October 2023 Happenings

It's Fall!
We went for a nice drive in American Fork canyon on the first Sunday of the month.  The crowds were low thanks to General Conference, so that made it all the more enjoyable. :)  Here are some pictures from the day:

 

We went on a weekend adventure.
We went to Cedar City to catch their authentic western Fall Festival, and my mom came along too!  Read about it by clicking here.

We undertook major home improvement projects!
Jac did LOTS of home improvements in October (and I helped a bit).  We prepped the box for the sheds (coming early November) by renting this rock-moving-machine and spending AN ENTIRE DAY moving rocks from the driveway to the box Jac built.  Lots of work....but it'll be worth it when we have our two roomy sheds back there!

 

Jac also put in a vent for the oven, and that was a huge ordeal.  First he tried venting it through the furnace flue, but that wasn't super safe, so...

 

...he had to go through the wall -- the thick, hard, adobe+concrete+brick wall.  It took a new power saw, six blades, a hammer and chisel, and HOURS of effort, but he Jac'd it and triumphed in the end!

By the way, this is what the house wall looks like on the inside.  Wondered about this for years.  Kinda uneventful (but reassuring!)

In addition to these two big projects, we also did lots of little decorating tasks inside the house, including combining our decor in the front room to make this cool art wall. 

(And side note, we watched a lot of movies in October, and this tended to be what happened about half way through each movie -- all three of my guys asleep, and just me left watching the movie alone.)

We celebrated two years together!
 October 16 marks two years of Jac and Betsy.  Jac suprised me with a beautiful special dinner, with heart shaped salmon and vegetables, and even special red raspberry ice cubes.  It was delicious and so sweet! 

After dinner we reviewed the last year together by answering five questions that we are going to ask every anniversary from now on:

• What is your favorite memory from last year?
  Our favorite memories were all about unique accommodations---
  (1) the yurt at Dead Horse Point, UT
  (2) the quaint seaside inn at Trinidad Beach, CA
  (3) the oh-so-dumpy LazyU Motel in Rapid City, SD
  
  
• How were we challenged as a couple?
  We both are worried about the impact of not being able to sleep well together (due to Jac's snoring and Betsy's light sleeping).  And we can see potential conflicts over Betsy moving Jac's things while 'unconscious tidying.'
  
  
• How did we thrive as a couple?
  We continued to prove to be very complementary on projects, both working away at different facets/tasks, then coming together to see how we can help each other.  Jac also felt we were doing a great job with communication.
  
  
• What are you looking forward to in the next year?
  We are both looking forward to eloping in the spring and in getting started on some long term financial goals.
  
  
• What is one goal we should try to reach by our next anniversary?
  We both want to see ourselves financially focused and moving forward on saving for retirement.  Hopefully we will have 10 months of living 'the plan' under our belts and can reflect on what's working and what needs tweaking.
  
  

We also had fun...
One Saturday night, we had a fun mystery date night, where Jac had to pop balloons at different times of the night to find out what we were doing next. :) For example, the first balloon said to play a game, so we played a new fun National Geographic one. 

And one balloon said to have Jac's favorite dessert, so I had on hand everything needed to make "vanilla bean ice cream with pineapple and cracked black pepper."  Sounds odd, but he's right....it's yummy!

 

About midway through the month, we got to see a solar eclipse, from the comfort of our own backyard:

 

It made cool crescent shaped shadows all over the yard:

We also got crafty. To celebrate Halloween, we did a little Halloween-themed painting project (and in my fantasy world, this holiday + craft thing becomes a new tradition for us, at least for the big holidays.) 

 

And on Halloween night, we had a quick little holiday celebration, with a tombstone shaped, ghost-and-spider bedecked pizza (by Jac):

and some bats and spiders decorations (by me):

We also played a new game that turned out to be kind of a dud -- Medium.  Oh well, at least we tried.

Also in October
Our fearless new kitty adjusted to his new life here with nooooo problem.

Thankfully, Oliver is also SLOWLY adjusting to having a hyper little brother around.

We had our last harvest of the season--- this bin o' veggies

 

...plus another huge bin full of still-green tomatoes, which Jac made into Fried Green Tomatoes with remoulade sauce (my first time eating them...yum!)

And, of course, we ate well all month
Here's a sampling of the scrumptious Jac creations: