October 2026

Well Miles got to start off October with a bang! He and three friends (all girls ha) went up to my Grandpa's cabin at Mack's over Conference Weekend. Cousin Everett also kind of joined them . . . but mostly did his own thing (which included driving into the Park, etc.). Everyone had a great time!

Brooklyn and Miles at the Firetower.

Getting ready to float the river. :)

Weather looks pretty amazing for October.

A cool shot, I thought!

So fun.

Enjoying what looks like a spaghetti dinner. Ava is in the front, Brooklyn is by Miles, and I don't know who the other girl is. Ha.

Hot dogs and beans over the fire pit. So cool.

Chillin' and eating on the front porch.

You can't go to Mack's without a trip to Big Springs. It's always so beautiful there.

Ha, I had to post this one for my mom's sake! Go puzzlers!

Emmy had a great Conference weekend, too. I had gotten tickets for conference and she and four of her roommates were able to use them and attend the Sunday morning session. 

 Megan, Hunter, Lelah, and Emmy in front of the Conference Center. Such sweet and pretty young ladies.

Apparently Emmy did some glamour shots. :)

Gorgeous!

Emmy really does love her roommates and they love her too. Double yay! Megan, Emmy, Lelah, Ava, and Hayden. (Hunter was there but didn't want to be in the pictures. Silly girl.)

College in the fall is the best!

Okay, now onto the rest and random and out-of-order pics from the month:

Miles and friends went to Taco Bell and then a haunted house on Halloween. Sounds like a perfect Halloween for college kids!

Miles, aka Jason. Is that Jason? I honestly don't know what he is.

Emmy went to the Utah State vs. Colorado St. football game on Halloween afternoon. Utah State whooped CSU - but the best part was meeting up with Big Blue after the game. :)

Miles dyed his hair red. I actually think it looks great!

Just some fun AI stuff . . . The dog looks like a Brigham/Gordon composite. Cute and silly.

Emmy went to visit Aidan for a long weekend - Friday night thru Tuesday. She had a hard time leaving, ha. But they had a good time going out to dinner, watching movies, shopping, making orange chicken (bold!), etc. 

One of Emmy's favorite things they did was visit one of my favorite humans, Sarah Bugarin! I was so jealous of Emmy to see Sarah and Sarah to see Emmy. Haha. Sarah had them over on Sunday evening for dinner and games. Sarah and Jay are such a great couple to be with! And of course their kids are wonderful - Aiden now married to Emily, Alex (one of Lucy's good friends) and cutie Evan. Loved this so much.

We painted our door yellow! (Again being very liberal with the "we" as my contribution consisted of using AI to give examples of different yellow doors and going to Home Depot to help pick the color. . . ) Something I've wanted to do for years . . . and then Lucy randomly said we should do it once and so now it's done. Or almost. I think "we" still need to put some outside coating on it . . . ?

It's been so rainy here! Our precipitation total for September and October was over 6 inches. The norm is around 2 inches. CrAzY! But it made for a couple beautiful misty-morning runs. :)

This was a random site on my run on that same misty morning! A big, dead fish! It was like over a foot long and on the side of the road (some other walker had moved it over the second time I passed it and got this picture). So weird! Erin even used it for her statistics class one day - ha!

Beautiful Berry turned 101! She's amazing and it's fun to "help" her out a couple of times a week. I take her to appointments, pick up the random grocery item she ran out of, help pick-out and mail cards (which is hard - I mean, picking out a card to give out yourself is difficult. But to choose one for someone else to give - sooo hard, ha!), light housekeeping, light "nursing" care, etc. We almost always get a little lunch and eat it somewhere around town in her car. She likes to get out, even if she can't always actually get out . . . Berry's granddaughter came in town for the week of her birthday and there was a group of about 11 of us that got to go to dinner and celebrate her (including spouses, so Ben got to join us - fun).

My mom sent us children this cute picture of our parents practically twinning. :)

Jonas is trying to catch coyotes. Utah pays you to kill them . . .

Ben headed up to Bear Lake to attend his niece's wedding. Claire, Debbie's youngest, got married there. Ben left Friday and stayed at my parent's house - catching the BYU game that night. :) He headed up north on Saturday morning, grabbing Emmy on his way. Jonas actually had a funeral in Logan that day and so he was close and was able to make it. Miles drove down from Rexburg and made it the four of them. I think they all had a lovely time and the bride was stunning! (Our kids are so old!)

Lucy doesn't really send me pictures ha! But she had a good and busy month, including 2 parties and at least 3 different costumes for Halloween. :)

Lucy the pirate and Ruby the . . .? Lucy had a good Halloween weekend!

And that's about it for October!

Brigham the Old, 6/5/15-10/8/26

Brigham passed away on October 8th. He was 11 years, 4 months, and 3 days old. (I thought it was pretty old - until I looked up the breed's lifespan and it said 12-15 years. Sad, we got gypped with our guy!)

But he was obviously getting older and was definitely slowing down. My last run with him was back in May. His hips just couldn't take it anymore. I'd still get him out a few times a week for a walk and he continued to pull me like he was a young, strapping pup. But then I'd hear his back paws scuff and was brought back to the reality of his oldness.

Brigham had a great last few months. He loved going to the local dog park - something we started doing to run off Gordon's energy . . . all the dogs loved it. Brigham would run (in his odd, bad-hip kind of way), chase, and sniff all over. It was so fun to watch him . . . 

On Wednesday, October 7th he had a good, last day (unbeknownst to us at the time) - in the morning he was playing with Gordon. He would give a few feet chase and a few barks - and then Gordon would psychotically run circles in the backyard. Repeat about 10 times. Ben was home fixing the gutters and we laughed at the dogs and were definitely reminded of old-man Wilson playing with the young and spry Brigham. Wilson would hardly move - just howl and that would set off Brigham into running the circles in our yard. Life was a full circle, indeed, for Brigham. 

Brigham ate his dinner just fine that night . . . but then a little later he was just off to both Ben and myself. We had let the dogs out and were ready to bring them back in but Brigham just stood in the backyard, not wanting to move. I told Ben he might have to carry Brig in . . . and honestly I don't know if he did or if Brigham ended up walking in on his own. A little later, Ben told me that he was concerned Brigham could possibly be dying . . . Brigham was in the back room and we went and just laid down by him and talked to him. :) His breathing was a little off - not awful, gasping, agonal, etc. - just not right. Little "guffaws" every 10 or so breaths. Long story short . . . we let him sleep downstairs as opposed to carrying him up to his crate. We watched a show with Lucy and as we went up to bed, Brigham was still in the living room. But he didn't eat his bedtime treat.

By morning time, we found that Brigham had gone to the backroom, hid his head under a chair, and passed away. Sniff, sniff, cry, cry!

It's devastating, but we also count it a blessing that Brigham didn't have to suffer for too long. He went quickly and peacefully and hopefully knew that he was beloved.

Petting Brigham the night before he passed away.

This is where Brigham went to pass away. We covered him with a blanket for a few hours, and then later we let Bella and Gordon come in . . . Gordon was pretty oblivious to Brigham. He's just a dumb toddler ha. Bella sniffed Brigham quite a bit and you could tell she knew something was different. I think this picture caught such a sweet moment. Bella loved Brigham a ton.

Emmy's post in honor of Brigham.

Jonas' post in honor of Brigham.

Miles' sketch in honor of Brigham.

Lucy hugged and kissed him the night before. :)

Ben dug a deep hole and we buried Brigham in our backyard/garden area. The kids wanted us to do a funeral . . . but we didn't . . . but we did place with Brigham a picture of the seven of us atop Mt. Handies - a 14er we did almost exactly 9 years ago (minus 1 day). We brought out Miles' painting and said our goodbyes. :(

Brigham was the best. He was everything a good human should be. :) He was truly one of my best-friends. RIP Brigham.

September This 'n That

It turned out to be quite a busy month - I even had other posts other than my catch-all for the month! But here are my catch-all pics for September:

Emmy and one of her roommates, Ava, at their first Aggie Football game. 

Aidan came out that same weekend for a short little visit. He went to the game as well - too bad they lost, but it was still a lot of fun for them!

Yesss, Brigham got groomed again. I don't think Ben would have agreed to it if it hadn't been for Miles' encouragement . . . :)

Miles tried a new form of art: embroidery! He stitched this fun patch that he designed and created himself. 

Another painting of Miles: The Narrows, Zion National Park.

Ben, Miles, and I hiked to Blue Lake on Labor day and it was great. It's a local and classic hike around here and it had been a long while since Ben or Miles had done it. As always, it was pretty!

We found a couple of glasses while hiking and had fun trying them on. :)

It wasn't quite the beautiful blue lake. . . but was still gorgeous. Not sure if it was the time of year, the overcast sky, etc.?

Oh yes, we brought Gordon with us, too. :)

Love this pup!

Just another picture - it definitely looked more fallish up there!

I had a couple of friends who were hiking up there - but on a different trail (same trailhead). So I found their car (and hoped I was right) and left my woodsey signature. :)

September got TONS of rain! Over 2 inches . . . last year we got about a 1/2 inch. Yes, all month. We live in a desert. Anyways, it started soaking our basement carpet. The culprit? No rain gutters on this side of the house. So we (aka Ben) created this tarp thing to direct the rain away from the basement. And it worked and we got more and more rain after we put this up and so it was good that Ben did this! (Side-note: Ben started working on putting in gutters today!)

Spot the Pug!

Jonas and a few friends - including roommate and work-buddy Mason - traveled to Fort Collins to watch the CSU vs. BYU football game. Luckily the Y came up with the win! Jonas had a good time!

Jonas even ran into a young man from Montrose at the game - Ethan, who attends CSU.

Jonas earned a new ribbon (the white one) for doing 25 funerals. Nice work Jonas!

The End (of September).