Val Dowland

October. What a blur! I swear that whole month I didn't sit down. But, I love the fall. Every season is my favorite, but I think my favorite of my favorites is Fall. I love the warm, bundly clothes, I love the colors, I love the smells, I love the Holidays and I love all the memories.

We started off October with a good start. We took Jared to lunch at Su Casa (his favorite restuarant) and later that day our little nephew, Grayden, was born. For Jared's birthday we dug firepit and paved it and all of that. We have enjoyed many a fire out there. It's kind of fun because that is one of the things that Jared and I have ALWAYS loved to do together and now I think we're instilling that love in our children . . . well, Emmie anyway.

So, other fun things. I went up to Jerome, ID to visit my good friend/former roommate Mary. She is a hunting widow (I think her husband drew out for every possible thing) and so we decided to have a girls' weekend. It was a BLAST! Highly recommendable. Emmie stayed home to play with her cousin Kenna and Jimmy and I went to play with Mary and Hunter. I'm sure the boys had a great time! We did manicures, pedicures, crafts, went to a boutique fair, shopping, and happy hour at Sonic. In all of that hubbub I didn't take one single picture. Duh! We were having so much fun that I kind of forgot. Darn! Mary was the hostess with mostest and I think this is the first of many to come girls' weekends in the Jerome, ID.

Halloween. As most of you know, this holiday is HUGE at my house. Ok, every holiday is big. But Halloween means spudnuts! So, we got costumes, which was an ordeal in and of itself. We picked out pumpkins with Kenna and Emilie just down our street at Rasmussen Farms. We did Trunk-Or-Treat with our ward. On Halloween day we headed up to my parents house to help with the 300 doughnut prep. It was crazy and chaotic and fun. We went to Mel's Halloween party and had a great time! Mel, you throw one heck of a party.We saw lots of people we hadn't seen in FOREVER and it was so fun. We had child duty so we couldn't stay long, but had a great time just the same.

The thing is. It only keeps getting crazier from here on out. But, this kind of crazy is good and fun and I love it. Love to all ya'll!

The Dowlands