Leaves and Halloween Spooky Treats

 Fall is my favorite. I love the golden glow of our front trees.

I love the trees of 700 West that (used to) make a golden canopy. They have trimmed the trees back a lot.

 I loved finding this anomaly in the grass. Those center leaves are WHAT? It has to have just fallen out of the tree, but was it radioactive or something? It is NOT a normal cluster. 

 I drove to SLC and met Kaylee at the " Lift up your Heart--A Magnify ( Pod last) Gathering"  like a women's conference. Lots of great presentations, good speakers, fun lunch out with Kaylee, good catch- up time, we exchanged birthday gifts and cards, enjoyed the gathering. 

My day started very early, so I enjoyed the sunrise.

And the sunset. All along the I-15 corridor.

It's been a leaf day. The neighbor kids came to play in the huge pile Mike made in the front yard. We have to settle for neighbors kids since our grandkids are all far away. Two are neighbors and two are the Murray's grandkids.

There are four tiny heads in there.

I finally made those cool and creepy Halloween Treats for a party tonight. Red Rice Krispy treats with labels that say "Mummy Meat," "Ground Vulture" "Zombie Meat," and "Fresh Roadkill." It turned out really good. And tasty, too!! 

Mike and I each did an extra shift in the Cedar City Temple Office last week. On Friday, he drove my car to go get Mom in Fillmore from Robert. She spent the week up north with Robert and with Aunt Tuny. I have a hard time parking my new car, much less his truck. Ha. It's between the lines. Barely.

The last roses of the season. About half our garden is put to bed for the winter.

Truth and Treason, apples, and a sunflower

 Excellent film. Youth against Hitler in Nazi Germany. True story.

Highly recommend. Bring a tissue for the ending . "Truth and Treason.". We got there JUST in time for the feature film and missed the previews for upcoming films. But that was okay.

This was our activity of choice tonight because we were tired after picking apples.

And I FINALLY got my kitchen cleaned up-- just in time to have it become a disaster for the apple juice project. He's getting serious. No trees have very many apples on them, but we've gotten them where we could. So many wormy ones . Ick. I miss my lovely, worm-and bruise-  and bug-free apples. None this year! 

They are almost all sorted and Mike SAYS that after we pick the last two peoples' trees we will be done and next week we start juicing. 

The three boxes on the right are icky ones. . . I mean REALLY icky. And he got some from a dwarf Golden Delicious Tree and the apples are dwarfs, too! They are the size of crab apples. Ugh. Those will be a big pain. 

And this is Mike's new tool. Apple corer/slicer. The trouble is, so many of the fruits are SO SMALL that it won't work on them. It's made for perfect fruit, which we do not have. Oh well. It makes lovely French fries, however! 

And here is my lovely sunflower head. It's HUGE. I should go measure it. It must be over 12 inches across! But the kernels haven't developed. Most that I've picked and opened ( only 4) have had nothing substantial in the shell. So sad.

Oct 2025

 We have had lots of rain! 

So much so that some towns ( New Harmony, for one) have had flooding.

Brian Head has snow. Zion had a skiff of snow in higher elevations.

We played games with the Larson's on Monday night at their house and ate lots of yummies goodies.

Mike and I went to the St. George Temple on Tuesday.

I went to my book club on Tuesday night. "Time Traveler's Masquerade" by Sian Bessey. Next month is " A Lantern in Her Hand".

I have been a slug and have been sitting around, reading silly novels. Not listening to Audio Books and multitasking, but sitting. I love Mrs. Pollifax mysteries. 

I finally got my rear in gear and made a nice dinner and shared with neighbors. I fried fish, shared some with Jim Harrison. Belinda Harrison hates fish, so he never gets fish. So I share with him when I make it. Sometimes. If I remember and we have enough. And Marcia Day came by to pick up a package I brought in for her last night while she was out of town, so I invited her in to eat with us. Jim, her husband ( yes, two Jim's on our street) is off hunting in the mountains for elk with his brothers. 

And then I vegged out and watched movies tonight! 

Such a slug! I'll do better tomorrow. I promise😉

Pretty fall leaves

Eric and the Girls

 We had a nice little visit and Lunch with Eric today. He was on his way to Boulder,UT for a campout with Matt ( Matt will join them tomorrow). They have been together for ten years.(!)

Tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches, cucumber slices.  Don't ever cook with Kya around! That stinker licked my butter on the counter AND stole some sliced cheese! Bad dog. 

Tomato sauce--never again!

 

I will never make tomato sauce again! These 9 little pints took ALL DAY!! 

They might be good for making spaghetti and pizza and such, but ALL DAY?????!!!!!

Granted, I didn't start really early as I slept in until 8 am today.  But between preparing the tomatoes and onions, simmering that, then straining it all, then reducing it to half while stirring all the while to prevent scorching. . . .I was standing over the hot steaming kettle for hours and hours. Ugh. I'm such a baby. 

So much for doing anything else today! That was it. No pickles, no other bottled tomatoes or tomato soup or tomato juice( yes, there's still MANY tomatoes left). 

Another day, I suppose. But never again seasoned tomato sauce. Not unless it can just simmer on it's own withOUT constant stirring.

I expected it to freeze last night, so yesterday I picked the rest of the tomatoes. 8 more bags to go. Most are still green, but they will ripen.

Next year I shall plant only TWO tomato plants. Maybe only one. 🍅

Travel day (s) home.

 Long travel

Up at 5:30 a.m. off the ship by 7:00 a.m.  Or, at least in line to get off the. Ship. 1 hour shuttle to Athens airport.

So much walking, confusion, lines, misunderstanding, etc. The Athens airport left much to be desired in the way of info, signage and organization. 

Athens to Rome. About 2 hours.  Rome was just BIG and didn't label their gates. Then when we did find gate assignments, they changed them. I didn't have a boarding pass for one flight, too.  Rome to San Francisco was an 11 hour flight. Three movies and two naps, a couple of meals. 

San Francisco was huge, customs, walking , lots of walking,changing terminals, re-claiming and re-checking baggage, even though it was all checked through to Las Vegas. We barely had time to use the toilets and refill our water bottles before it was time to board our Las Vegas flight. 

We didn't have seats together on that mostly- empty flight ,( about 2 hours). We mostly slept. We were so tired.

In Las Vegas, we were the last to claim our luggage. It was the fourth airport and Mike's feet and ankles were killing him. Wheel chair time. We found one close by.

We found our car! 

We ate "breakfast" at in and out burger with about 200 other folks.

 They crank out the burgers and fries! 

Drive, drive, drive . . .

Elevating while waiting for bags in San Francisco.

Home at 4:08 a.m. on Sunday Oct 5, 2025. 

31 hours of being ' in transit'. 😴🛏️🥱🫩💤💤💤

Mykonos Day 10. Oct 3

 I swam in the Aegean Sea. It's just my head you can see there, poking out of the water.

I did chat briefly with a couple of other bathers.

Today is our final port stop. And Mykonos is a gorgeous place. There are historical places, museums that we missed, and lots of twisty tourney tiny trails between the houses and businesses that were fascinating to walk among.

Mike celebrated his birthday on lovely Mykonos with-- what else? Ice Cream!

We saw windmills.

This rock looked like a crouching lion to me. Or a camel?

Gelato! Or ice cream. They are basically the same. 

This was the (plastic) doorstop at the ice cream shop in Mykonos.

An actual car street instead of pedestrian walks. 

My practically private beach (above,) there wasn't anybody in sight when Mike and I first got there. So I decided to change into my suit. But, after we found the place to do that, lots of people started showing up from all directions. Mike was very helpful in holding a towel just so between me and people and I managed to get dressed in my swimming suit without flashing too many people.

A tender boat. We ended up leaving port an hour earlier than previously planned because of high winds expected that night. The final night on the cruise boat was the roughest of the entire cruise. We could actually feel movement. No other time, basically, were we ever able to even tell we were on a ship, it was so smooth.

Mike was served a nice big Birthday cake slice all for him! After we already had dessert. The little chocolate sign he's holding says, "Happy". He ate the "Birthday". Haha

Moon on the water after the wind calmed down. Through the porthole in our room.

Sunset as we left Mykonos.

A private pool on the fore deck for rich passengers in the fancy suites. Who know?!?!

Taking photos of our last sunset on the ship was a popular activity.

Floating in the Aegean Sea. 

The windmills would have looked really cool with their sails intact.