Halloween, and Thanksgiving! (And some news)

For Halloween, we ate a delicious supper of chicken noodle soup in a bread bowl at Adrienne's house, and then came home to chill and give out candy.  We had quite a few trick or treators, but of course, our grandchildren were our favorites!

Grandpa with our trick or treators

Ollie, Gunnar and Roy

Dojin discovered that he likes chocolate--a lot!

Ruby as Minnie Mouse (wasn't she princess Sophia just last week?)

Hyeji, Dojin, Doyeon and Yuna

Adrienne, Caitlyn, Nan, and I went to Charlotte's on Monday and enjoyed a delicious Witches Tea.  Christine met us there.  I didn't take any pictures, but the food was gourmet, as usual, and dad and I enjoyed a home-made caramel apple later that Char had made as a party favor. She goes all out.

Saturday night we took Caitlyn and went to see Peter Christensen in his play, "And Then There Were None."  Peter did a good job, he was probably the best actor in the play.  I saw a couple of High School Friends there--Janine Simons Craeger (taking tickets and otherwise helping out) and Ken Hadlock (acting).  He was a classmate and was also in my ward growing up.  We were also able to meet Jacob's fiance, Brianna.

Sunday evening we had Thanksgiving dinner for our family since we will be spending Thanksgiving this year with Andy, Elise, Max, Mav and the new baby.  

We received a cute picture of Mav via text this morning.

Sunday night we celebrated Thanksgiving with the whole family (except Elise and Andy).  We also invited a Korean family.  I met Heeyoung ice skating.  She and her family are here from Korea for a year.  Her husband is on research sabbatical.  I don't think they know many people as it is a little bit difficult to communicate with them.  Heeyoung does fairly well, but her husband Jun doesn't seem to know much English at all.  I was a little worried they'd be overwhelmed at the commotion, but she told me "I'm just so happy."  It was fun to have them.

Sara, Effie, Crista and Jieun

Dan with Greta and Dojin

Matt with Dojin

Ruby with Heeyoung's son (I should of taken a picture of their whole family)

Nick, Finn, Effie and assorted appendages.

Greta, Dojin, and Finn

Another great picture of me!  Roy and Ruby reading a story
before they head home to Logan.

Nick and Adrienne 

I don't think Adrienne will mind me sharing her news (since most everyone reading this newsletter already knows.  She's expecting a girl sometime in April!!! We're so excited.
(We acted happy, but the Green's acted ecstatic.  I need to learn to show my excitement more).

Pre--Halloween

The joys of having your husband involved with the YSA Stake is that you get to have the ward he's involved with over for family night every so often.  Monday night we had at least 30 young singles at our home.   After they ate some pizza, they played a video game called "Rock Band."  Some of the kids played ping pong, and others were playing "Apples to Apples."  We were downstairs with them off and on, but a lot of the time I was upstairs sewing.  I had to wear earplugs!  They all had a ball!

Jennie is supposed to be in Roy's ward, but she goes to the ward
she was in when she lived with Dan.  She joins Roy's ward when it
fun and convenient.

We attended a tri-school Orchestra concert on Tuesday evening.  Each school played a couple of songs, and then they all tried to get on the stage for the final number.  It was attempting the impossible, but they got close, then they played all together, which was also attempting the impossible.  It was also impossible to get a decent picture.

One day this week I drove up to Logan to help Crista out for a couple of hours.  I spent time with her kids and helped her finish Matt's costume.  

Ruby, Catharine, Greta

Another interesting encounter this week was at Costco.  Roy and I made a late night run (just before they closed).  Roy went to the optical department, and I did the shopping.  As I was finishing up, I looked up and saw Elder Uchtdorf.  He was standing there smiling, so I said, "Oh.  How are you doing?"  He said fine and asked how I was ...then I said, "I barely recognized you with your 'civilian' clothes on."  That was it.  It's kind of weird.  We have apostles and prophets in our midst, but when we run into them, we don't know quite what to say; we don't want to interrupt their private time or be intrusive.  Anyway, we are blessed to live close to so many of our church leaders.

I had a fun evening and a quilt class on paper piecing.  Here is what the project looks like:
The streak is the sun coming in the window. I think I will make a table runner out of it.  There are 8 sections to sew together to make the star.  I don't know if I'll need 3 or 4 stars for the runner.  It's a fun project, but like everything takes time. 

Roy and I went to our ward trunk or treat.  We don't get to attend ward functions together very often.  I don't know many people in our new ward and Roy knows even fewer.

Catharine

Trunk or treat selfie!

We spent our Saturday at Grandpa and Grandma Rasband's house running load after load to the DI.  It's good grandma isn't there to see us give away her "valuable" possessions.  Grandpa is aware of what's going on and I think he's just grateful that we're doing the work of going through everything and getting the house ready to sale.  We left Provo right at 4 so we could get home and get ready for the Halloween party (Young Single Adults).  

Dad and I even dressed up.

While we were at the YSA Halloween party, Caitlyn was at the Halloween Dance at Bountiful High. 

This time her date did not break anything (different boy), and all went as planned.  They dressed up as characters from Napoleon Dynamite.  So creative.

As Phil said in a recent letter, when we are sharing our "journals" we don't ever put in the negative--I won't either, except to say it was a bit of a hard week due to misplanning, misunderstandings (and lack of communication) as to who had the rights to have a party at the house Saturday night.  

Everyone else in the family were celebrating Halloween as well, with trunk or treats and parties.

Elise, Andy, Mav and Max.  The Jacksons dressed up as Jurassic Park characters

  

Crista and Matt as Little Bo Peep and her sheep

Andy, Elise, Matt and Crista always go all out.

The Rasband girls, Yuna, Doyeon, Ori, and Hyeji enjoying the Fall weather.

Ruby and Greta (Princess Sophia and her little witch) 

Jennie.  She always goes all out, too!

Sunday, since Dan was a bachelor for the weekend, he asked us to watch Dojin while he fulfilled his primary calling, so we got to cuddle with Dojin.  What a sweetheart!

We finished up the week fulfilling Roy's calling by going to Ward prayer.  

Family and Cedar City

Meanwhile, back in Texas--Elise's ward gave her a baby shower.  It was last week, but I had trouble with pictures so I'm putting the picture in this week's letter.  The fun thing in this picture is that one of her guests was her cousin Jenny.  I remember living in Atlanta and connecting with cousins that I probably wouldn't have known very well if I'd lived in Utah.  It's always fun to have a relative close by.  (We got to know Lynn Winterton, Debbie Bori (Florida), Kurt Gramoll, Dev Sealy, and Roy's Aunt and Uncle, Gloria and Mike Toomey).

Taking advantage of a little down time for Andy (which is rare), they had a staycation in Sugarland over the weekend (maybe 20 minutes away), and enjoyed swimming and playing.

Elise and Jenny at the shower 

Mav and Max having a ball

Do they really need a fire in Houston?  Maybe if they're still
 wet from their swim.

Elise and Beverly

Mav and Max are super exited for the grandparent's to come and visit.  Elise says they have a paper chain to count down the days.  It's probably just as much for Elise, as the baby is scheduled to be induced the day before we arrive.  I'm sure she's counting down the days, too.

We see our Logan family a little more often than our Texas family.  Crista and Matt came down Wednesday night so they could give Ruby her first experience with Lagoon!  She was so excited.

Ruby and Greta, anticipating a fun-filled day!

Roy, Caitlyn and I left on Thursday morning for another Cedar City weekend.  The plays weren't quite as good as their summer line-up, but we still had a good time.

We had a little time to burn, so we went to the museum at the "Depot" in Cedar City.
We were told not to climb in any of the stage coaches except this one, so
we felt like we had to try this one out.  Wow, am I grateful for comfortable cars.

Roy, Catharine and Caitlyn at the Cancun restaurant in Beaver

A selfie in the theater.

The plays for the weekend included, "Shakespeare's Long Lost First Manuscript.  We didn't love it.  In fact, it was almost a waste of the ticket price; Also, a play called The Tavern, that seemed to be written just for the Cedar City venue.  It was a lot of fun and well acted; and finally, A Midsummer Night's Dream.  It, too, was well-acted and fun, but it was LONG.  I thought it was over about 40 minutes before it was over.  We drove home after this play on a Saturday afternoon, which turned out to be good, because about 1/2 way home we heard that Grandpa had been sent to the hospital.  He was having pain in his shoulder.  It wasn't his shoulder or his heart, but they found a blood clot in his lung.  They also thought he might have blood clots elsewhere but didn't test for them as the medication should treat all of them.  We were able to stop and visit and make sure he was being taken care of. 
He'll probably be in the hospital for a few days.  Keep him in your prayers!

Doyeon had a birthday party, which we missed, but we saw some entertaining videos and pictures that depicted a good time for all.

Nick, Effie and Dojin.  The videos showed that NIck had just
as much fun as the kids. 

Cutting the cake with a sword--pretty awesome.

Cake and ice cream everyone?

Even though we had been away for the weekend, we still desired to see our family so we had them to dinner on Sunday.  All of the Davis County residents in the family were able to come.  The kids are always so happy to see each other and mainly stay happy while they are playing, except when someone gets hurt.  They also had quite a few sugary treats which made them happy, too.

Caitlyn played with them in the leaves.  They had a ton of fun--and I had a lot of leaf trails throughout the house.  

Caitlyn and Finn. Lots of leaves.

Ori, Cait and Yuna

Yuna, Cait and Finn

Cait and Doyeon

Doyeon

Yuna, Finn and Doyeon settling down a bit

Ollie, Finn, Doyeon, Hyeji, Gunnar, Yuna and Ori!

Oh, and a side note--the lot next door went up for sale, YAY!  the 650 square foot house on it is 69 years old and it looks terrible.  We figure that nothing could be worse, but we're really hoping for a buyer to put a house there.  It can't be a huge house, but it might fit a reasonable size two story.  

Have a great week!  Love you all!