End of October...

...my favorite time in the fall. With the cooler weather, everything keeps blooming, like the honeysuckle (above), and the leaves change and drop, with more color everywhere. John and Chris and I planted spring bulbs in the swing garden (below)--red tulips and yellow daffodils.

John finished the grape juice, and now the grape leaves turn yellow.

(Another gratuitous photo of the water garden, because I love it so much).

Then one day we wake up and snow is on the mountains like a visitation from God:

and all our places are transformed.



But don't worry. It melts off by afternoon, and we're back to autumn again:

Claudio lives outside full-time now. John is working on a cathouse for him. He has a heating pad to sleep on.

I made Blood and Bones for Halloween (tomato soup with bread sticks),

and John ate his when we went to SLC to trick or treat with the babes. He was not supposed to put goldfish in the blood though--ruins the effect.

Nicolle made Johnathan an incredible matador outfit.

Here we are--Colette as a flamenco dancer, Nicolle as a gypsy, and me as my natural self.

John was a miner (not the Chilean kind), and the horse-head guy (by Rob) is sort of a cross between a unicorn and The Godfather?

Rob welcomes trick or treaters at his house:

and we're off to gather the loot. Johnathan let me know that the witch below was not real.

We had fun visiting Colette's kindergarten teacher, Miss Tammy, just around the corner.

Ethan was sick with an ear infection, so they didn't go out. We went to visit instead.


When we got back home, several sleepy looking teenagers were watching "The Man Who Knew Too Much" on our VCR (our DVD player seems to have bitten the dust).

Then Sunday afternoon, John and I drove down to The Farm to see Damien and Kelli's new baby Liam.

As a bonus, Tena was there! She didn't tell anyone she was coming, but drove up from California Saturday and rang the doorbell trick or treating. Grandma twice now!


For your viewing pleasure, a Bullfight: