Not planned....

Halloween is Buddy's absolutely FAVORITE HOLIDAY OF ALL TIME. Buddy will plan months in advance what he wants to do to celebrate the day, whether it is a party or setting up a free haunted house at our place. He loves ALL of the things related to his favorite holiday. Unfortunately, we live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific that hasn't quite grasped onto all the amazing fall themed festivities! That just gave us a good excuse to go to a place that really knows how to do fall right (possibly because they actually have a fall season).....Buddy and I hopped on a flight to go to Utah for two weeks this past October so we could ring in the holiday in style....Seriously, nothing says Halloween like a large pumpkin entryway....

Or a large cow? 

and some ears of corn?

Weirdly enough, our trip to celebrate Halloween allowed us the opportunity to hang out with my day....

Go visit a hot spring...

And go on a hike with what used to be my favorite sister....

That is until she took me on a hike to the top of a very high mountain (which was awesome)....and then we didn't started descending said mountain until the sun was setting. That could have been a cool experience...if we had prepared to do that. You know prepare, as in have flashlights, snacks....possibly a bear gun!

I took solo pictures of my personal dash to the bottom of the mountain while singing at the top of my lungs to scare the bears away. I'm pretty positive my sister owes her life to me.

While we were visiting my dad, I called and made a reservation to go see Shane's dad before we left. I got a phone call from Shane's stepmom that she didn't think he was doing very well. Buddy and I took off to go visit them. I'm going to keep my comments short on this, but I will say that Buddy and I had the honor and opportunity to help care for Shane's dad. I don't know if you can have a good time dying, but I feel like Charlie really went out with a bang, he had such a great sense of humor and made the best one-liners up until the very end. It was a very special time for us. Shane's family all got to make it out to see him and Charlie planned his own party for after the funeral where the kids played their instruments like the Partridge family. 

A few days later, Buddy had his birthday and officially became a man....at least from a legal standpoint. We took all of the family to Lagoon to celebrate.

A few days after that I turned 50...

Exciting!

So all in all a day!