mike and ruth

Kristen has a fun birthday celebration tonight along with the trick-or-treaters who stopped by to get thier treats. We had a nice visit with everyone and Chase went out with his siblings dressed as a little dragon. Daphne was a little princess with a wand and a tiara. It was warm enough that the kids didn’t have to wear coats over their costumes, which made for a wide variety of little ghosts and goblins running around the streets.

As most of you have probably already heard, our 18th grandchild was born on October 20 at 9:11am in Provo. Olivia Grace weighed in at 8 lbs 1 ounce and was 18-inches long. She looks a lot like Daphne, who is delighted to have her little sibling here now. Their mother is doing well and little Olivia has dark eyes to go with her dark hair. We heard he cry for the first time a few days ago. She sleeps so much that we haven’t seen her eyes too much either. We are very proud of Charlotte and Andrew for not waiting to have their family even though Andrew is still in school. We know their children will bring them much joy, and they already do. They are so fun to visit with and enjoy time with. We are grateful that they live close and we can see them often!

We drove up Provo Canyon and then took the North Fork past Sundance and Aspen Grove up to the turnoff for Cascade Springs today, and took Grandma Hill with us. It was quite busy in the North Fork Canyon and there were quite a few cyclists too, but we were about the only car going to Cascade Springs after the turnoff. We didn’t get away until about 5:30 so we were worried we would not have enough daylight to see things, but it worked out beautifully. It was quite cool in the mountains, a nice contrast to the warm temperatures that got up into the 70’s and felt quite warm in the sun. (We went walking during the day in the sun and it was quite warm.) The scenery was beautiful as you can see and even though there were quite a few people there it was not particularly crowded. We took the road to the east up and over the ridge over to Wasatch Mountain State Park in Midway just for a change of pace. It was paved on the Cascade Springs side but on the other side of the ridge it was well-graded gravel and very wide. This was a nice quick and relaxing trip for us to see the beauty of that place and some of the colors of fall that were there. We need to do this next summer during our family reunion if it turns out to be convenient!