October

Seriously? It is already October? Wow. I love this time of year tho. I think it is my favorite. Just like everyone else, I love the chill in the air, the tractors and trucks going up and down fields and roads harvesting, the changing of the leaves, the smell of pumpkin yumminess cooking and the excitement of the approaching holidays. I have never loved Halloween but I love knowing that after Halloween comes Thanksgiving and close behind that Christmas. This year is especially exciting since this handsome missionary (the tall one :) ......will be home right after Thanksgiving. That's less than TWO MONTHS!!! YIPEE!!! I am so excited to see my little and only brother again! :)

Why else do I love this time of year? October General Conference. I really do love General Conference weekend, and not only because I get to be lazy and stay at home for church and watch in my PJ's (although they are all very huge bonuses) but because I get to hear the messages from our living Prophet and his apostles. I love to hear what they have to say and am always touched by the talks that I feel were written just for me. This year was, obviously, especially amazing. Why? Well because of this (as most everyone already knows). We had totally forgotten to turn Conference on Saturday morning and just after 11am Dillon got 2 text messages. One was from his friend that lives in Texas and all it said was something along the lines of "Star Valley Wyoming huh? Awesome" and another one from a friend in his OT program. It said something along the lines of "Is your wife excited?" He told me about the messages and we were both trying to figure out what the heck they were talking about when Dillon said, "Conference. They must have announced a temple in Star Valley." I laughed in his face and told him that was a good one. HAHA. When we realized that was the only plausible explanation we turned on the TV but of course had missed it. I texted my mom and when she didn't respond (she was too busy with her phone ringing and beeping off the hook) I logged onto good ol' Facebook. Holy Cow did I ever get the answer I was looking for. I think it is safe to say that at least half of the people I am friends with from SV had posted one thing or another about the temple. I was still shocked and was having a hard time believing it. When Conference was over we waited a few mins and hurried and looked up Pres Monson's talk from earlier. Sure enough, it was true, a temple in Star Valley, Wyoming. Wow. I am still in shock but am so so excited! I always knew Star Valley was a special place and we didn't need lots of people, a WalMart, a stop light, or a McDonald's to be important :) The rest of Conference was of course amazing. I loved all the talks but you can watch one of my very favorite ones here. I cried thru the whole thing.

Friday night and Sat morning I also got to spend lots of time with these 2 cute girls. Mar and Georgie.
They came to visit and stay the night as they passed thru on their way to Rexburg for the weekend. Oh how I have missed these girls. We had some GOOD times together back in the good ol' days. Now Mar is all grown up and in Law School and Georgie is all grown up, graduated and a teacher. We spent our time together talking, reminiscing, eating "under the bed bars," and staying up WAY past our bed times. It was great. We realized that the last time we were all together on Conference weekend was 4 years ago when we were living together in Carriage House Apartments. And this is how we spent that Saturday Morning Session.
Yup, that's the 3 of us. We woke up that morning to snow. Lots and lots of snow. So much snow in fact that the TV stations were out and so were the radio stations. So, when you can't listen to Conference and it is snowing buckets what do you do? Go and build a snowman in your PJ's of course!
We were quite proud :)

I always love this time of year but as you can see...this year it is especially amazing and exciting!
YAY for PUMPKIN COOKIES, GENERAL CONFERENCE, TEMPLES, MISSION HOMECOMINGS, and HOLIDAYS!