Anniversary and a birthday...

The day after our anniversary is Amanda's birthday!  We wish her a happy birthday and thank her for our lovely dinner last night and the chocolate covered cinnamon bears from BYU!  It was a wonderful evening!  We hope she has a great time this weekend with her girlfriends in Park City!  She deserves it!  Dave and I spent the morning in a drive up Payson Canyon and then a little "hike" to the Grotto.  It was about a 20 minute walk...very pretty, leaves changing and dropping around us as we walked.  There were several log type bridges that we crossed, back and forth over the creek along the trail.  There wasn't a lot of water at the grotto but it was still very pretty and you could feel the temperature change as you stepped into the cave-like area.  I love being in Utah and having pretty places to walk and hike to!  Especially with Dave.  My favorite hiking partner.  It was a lovely morning and fun way to celebrate our anniversary (besides the wonderful dinner the night before).  We came home and had our Texas Roadhouse leftovers for lunch!  Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary!

32 years...

Where does the time go?  I cannot believe it's been 32 years!  But that's what the calendar says!  It's been an adventure so far and the adventure continues!  Love this man to eternity!!

The kindness of strangers...

I can't even count how many times we have received random emails or texts with pictures of our missionary.  People are just so kind to send us a quick note and picture, telling us how wonderful our son is.  We LOVE it! It totally makes my day every time!  Sometimes it's just a picture of him and his companion, sometimes it's with the whole family, either way we love getting them.  In just the past couple of months these are the ones we have received...I am so thankful to these kind strangers! The man in the hat is a ward mission leader and his text was very long and detailed about Joel and his work in their stake.  He said that even though we are just a few miles south of them Elder McKinney is very focused on the work.  That made me very happy to hear!  He says Joel is bringing new ideas to their stake and he hopes he will stay there his whole mission!  ha ha.  I did a post about this on Joel's mission blog, but thought I should repeat it here as this is MY journal and I want the pictures here for me as well.  Love my missionary and I love being a missionary mom!  Thank you random people for taking the time to make my day...pictures with Elder Laughlin, Elder Koo, and the last picture is Elder Williams. 

Stewart Falls...

The trees are already changing...I am thinking winter is going to come early this year!  We decided we need to get in another hike while the trees are changing and looking so pretty!  Since we couldn't get into Stewart Falls on Labor Day, we decided to try again yesterday.  Success!  This is my favorite hike so far!  It's beautiful, it's not hard, and a totally fun way to spend a few hours walking in nature!  At first in the shade it was cold...David even stuck his arms inside his shirt!  There is a big cement thing they stopped and played on.  David shouted hellos into the big pipe and listened to the echoes.  We were wishing someone would answer him back.  ha ha!  We stopped a few times for a drink of water and one time for a snack.  But otherwise it was just nice walking! Of course some of it is a little uphill, but nothing hard.  Truly, this is my favorite hike!  We did it in just over 3 hours.  The water was cold, but we loved putting our feet in!  And of course Dave and Amanda wanted to go to the higher part of the falls, so the rest of us just watched!  It was kind of scary!  They made it back down safely a little while later.  We want to do this hike again in the spring when there will be even more water and everything blossoming and turning green.  We were overlooking Sundance...you can see a few rooftops...very pretty up there!!  Here are a "few" pictures of our Stewart Falls adventure...

Grandparents' day...

Today was Grandparents' day at David's school.  We got to go to his first grade class and see how they start their day.  Then they sang a song to us which was really cute.  His teacher has lots of energy and it was fun to see them in action.  Then David got to "interview" Grandpa about his life and write down the answers.  It was cute.  After that he read us a book.  Jacob and Zander were with us and it was a fun morning! We were only there about half an hour but it was fun to see his classroom and his school friends and teacher.  He is going to have a good year in first grade!  The pictures are blurry as Zander was trying to grab my phone while I took the pictures! The last picture is just the boys at home another day coloring in books Ashley sent them and Jacob in his ninja turtle shirt she sent.  He loves the hood and wore it all day!!