Its cleaning season

There are certain jobs that I save for spring and fall weather.  One of those jobs is cleaning the cold storage.  The cold storage was so bad that we couldn't even walk into it.  I opened the door and looked around and decided Im tired of just stacking and packing things tighter.  The biggest problem with that is that when I need to find something everything has to be pulled out and it just falls apart fast.  So I decided to help with the problem I was going to build an addition onto my shed and put my 30 year, freeze dried food storage in that addition. It's stuff that we need to have but we don't need to have it in the way.  I am extremely happy with the results.  I now have the holiday decorations organized, food storage organized and hopefully I can find things when I need them.  

 The only problem with this kind of cleaning is that it is a domino so now I have to clean some other areas of the house that I have been avoiding.  

Has been

 

There was a small get together with some of the girls I played soccer with at Weber.  There were a couple of people it was fun to see but it's amazing where life has taken all of us.  A couple of girls have cancer and are terminal.  One girl was in an accident due to a drunk driver that nearly killed her.  She spent months in the hospital and she will never fully recover.  She has had over 40 surgeries.  A couple of girls still play on soccer teams and have been fortunate not to suffer any major injuries.  Some have been divorced, some have had kids, others never married or had children.  Some girls have become lesbians, some have left the church but I happy to report that my friend Crystal, who I introduced to the church and took missionary lessons with her, is still active, married in the temple and has a couple of boys.  

First Day of School

I guess I better comment on Ila first day of school.  She is in 10th grade.  She is still attending American Heritage down in Salt Lake so I still drive her to school and pick her up everyday.  Ila decided to stay at American Heritage for one more year because she really wanted Dr. Murdock for a teacher.  Dr Murdock is a retired professor from BYU.  He loves teaching so he continues to work.  He is a very strict but he is an excellent teacher.  Ila has him for Literature, History, and AP Micro economics.  

The school year had a rough start for Ila.  A week into school a girl started spreading roamers that Ila is doing drugs and Vaping.  The administration did not handle the situation well so it ended up dragging on for multiple weeks, many kids where forced to be involved and Il spent hours in the Vice principals office.  Things got so bad that I pulled Ila out of school for a week until things settled down. Adam and I both hd to go into the office and it resulted in us telling the administrators that Ila was not to be called into their office again without one of us being there with her.  

I hope the rest of the year goes really well for Ila.  
 

Young Women

 

Young Women activities, meetings and commitments keeps me busy.  

We do an activity for a special needs group each year.  This year one of the activities we did is therapy animals.  We took 3 dogs and 1 cat for them to play with and pet.  The animals did really well.

I have a couple of girls on the drill team for woods cross high school.  I have a cheerleader at Bountiful High school so I go to the games to cheer for drill and cheerleaders.  

I also took the yw up to Utah State this past month to watch USU play BYU in women's volleyball.  One of my yw from many years ago is one of the coaches so she got us in for free.  

We try to go to the temple at least once a month.  Bountiful temple was closed for half the month so I got an appointment for the Layton temple.  It's such a blessing having so many options close by for the temple. 

Sad day

Briggs super fat cat died this past month.  We knew he wouldn't have a long life because he was 3-4 times heavier than he should have been.  We adopted him this way because Briggs thinks fat cats are hilarious.  Tank was a great companion for Briggs these past couple of years.  

I think we were blessed because he struggled for about two days, which Adam and I didn't even know about until the end of day 2, but he went really fast.  We buried him in the back yard by my garden.  He was a funny and very lazy cat.  He weighed almost 30 lbs when he died.  

 

Fruits of Labor

I got a couple of buckets of Asian pears and a few buckets of peaches.  

I also got a lot of peppers this year!!! Im still waiting for my tomatoes to turn red.  I hope it happens soon.  

 

While Ive got the tools out....

I saved some left over stone from my pizza oven project.  I thought that after a few months of a break I would put some stone around the putting green so it tied into the rest of the patio.  I almost through out the stone a couple months ago because the thought of doing more stone work didn't excite me.  

Since I was rebuilding my wall out front I decided suck it up and do the stone work.  

Below is before and after photos.

Along with the stone I poured another 500 lbs of concrete to help block water from my neighbor

 

It happened again

For some reason we have a lot of wrecks in front of our house.  We had another wreck but this time it ended up in our front yard.  The van went through a power pole, hit a rock and got some air and then landed and came to a stop in our yard.  

It was a couple of latin construction workers.  The police were really thankful Adam was around to translate for them.  

They crashed through my brick wall that I built 2 years ago.  

I broke down and decided to do the work I should have done the first time around.  I poured footings (about 1000lbs of concrete) and secured a little stronger wall.  I also added a few layers to my wall because it is doing such a great job of keeping out water but if the water gets too high it does sneak over my wall.  Not anymore! 

 

Birthday month

Crystal has 3 birthdays in September and I have two so it's a busy month.  We celebrated Avram celebrated his 22 birthday!!! I can't believe he is 22! He is living in taylorsville in a condo with a couple of guys from his singles ward.  He is loving being on his own.  

We also celebrated Gabes 17th birthday.  I don't know how that is possible.  I went to the temple on sept 11 and then I went with Crystal, Q and Grandma to Gabes grave.  

Later on my crew went with me back to the cemetery to take a few minutes to remember Gabe.  

I hope Gabe is involved in our lives.  He has siblings that really need all the help and support they can get right now.  
 

Max's visit

 We were fortunate to have Max fly up and hang out with us for about a week and a half.  Im so happy that he enjoys spending time with us.  

We took him up to the cabin.  We really didn't spend any time in Island Park this year.  The cabin was rented most of the summer and it was a really busy summer.  We ended up going to the cabin for a couple of days with Pulham family and the Marchbanks family.  Max had a great time with their boys.  They were up all night talking one night.  

I turned a little too sharp and ended up rolling the razor.  No one got hurt other than a few bruises but I felt really bad.  I had 3 kids in the car with me.  

After a few days the Pulhams and Marchbanks left and then the Adams and Grandma Anthony came up.  

It was a really fast trip but we squeezed in a lot of fun into those couple of days.  

We took Max to go horse back riding for his first time.  Amy also went on a horse all by herself.  

Jake, Grandma, Q and I stayed back and waited for the horse back riders.  While we were waiting Q got to play with the animals and got to have a little ride on a horse.