Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall!

Where has the summer gone? Luckily September has been so warm, it hasn't felt like the summer days are over. The only things giving it away are the blazing red colors on the mountains and the fact that it gets darker much earlier than before.

The nice thing about end of summer is the end of gardening work. But that also means the end of eating garden produce!

We have been swimming in tomatoes for some time now. We've shared with co-workers, tenants, ward members, family members, made salsa, eaten a lot of chips & salsa, BLT sandwiches, salads and we still can't keep up with all the tomatoes I knew this would happen, when 18 tomato plants were planted last springs. And this hasn't been the greatest year for tomatoes. Thankfully, I guess. I planted roma tomatoes for the first time this year because I heard they were better for making salsa. I have to concur with that now that I've tried it. All future gardens will have roma tomatoes, just not so many of them!

What this has been a good year for is canteloupe!! With the ward garden space we could plant them since we had the space for them to spread and oh, baby! We are so glad we did. The canteloupe has been heavenly and has been very productive. Canteloupe is one of my favorite fruit and these look just like the ones you buy in the store, a lot of them have been huge, heavy things. Delicious!!

It has also been the year of monster cucumbers. Sometimes I didn't catch them soon enough and we'd walk away with a cucumber like this. And that isn't even the biggest one we've had!

We are also starting to harvest our corn that was planted in the ward garden. For the last few weeks, I think I have been living off of salsa & chip, canteloupe, corn, salad and in the last few days, peaches!!

Our peach trees have been very plentiful. I have already canned 16 jars of peach jam, 3 jars of peach pie filling and so many jars of peaches, I've lost count. Fresh peaches for breakfast, lunch & dinner are available here.

Apples have also kept me busy. Dave helped as my assistant one day.  He is a pro at the apple peeler/corer thing-a-ma-bob. We did 13 quarts of apple pie filling and left a lot of apples for just plain eating. I've been eating at least an apple a day and I can testify it is keeping the doctor away!

It's great to have so many things to eat that we have grown ourselves. My weekly shopping bill yesterday? $25.

Dave mustn't have been eating enough apples because he came down sick this month. So sick that he dragged his sorry butt into the doctor. Now if you know Dave, you know that means he was sick!  One of the drawbacks of being a medic, is he tends to diagnos himself and doesn't feel like paying someone to do it. But this time, he bit the bullet and went and he came back pretty surprised. He had PNEUMONIA! He stayed home sick for a full week. I mean really stayed home, IN BED, for a full week. He was so bored by the end of it.

A nice perk we got out of that is we learned how to hook up our laptop computer to our big screen TV in our bedroom and we signed up for Netflix, so we have been enjoying watching movies & tv shows. Dave has become hooked on Burn.Notice.

This summer we bought 1/4 of a cow raised by a member of our ward so we have been enjoying freshly butchered meat and some good cuts.  Awhile back we ate ribeye steaks for dinner..twice in the same week.  Yumm. Today we have on tap, dinner with two of Dave's siblings and their spouses and we are serving T-bones! Living the high life, uh-huh.

This summer working with the young women has helped me do a number of fun activities. We rode Provo Canyon bike trail - twice because the girls liked it so much. We went out jet skiing on Utah Lake and it was quite the hit. We went to the city pool and learned to do water aerobics. Our class is now getting smaller with a number of the girls turning 14. It has changed the dynamics a bit.

Dave got to spend some time up at Bear Lake with the older scouts helping them earn the sailing merit badge. He enjoyed the time and came home with some interesting stories.

Dave has been busy helping his son move out to Roosevelt. Bryan got hired to teach science out there and is so excited for the opportunity. Unfortunately, his health has taken a turn for the worse in the last month with his kidney that he just had transplanted 4 years ago causing most of the problems. It has landed him in the hospital multiple times and he has had to take it easy. That meant Dave had to step up to the plate and do a lot of the hauling and fixing up needed. Housing is so sparse out there because of the oil boom going on, the only place they could find to rent was a real fixer upper so Dave has been helping out there as well.

This has prevented us from going down to the property in Koosheram as often as we had hoped this summer. Hopefully we'll get down there one more time before the end of the nicer weather.

Jenni has moved out on her own as of mid-August. The parting was not on the best of terms. We are hoping all will go well for her and that she will choose to invest in having a relationship with her family at some point in her life. She recently was hired to work at a convenience store in Orem called Common Cents. She had been looking for a job like that for some time. She is still working her part-time afternoon job at a center for troubled youth. Her boyfriend and her have been on-again, off-again for some time. Currently it is off.

With Jenni moving out and Spencer doing that early in the summer, we are now truly empty nesters. Chico is lonely, I'm afraid. Even though Spencer and Jenni were always busy with their lives, Chico at least had someone to sleep with at night and Jenni would often bring her dogs over when she came around, now Chico only has us old farts to hang with. I take him walking as often as I can. Yesterday Dave took Chico with him out to Roosevelt and he had some good adventures there from what I hear.

Spencer had a shock on August 16th when he learned that Steve, my former husband, and the man he has always called dad, passed away due to a heart attack. It was totally unexpected. He was only 62. Spencer had missed visiting with him the Sunday before and had made plans to see him the upcoming Sunday, Aug. 19th. It has been hard on him. He spoke at his funeral and Steve has been buried in the Pleasant Grove cemetery just down the street from our home. I also attended the funeral to support Spencer. It was difficult for me because when someone passes you can't help but review your experiences with them. It caused me to revisit some of my deepest sorrows and most painful years. It made me sad for what was lost and what could have been. The good news is that the Atonement is a real power. Steve had worked hard to get his church membership back and was close to submitting papers for reinstating his priesthood and temple blessings. His current wife and him were hoping to be sealed together as soon as that happened. I know the Atonement has made it possible for me to heal and I am hoping that my children will learn to turn to the Atonement for help in their healing process. The other good news is it made me reflect on how blessed I am to have a good man like Dave as my spouse and eternal companion. Listening to the funeral, made me reflect on the fact that no one is perfect. We all have our weaknesses and we certainly make plenty of mistakes. It really is our choice whom we will love and part of loving is forgiving when they make the inevitable mistakes that come with mortal life. Dave is not perfect. He has his challenges that he has to work on overcoming and improving. But I felt impressed from early on when I first met him that he had a good heart and I continue to see that time and time again. Dave truly cares about me and my children. He works hard to serve us and help us be happy, as well as serving our neighbors, friends, ward members and extended family members. My life is better because he is in it.

September has been stressful dealing with helping Donna & Bob. The good news is Bob is in a care facility and has been approved for long-term Medicaid to pay for it. Donna is doing better. She really wasn't equipped to handled Bob. His dementia/alzheimers had deteriorated so badly, it had made her suicidal. Hopefully Bob will adjust and learn to like his new lifestyle. I'm ready for life to calm down. I'm afraid my work suffered this month.

But Dave and I did get away one Saturday for a day up in the mountains at Snowbird. We enjoyed the breakfast buffet and then took the tram up to the top, hiked around and enjoyed the beautiful fall colors as we rode down the peruvian chair lift. It was nice to relax and enjoy each other's company.