Mama Rose Monday: October Round Up

In the moment, I felt like much of October was spent with sickness. All of us went through horrible colds, and mine especially lingered on for the whole month, only to finally receive an official diagnosis of allergies! Fall allergies. Who would have thought? But then as I started thinking about this blog post I was reminded of some of the fun things we did despite our illnesses. For starters, the kids and I hiked Stewart Falls for the first time, with Keola and Landon joining us. It was a bit of a stretch for Rhenner, whom I had to “carry” down on a few different occasions (and with Mira on my front, this meant I was actually just hoisting him sideways on my hip, and instead of being grateful for not having to walk, he cried more because it really was crazy). We all rejoiced at the end of that one. But look how beautiful! It was totally worth it. I would do this one with them again next year and I bet Rhenner would have enough stamina by then to walk all the way down to the bottom of the falls (we skipped that steep part this time around).

This past August, when I drove up to Rexburg on a whim to see the total eclipse, I also went and looked at a cute, decent-priced trailer in Shelley. We ended up buying it and then my mom and Michael drove it down for me a few weeks later. It needed a few repairs and to get registered, so it wasn’t until two months later that we actually took it out and went somewhere with it. Our first night as a family in the trailer was spent parked on Utah Lake literally only 10 minutes down the road from us. We weren’t entirely sure about our heater that first night/how it worked, so we froze our butts off! I ended up making the boys sleep on the same bed halfway through the night so they could share & double up on the blankets. Adam and I slept with the blanket wrapped over our heads. We survived, and woke up to a gorgeous moonrise in the middle of the night, and a just-as-beautiful sunrise.

 

Our next trip out with the trailer was my first time driving it! We wanted to camp in the Payson Canyon, and since Adam works in that direction, I told him he could meet us up in the mountain rather than driving all the way home and all the way back again. Now that was an adventure…considering I definitely did NOT know how to back up a trailer. I also quickly found out I didn’t know how to unhook the car from the trailer, either. I pushed and prodded and kicked and fretted with that thing until someone showed up not too far from our campsite. I walked over to him and asked for help and he graciously walked all the back with me and quickly and effortlessly unhooked my car from the trailer so I could go pick up Adam (there is no cell service up the canyon….I had no way of getting ahold of him besides meeting him at the designated spot!). I was so grateful for that man – and for answered prayers.

When I drove up the canyon to find our campsite, it was a gorgeous, warm fall morning. By the time we all drove back up the canyon after picking up Adam…..it had snowed. The drive back up was way more enchanting, with the pine trees sparkling and glittering in the sun. The boys loved it and I was completely unprepared (we were all wearing sandals for heavens sake!) but we used our heater that night and so we were happy campers.

 

 

And last, what would an October post be without our Halloween pictures?? Mira and I had dressed up like sheep, so naturally Adam was our farmer. I tried to convince the boys to go in on our family theme, but they insisted on wearing the costumes I had bought for them the previous year when all the Halloween items had gone on sale 😉 Cousin Aston joined us, and the boys had to learn to slow down for her to keep up.

The very next day we left bright and early for Maryland, starting off our November adventures with a bang!!