Halloween Toes

It is always a fun adventure taking Becca to get a "pedi"

She has become a pro at this. After we check in Becca goes right to the wall containing the myriad of bottles of nail polish containing every possible color. She does not ask my counsel. I hold my breath, although I've grown more flexible. Years ago I steered her toward mild shades of pink. Upon further review (as the football refs say) I realized that this special lady has control of very few decisions in her life. So what the heck. Let her pick her toe color. So we've had gaudy green and sparkling blue and it makes her happy to be able to choose.

As a little back story, Becca keeps track of the holiday seasons by watching the Walmart decorations. So she is aware that Halloween season is upon us. 

That may have influenced her toe color selection this time. She picked orange. I'm glad it wasn't black, but I would not have vetoed that.

But she added a new wrinkle. She asked for a little decoration for her big toes. 

If you look closely you will see tiny black witches' hats.

Becca is very pleased and we are happy for her.

Can one of you ladies tell us. Will those little stickers last until Oct 31?

This is her birthday song!

It lasted most of the day!
Gramma's  birthday celebration began this morning at Cracker Barrel restaurant. This national chain is Gramma's favorite, especially for breakfast. 

Among their wide variety of menu times is a generous combo that she likes. It's called "Sunrise Sampler". There is traditional eggs, toast and OJ and a few less traditional items like grits. Yum

While waiting for her order she played a fun peg game. She and Jon like to play it. Below the one peg standing shows that won!

Next Gramma choose a movie to see. At our neighborhood cineplex the 3D "Finding Nemo" is showing. Nemo is one of her favorite movies. The 3D version didn't disappoint her.

Here is my sweetheart eating some "Nutty Coconut" in a waffle cone, her fav ice cream treat.
Isn't she pretty? I think so and I did 55 years ago when I first met her in Mr. Dyer's "Social Studies"  class (not making up that name. I think it was a combo of civics and English. My strongest memory is of a cute brunette who sat in front of me) at Rialto Jr. High School. 

Happy Birthday, Dutch (a nick name because her maiden name was Van Kirk)

Return to our Mesa Home

On April 4th the Auswanderers left  VDO with Bigfoot's odometer reading 67992 to start our "Kith and Kin" roadtrip heading east and north toward the Atlantic Ocean. We  especially wanted to get to New Hampshire to spend time with Meg and her family, which we did.

 On September 15th we returned to VDO through this entrance. Below is Robert on weekend guardhouse duty. The odometer read 77420. We had traveled 9428 miles! What a summer adventure we had! We really enjoyed visiting family and friends all over the US and Canada

VDO offers an attractive package for folks who'd come in September. You see (or don't see) below the number of RVs that took them up on the offer. Later "in the season" these sites will be full. This is a very attractive RV Resort.

Today's (9/22) temperature was 107. Could that be a factor in low turn out so far? Probably. The forecast calls for hot days and nights for several more weeks. But that's OK with the Auswanderers. We're glad to be off the road. Our AC works well. We run our errands in the "cool" of the morning, and hunker down in the air conditioned rig during the heat of the day

Bigfoot doesn't feel crowded by neighbors.

 We've been to the pool twice in the late afternoon to find no one there. We had it to ourselves. We cooled off and felt pampered

Monument Valley

This was our last stop in Utah going south, early September, '12. Goulding, the story goes, went to Hollywood and convinced John Ford to make his western films using this location. Ford was very impressed. He said "Monument Valley is the most complete, beautiful and peaceful place on earth" Over the years he made 7 films here. How many have you seen? (Stage Coach '39, My Darling Clementine '46, Fort Apache '48, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon '49, The Searchers '56, Sergeant Rutledge '60, Cheyenne Autumn '64) If you get a chance to see any of them again, watch for these iconic "monuments" This area became famous and Ford, John Wayne and Harry Goulding became wealthy. With some of the fortune that Goulding made from his success he built an RV park.

When we parked, Bigfoot had his nose pointing toward this red bluff

At dusk, a few feet away, this was our view. We used to say that it was hard to take a bad photo in Hawaii. The same might be said about Monument Valley.

In the morning sunlight this was the bluff in front of Bigfoot

Here are three "dawn in Monument Valley" photos

We really haven't gone exploring in this area. But next time we will. There is much to see. Since driving through here we have noticed that this popular landscape is used in commercials, cartoons and in the new opening sequence of "Music and the Spoken Word"

He's Home!!

Today 9/11 we got to see Ganon. He returned from London last night about midnight. He left on 8/23 to work as part of the video crew at the Paralympics. His position is Video Control (VC), part of the engineering team. In GB it's called "Vision Operator", nicknamed "Rack". I think we got that right.

He arrived safe and well, although his luggage didn't make it out of Chicago. Below Becca greets her brother at his "welcome home" at his work at KBYU Broadcasting (his day job).

Heidi brought a yummy home lunch for him.

TJ and Sarah were there...

as was Joseph.

GP brought special London souvenirs from the Auswanderers. Proud Mom got a beautiful Olympic pin

Becca got a pink Olympic logo pin.

Papa got a handsome ball cap, which he wore the rest of the day.

Mahalo Ganon. We love the gifts but we are most grateful that we have you back, especially on this somber day. You appear to have had a terrific professional experience. You seem to be the same humble guy, even though we noticed you have added a British adjective "brilliant" to your vocabulary. Continue to mind the gap.