Halloween 2015

 Gorgeous weather for Halloween this year!  As usual, we had fun playing dress-up for our book club party and our ward Trunk-or-Treat.  Del and I were off-duty Superman and Wonder Woman. 

 

Maren made a fabulous Merida from Brave, and Emma was an adorable Pocahontas.

 

My vote for cutest costumes went to my friends, Jenny and Layne Lambson's twin girls who were Cabbage Patch dolls in their boxes.  They were so cute!

Milly's near-death experience

Milly has been a moody little part of our family for over a decade, ever since Maren picked out the little ball of fluff at the Miller's house and brought her home.  Milly loves to wedge her fluffy body into boxes that are impossibly small, and she loves to spy on people.  She also loves to kill fat mice and leave them on our sidewalk all summer long.  Other than that, she doesn't seem to love much of anything, but we love her!

On general conference weekend, Milly came home with a couple of small bite marks on her rear, evidence of a nasty cat fight.  We cleaned her up and the kids did this amazing job of bandaging her.  They found it's impossible to wrap an angry, injured cat around its tail and hindquarters! Just can't be done.  She seemed fine and we weren't too worried, but a few days later as scabs started to form she bit them all off and ripped out her fur! All of it!  Her whole rear was hairless, bloody, oozing, and scabby!  It was terrible and quite disgusting!  Since it was a Sunday and we can't afford to take pets in for emergency care we tried to clean her up ourselves but there was no way to cover the injuries and she wouldn't leave them alone.  We gave her some antibiotics and put her in a cone of shame and hoped for the best.  When she didn't seem to be improving Del and I even talked about having her put to sleep, although we were sick about it.  She was so miserable!  The next day, however, there seemed to be some slight improvement so we held off on taking her in.  The next day she was even better, until, hurray, she was definitely on the mend!  Now her hair has grown back, and she's as pretty and moody as ever.  We hope she has learned her lesson about fighting because she's obviously too old for that stuff now, despite her scrappy attitude.

Girl's Trip to California

Becky and I love to get this group of fruzzins (that's "friend-cousins") together as often as possible, so when she had the fun idea for a girl trip to see Katherine's baby, Savannah, we jumped in the car and took off!

On the way we stopped at a the site of the Donner party, which is quite beautiful despite the tragic events that took place there.  Then we headed to the Jelly Belly factory for a tasty bit of fun. 

 

 

We stayed with Katherine's in-laws and they took us to the famous Apple Hill orchards.  We ate giant apple dumplings and shopped at some wonderful farmers markets.

 

I think Becky really likes little Savannah!

 The highlight of the trip was going to the beach, of course.  The girls spent hours playing in the water.

 Savannah didn't seem to care much for her first dip in the ocean.

 

 Maren got bored while Becky took Megan's senior pictures, so we had a little fun with our camera.

Attack of the 100 foot woman!

Maren is about to push Megan in!

 

Cute little posers.

 This is a great group of girls.  Can't wait to do it again!