the games we played for John's birthday:

Friday, October 14th: Good bye party for John, Sara, Aubery and Bethany.  MaryAnn, Jacob and Lily were able to join us.

They had fun doing their Halloween hidden pictures books.

We invited Jeff and Kate Bates and Blakely from 

Walnut Creek to join us.

It's always great to be together with family!