October

October was an eventful month.

Pumpkins:

As many of you know, I enjoy growing pumpkins. It's been tough trying to beat David's record of over 70 lbs, but I thought since David is on his mission and exempt from growing, I'd have a shot at exceeding his record. So I set out to do just that. The pumpkins started well.....

continued to grow

Here is me hugging my biggest pumpkin-looks good, but is it big enough?

I was excited for the weigh in.

Drumroll please.........

The disappointment was keen.......foiled again! Not even close.

Well, there's always next year!

Mom, Lee and I met my sister, her husband Steve, and three of their kids, Bethany, David, and Emily in Cannonville, Utah for a week. When Lee got off the 15 freeway, he took mom and I up to Cedar Breaks for an overview. Mom and I were congratulating ourselves on bringing our boots, it was soooo cold with snow on the ground. The view was spectacular. Look at Lee wearing sandals!
Our first view of the canyons near Red Canyon-the colors were incredible!

Bryce canyon at sunset.....unbelievable.

Here is Mom, Aunt Terri and her family in front of an overlook where you can see the 100 hands petroglyph.

Climbing on the rocks, there were rocks everywhere!

Lee and I

More of Bryce Canyon......overwhelming.

Mom at an overlook.

The arches were everywhere.....

The colors are incredible....

One of the days we drove the devils backbone road. It is thus named because one of the men working on the road fell to his death while construction was going on. There was one spot where the road dropped off on both sides into deep, rugged canyons. In this picture you can see a small red dot high on the rock. That small dot is Lee!

The colors in the plants were gorgeous as well....we don't get much fall color in San Diego, so it was a real treat to have these colors added to our view.

Even when we were in the desert, there were flowers

We saw slot canyons

And Hoo Doos at the devils garden

More arches

Which the kids climbed on. Here's Emily on top of one of the arches:

The shapes of the rocks were so fantastic. It was like seeing pictures in clouds, only it was rocks you were looking at..

It was wonderful to spend time with Terri and her family.

Grandpa.

It is with deep sadness that we hear of Grandpa Bob's passing. It was a rough year for Grandpa, but he fought a valiant fight. When we went north in May, we were fortunate enough to spend a lunch with he and Phyllis. We love you Grandpa.

I dug through some old photo albums, and came up with a few more pictures. In hindsight, we need to remember to take pictures of the person taking the pictures! It is because of Grandpa Bob that we have so many wonderful pictures of the kids, but we have few of him.

Here he is at my Father's memorial service.

Here he is at Steven's wedding.

At least the photographer got a picture of him in front of the camera!

At Dan's wedding.

At Matt's wedding.

At Melody's wedding.

at Uncle Gary's wedding!

Here he is at steven's Eagle court of honor wearing his original scout shirt!

Here's one of him holding up Andrew's birthday shirt! Yes, Andrew has a scraped up face. Portent of things to come?

Grandpa holding David. What a ragtag group we were!

He was always there for us.

You will be missed.......