Halloween

 Hanna was a basketball player - Carly Little Red Riding Hood - Lucy was Flo from the Progressive Insurance commercials. Carly was wearing Grandma Nunn's red cape from Nauvoo.
I went to watch the costume parade at the elementary school.

Our ward had a trunk-or-treat at the church parking lot. Then Austin and Hanna went to watch a volleyball game at the school. Lucy went to do trick-or-treating for a food drive for the junior high. So that left Carly and I to go trick-or-treating. I asked her if she wanted to find some friends to go with. She said, no, I just want you to take me. So I did. We went to a few more houses in Leavitt and then a few in town. 

Jill went to see the cousins dressed up in their Halloween costumes.

Stake Conference

Have you ever done something really hard, and you thought why am I doing this? This summer my family and other families from the high school decided to climb chief mountain. The day finally came. We crossed the border at 7 o’clock, and we got to the trail to hike around the mountain at 8 o’clock. After Mr. Sloan took a picture of all 28 of us, we started up the trail. The teenagers walked way faster than the parents. Our first stop was at the side of Chief Mountain.  After a snack, we climbed on some rocks and hills.  Finally, we made it to the back where the shale is. 

We were having a snack and looking at how far up the shale goes. I was sitting by my dad, and I told him that the night before we had climbed Chief Mountain, I said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father and asked Him if I was strong enough to climb Chief Mountain.  And a couple minutes later, the Holy Ghost said, “Trust in Heavenly Father, and you will make it.”

We started up the shale.  At first it wasn’t too bad. After a while, the rocks got more slippery, so me and my dad went 100 steps and then took a break. Pretty soon we were doing 50 steps and taking a break. It was getting harder and harder. We were about two-thirds up the shale, and finally we said big rock to big rock. About the 4^th big sitting rock, I started to cry. I thought I couldn’t do it. My dad was right behind me.  He sat down and told me, “Look how far we’ve made it. We can’t quit now.”  We had some water and began to climb again. While we were climbing to the next big rock, the thought “Trust in the Lord” came to my mind, and so I tried hard to trust. Finally we got off the shale and onto some shelf-like steps with rocks.

After about 15 more minutes, I sat down behind a rock and started to cry again.  When my dad got to where I was, he said, “We are almost to the top. We have to finish now.”  We still had some more climbing to do, but we made it to the top. I felt the Holy Ghost in my mind telling me you did it.

We ate lunch on top of Chief Mountain and took some beautiful pictures of the view and headed down. Going back down the shale wasn’t easy, but it was kind of fun to slide down, except for a couple people that fell.

I am thankful that I did it. And now I know I can do hard things. Prayer is important for many reasons, like when you need help with doing hard things. Always ask for help if you need it from the people around you because I bet they will always help you.

A primary song that I like says, “Heavenly Father, are you really there? And do you hear and answer every child’s prayer? Some say that heaven is far away. But I feel you close around me as I pray. Pray, He is there. Speak, he is listening. You are His child. His love now surrounds you.”

In Moroni 10:5 it says, “And by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye me know the truth of all things.”

I know the church is true and I know Heavenly Father will help you when ever you need it..I know he has a wonderful plan for you. I am thankful for prayer and family and where I live. In the name of Jesus Christ amen.

(Austin was called into the Stake Presidency 6 months ago. President Ferguson asked Carly to speak in Stake Conference to tell this experience. Austin also had to give 3 talks this weekend. They both did excellent!!!)

Thanksgiving - Canadian Style

We enjoyed some delicious Thanksgiving food at the Lee's house in Taber after our traditional football game in the pasture. We missed having Jill there, and next year Julia will be on her mission and Kaela will be on an island somewhere.

Jill's UVU Rodeo Days

Unexpected Adventures on our Trip to Utah

We left on our road trip Thursday afternoon after Austin was done with a mad parent at the school. We made it to Idaho Falls to stay at my parent's house a little after midnight. I knew the car wasn't quite right, but I thought maybe we needed the tires rotated or something. The next morning we visited with my parents for a little while and headed to Logan to see Jill. Right as we were going through Pocatello, the car started shaking and revving and the speedometer was shaking.  We pulled off, looked at the engine, and tried to keep going. Austin called our mechanic, Rick Olsen, and told him what was happening. He told us to pull off so we made it to the McCammon truck stop. Austin called Rick again and then FaceTimed with Rick to show him the bottom of the car. The transfer case seal that had been replaced the week before had come out. There was oil all over the bottom of our car. We needed a tow truck.  Austin started calling his friends in Logan, but we were still 1.5 hours from Logan.

I sent a Facebook message to a friend from high school that lived on my street that now lived near Pocatello, Maeli Mortensen Bastian.  She gave us the phone number of a tow truck. Rick's Auto gave us the number of a few mechanics that also used Napa AutoCare that would be able to fix the part because it was under warranty.  So the tow truck came and took our car back to Poctaello.  

Maeli came to pick us up so we could go and get her little red Toyota car that she would let us borrow for the weekend.  We are so thankful she was so willing to help us.  We had to only take the essentials since we only had half as much space as before.

We cruised along to Logan and found Jill. It was exciting to see her!  She is going to college in Orem at Utah Valley University, but the rodeo was in Logan this weekend.  We watched her goat tying run on Friday night.  She was fast, but her goat got up. Grandpa and Grandma Nunn came down for general conference also, so they came to the rodeo.  We also visited with Scott & Natalie Ward.  And my quality roommate Hilary (Price) Campbell came with her comfy chair to visit while we watched the rodeo.

We slept at Karma & Steve Albiston's house. Lucy and Carly measured to see if they were taller than Karma yet.  They provided us a great bed and breakfast hospitality. Buck & Martha joined us there, too.

 

The Saturday morning rodeo was a little rainy. 

Jill had a fan club.  A group of girls that Austin had coached in basketball at Mountain Crest decided to come and watch Jill's rodeo since she came and watched all of their games when she was little.  Amanda, Jessica, Shonnee and Nikki and their families came to watch. It was fun to see them.  They stayed for over 3 hours until it was finally time for Jill to rope. 

Jill caught her calf but it ran through the loop and kind of flipped so she got a no time.  

Les  & Hollis and their family also came to watch the rodeo.

Jill loves her rodeo team. They are quality kids.  It was fun to meet them. Austin talked to her coaches (Shane Draper & Colby Jones)for a few minutes, too.  Austin knew them both from when he was in college rodeo.   Colby  told Austin that they love having Jill. She is making their whole team better because of her drive to work and practice so hard that it is making everyone else work harder, too. That's a compliment.

We headed to Salt Lake after the rodeo. We got a hotel right next to Temple Square. Lucy and Carly went swimming (in the swimsuits we bought on clearance in Wal-Mart in Brigham City since we didn't bring swimsuits because I didn't think we would have time to swim).  

Sunday morning we got ready for  General Conference (and didn't eat the frozen breakfast burritos I bought since our hotel room didn't have a microwave. Actually I ate mine cold, but everyone else just ate strawberries and cinnamon rolls).  We had 2 extra tickets so Jill brought her two rodeo friends, Casey Ahlstrom & Sadie Fitzgerald. We needed to be in our seats by 9, and Jill called us at 8:20 and they were already at the Conference Center entrance waiting for us.  That's the Waite in her.  We were still getting ready, but we only had 2 blocks to walk, so we made it in plenty of time.

We had amazing seats.  We were in the front section near the middle. We were only a few rows behind the general authority families. We loved the music and the talks. We were sad that President Monson wasn't there because of his declining health.  They said it was the first conference he hadn't been there for 50 years.  Elder Robert D. Hales was also the only apostle not there.  He actually passed away in between sessions on Sunday.

I only got yelled at twice by police officers while we were driving in downtown Salt Lake. 

We ate lunch with Jill and headed north.  We went to Les & Hollis's house because Buck & Martha stayed there for a couple extra days and let us take their car home.  

We took Maeli's car back and then went back to Idaho Falls.  On Monday morning, Austin and I drove back to Poctaello to talk to the mechanic and get a few more things we needed out of our car. The mechanic that we ended up going to was so nice, knowledgeable and helpful.  We were lucky.  We did some paperwork to make sure the warranty would cover the repairs, and we were on our way home. My Mom met us with our kids at the freeway.

We had great roads through Montana. The three girls were thrilled to have spent most of the weekend in the backseat of tiny cars. As we were driving, Austin kept getting text messages that there was a terrible snowstorm in Cardston and that we should stop in Great Falls.  Three different cars had slid off the road through the fence at our house. Semi-trucks and tour buses had slid off the road. Cars and trucks were in the ditch everywhere.

We decided that we better stop, especially since we were in Grandma's car, and she hadn't put snow tires on yet.  We just laughed at our adventures.  We tried to make the most of it. We got a room at the Comfort Inn, went out to dinner, went to the mall, and then the girls went swimming.

We didn't think we needed an early start the next day so we could wait for the roads to be plowed and melted more. There were a few frozen ice spots that we bounced around on, but for the most part it wasn't too bad.  The snow was actually beautiful.

We were so glad to be home. Although we did have to stop before the cattle guard and walk up our driveway to get the truck because Grandma's car was not going up our driveway.

In the end, our car was fixed by Wednesday morning and Grandpa and Grandma brought it home for us.