Everybody Loves Kris

Today, October 29, is Kris's birthday. Kris, I hope it is a great day. I love you and so does everyone else, including Coaster (Ollie's puppy). Many happy returns of the day!

Coaster likes Grammy to baby sit, but you
can see who is doing the sitting

Last night we went to Tucano's to celebrate and tomorrow the kids will gather for dinner.

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

All Kinds of Fun

Saturday, 22 October, we went with Anna, Emily, Millie and Colton, and the kids to Cornbelly's. It was the second visit of the season on a much warmer day with larger crowds (UEA weekend). In spite of those factors, the kids had a good time. At 5:00 everyone gathered for a hot dog roast at our house. When the fire had subsided a bit, the marshmallows came out and there were s'mores for everyone. As part of the festivities, I harvested the pumpkins. Anna traveled to SLC to collect their car, turn in her rental, and pick up Rob, who is now here in Provo.

Today after church Anna, Rob, and I walked through the park, BYU campus, and along the canal walk to Emily's house for supper. After supper there was a birthday party for Max who turns 12 on Thursday. Tonight the Hastings are packing in preparation for the trek to Reno.

Holden with both his Cornbelly's bands

Colton purchased a bunch of shots and everyone
got to shoot a few corn cobs

Max, Lucy, and Anders at the wheel

Burning up the track -- sort of

The corn-maze trekkers

Dancing princesses

Cooking dinner on the fire

Holdie does three at a time

A beautiful evening for food and family

The binkers entertaining each other while they eat

Pop Pop harvested pumpkins

For such a late start, they did fairly well

Anna and Rob on our campus walk

The beautiful green ash in front of Emily's house

Max's BYU Cougar cake

The camera is too slow to catch the blowing
out of 12 candles

We have loved having the Hastings spend the week with us and wish them the very best on their new adventure. It will be nice to have them close enough to drive for visits.

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

Donut Falls

Friday we hiked to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon east of Salt Lake City. It was a beautiful day and the canyon was spectacular. The binkers were all good hikers and we had a great time.

Big Cottonwood Canyon in October

Big Cottonwood creek is still running full after a wet year

Small falls on Big Cottonwood Creek

The hikers ready to climb

The aspens are still aglow

Donut Falls

Hikers at the foot of the falls

Clara and Pop Pop strike a pose

Ready for lunch on a log

Wasatch Mountains are the best

Humorous Clara moment: At lunch, Meagan gave Clara some sort of tasty treat. Clara thanked her with her back turned staring at the ground. In my most grandfatherly manner I instructed Clara that she should look at Meagan when she thanked her so she could really sense her appreciation. I said, "Clara, look her in the eye." Again with more emphasis, "Clara, look her in the eye!" Clara gave me a puzzled but resigned look, leaned over, and obediently LICKED Meagan in the eye. The entire group collapsed in laughter.

That evening the adults all went to P 712 for a delicious meal. It was a very fun day. There were more adventures yesterday about which I will report in the next post. So stay tuned.

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

An Interim Visit

The Hastings have packed up and departed Virginia and are on their way to Reno, Nevada. Rob flew to Arizona for a conference and Anna and the kids flew here for an interim visit while they await the arrival of their car and Rob's return; both will arrive on Saturday.

Everyone was very excited to see Ollie's new dog, Coaster and Meg's rabbit, Bun Bun. There has been lots of cousin-together time, in spite of school. On Wednesday school was out early and all the cousins went to Sundance in hopes of riding the chairlift. Unfortunately, the summer season finished last Sunday, so we made our own fun with a short hike to the Theater of the Pines. The kids had a great time playing on the stage and reenacted Hamlet or the like. I assumed it was Hamlet because everyone died. The outing ended with suckers from the Sundance store.

Timp put on a special show for Anna

Ollie's beagle, Coaster

Bun Bun and the boys (sounds like a band)

Coaster and the Cousins (another band?)

Wednesday afternoon at Sundance

Theater of the Pines

The big finish

The troops

The cousins collecting burs in their socks

Super suckers

The "big" cousins

It's UEA, school is out, and there is an outing in the offing today. We will report later.

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

If You Love Me...

You may have noticed that Blogger has introduced a new way to view photos on our blogs with a lightbox format as illustrated in the screen grab of Anna's recent post below. I find it EXTREMELY annoying. I haven't accessed your blog for a slide show, I want to read your ruddy post and see your images! It takes a long time to download all the images into the lightbox; the images can't be enlarged to full resolution for optimal viewing (and I can't steal them); the black semi-transparent background with jillions of thumbnails is distracting -- I like to see the photos against a crisp white background; if (out of habit) I hit the back button, I lose the whole light box and have to download the @&%@%$ thing all over again; but most distressing is that I like to open your images one at a time as I read through your blog posts. Reading comments in the help section of Blogger, it appears that the Lightbox is widely hated.

You will see that I have disabled the lightbox feature on my blog, and if you love me, you will do the same, so I can continue to enjoy the full potential of your great photos. I'm just kidding about the "love me" part, but I hope you will give it a look-see to determine what you think. If you like the new format better, I will only be slightly offended.


If, however, you want to turn off Lightbox:
• Go to Dashboard (click on the orange B in the upper-left-hand corner)
• Click on "settings"
• Click the "formatting" tab
• Scroll down to "open images in Lightbox"
• Click on the dropdown menu and select "NO"
• There ya go, Bob's yer uncle!

If you use the updated Blogger interface:
• select "design" at the top of page
• select "settings"
• select "posts and comments"
• select "open images in Lightbox"
• drag down menu to "NO"
• voilà

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

Cornbelly Farewell

Saturday, 8 October, was the Youngs' last full day in Utah so the whole family went to Corbelly's at Thanksgiving Point for some fall adventures. It really is a lot of fun and the kids and adults all had a great time.

Cornbelly's corn

Dead-Eye Dickie shooting corn

Pippy shooting pumpkins

Wow! What a shot, Meags

Auntie Em is a determined shooter

Ollie catching just a bit of air on the pillows

The binkers were completely engaged by
the Lincoln logs

Finn panned for some awesome gems

Holdie was my buddy for the day

Uncle Phillip leads the troops through
the muddy corn maze

The troops

What could be finer than watching pigs race?

Meg, Harry, Ollie, Finn, Lizzie, Max, and Holdie

Beckham and Finn share a cuddle this morning

They are off on their way back to AZ

This has been such a fun week. It is always fun when family visits, but now we are suffering from empty-house syndrome. Anna and the Hastings gang will be here soon to fill the house with life again.

That's all for now.

OXO

D.