Sooo I thought it was eventually time to take down my fourth of July wreath..since it was the middle of October.
Having my cousin Jenny and her family come and stay with us for a couple of days and wanting to have the house decorated for fall helped push me into it ;)
We had a fun visit with them.
The same day that they were there Jeff and I took a group to the Newport Beach Temple. It was a beautiful day with beautiful girls.
For some of them it was the first time going to the Newport temple.
The whole group. We make quite a crowd.
It was first come/first serve and so we got there early and Jeff's finagling got us in first.
While we waited for the boys we got to enjoy the temple grounds.
We are only missing Taylor!
Afterwards we got to go to In-N-Out to eat.
This month was also Senior night where all the seniors on the pep squad and cheer team were recognized at the last home football game.
We were supposed to send in a picture of Jacob...this is the one he picked for himself.
He's had a great year and we are so proud of him! He's really enjoyed doing the mascot stuff and it's really made his high school experience fun.
Some of Jacob's friends.
We stopped a lot of times for him to get pictures...
This was a mutual night where the girls were making apple pie filling.
and Jeff was having the boys carve pumpkins.
When the girls were done it was so cute to see them hanging out together playing games.
This was Ashley's aborted pumpkin carving attempt. She wanted her friends to come over and carve pumpkins with her and this is how far they got before they ran off.
This is us doing service at the Bishop's Storehouse that helps feed people that are on church assistance.
Our group was so good that we did double from what they expected us to do!
We bagged potatoes into 5 pound bags. This crazy one that George found..
Some of the girls worked in the store itself. So proud of all the youth.
One day after school Ashley said "Erin Elsworth is at the park" I didn't believe her until I went over and saw she was right. It was an unexpected and fun visit!
Ashley even got to hold Andy. (both of the kids slept while we visited)
Jeff and I dressed up for our 80's Halloween party.
The Thompson family all came out as the Gilligan's Island crew.
This is our "Prom picture" pose.
Taylor trying to figure out a last minute Halloween costume (on Halloween night) so him and his friends could roam around. He figured the real hatchet might be too much.
So he decided on a hobo instead.
Brandon borrowed Jeff's wig to be some sort of 80's guy and Parker said he was a male stripper...(but he kept his clothes on).
Jacob went off with friends and declared he was a time traveling hobo hipster...there were foil cuffs that went with his outfit too??? I don't know, but all his friends dressed the same and roamed the neighborhoods and Jacob came home with a bunch of candy.
After a bunch of back and forth Ashley and a couple of her friends decided to go out in our neighborhood to trick or treat.
Taylor and his friends ended up walking around with them.
This was a new thing we decided to do. There is a place called Logan's Candies and it's a little shop where they still make hand pulled candy canes. We had to book in advance for a tour and demonstration of how they make the candy canes and so we invited Steve's family and the Cowden's.
The guy started with hot candy. (By the way he is the only one that knows how to do this at the store!)
He lets it cool for a bit and moves it around and then separates a portion to dye red.
After he mixes in the peppermint flavor he puts in on the hook and starts pulling it. Pulling it gets air-bubbles in it and makes it turn white. He said it's like when you stretch out a rubber band a lot and it turns white.
After he puts on the red pieces for the stripes (their signature is 5 stripes) he starts pulling it longer and longer and twisting it so he can cut it into candy canes.
All of us watching..
They had this cool cutter that they would put a rope of candy on, she would push it down and then drop the section and it would break apart into bite size candies.
We ate them while they were warm and they were great!
They have us all a warm stick of candy cane and we got to bend it into whatever shape we wanted and take it home.
Here they are bagging them and getting them ready to go!
It ended up being a fun night. I would do it again!
This was us and the youth putting flags on the graves for Veteran's Day at Riverside National Cemetery.
We had Jenae and Jolene spending the night and they got to come with us and the youth group.
It was the perfect day. (I guess Ashley and I matched...both forgetting to wear patriotic colors)
Fun group.
Afterwards the girls hung out in the hot tub...
while Jacob had friends over for a Smash Brother's tournament in the house.
