October 2025

 

For the LAST few weeks and probably for the NEXT couple of weeks we will be trying to figure out how to arrange our furniture after getting our new carpet.

Sooo . . . Linda made these diagrams of our Living room and Bedroom. She also made cutouts of all the furniture (to scale of course). Now we can arrange and rearrange to our hearts content. Every once in a while we get out the tape measure and do some actual measuring so we can get a better visual picture. We are doing our best to make this as miserable as possible and we think we are succeeding.

 October 14th can't come soon enough !!

 

Wednesday 10/1

Look what Amazon deivered to our house today !!

Debbi's newest coloring book. This one has pages filled with, not only coloring pages, but also  activity and game pages. It is generic enough for all Christians, but great for our LDS church community. 

Way to go Debbi !!

Today, while our painter was hard at work, Steve took the light fixture by our backyard garage door down.

He took it apart and cleaned it up while Linda cleaned the glass. Next we began the task of repainting it. It takes several coats to get it well covered. Later this afternoon, it was finished and we got it put back together. We'll have to wait until the wall, it goes on, gets painted before we can put it back up. 

 On October  24th we were finally able to put it back up !!

Thursday 10/2

This afternoon we went for a little walk in our neighborhood

Fall is in the air and we couldn't help noticing the trees are all beginning to turn some of those beautiful fall colors. We haven't even had a frost yet, but the overnight temperatures are dropping.

Friday 10/3

Last month, while preparing to paint the house, we removed the  month-to-month welcome sign that hangs near the sidewalk as you come to our front door. It was very weather-worn and faded, sooo  . . . .

Linda got busy with her paints and freshend it up. She sanded it down and gave it a new coat of paint.

Today, we hung it back up. It is much brighter and looking great - It even matches the front door !!

Sunday 10/5

This weekend was General Conference. We were able to watch all five sessions via satelite on BYU-TV

It was a unique conference commonly refered as an Apostalic Interregnum. Elder Dallin H. Oaks, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Presided. Today there were 14 Apostles seated on the stand . . . together, and quite without our beloved Prophet, Russell M. Nelson whose funeral will be on Tuesday 10/7. After that, a new First Presidency will be created and a new Apostle will be called to serve.

Interesting fact:  In 1887 the church experienced the longest interregnum in modern history. After John Taylor's death. President Wilford Woodruff led the church for nearly two years before being ordained. In 1951, when George Albert Smith died, the interregnum lasted just 5 days and in 2018, after the death of President Monson, there was another interregnum that lasted for 12 days.  

Today's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:

Dallin H. Oaks, Jeffrey R. Holland, Henry B. Eyring, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, David A. Bednar

Quentin L. Cook, D. Todd Christofferson, Neil L. Andersen, Ronald A. Rasband,

 Gary E. Stevenson, Dale G. Renlund, Garrit W. Gong, Ulisses Soares & Patrick Kearon

Monday 10/6

On September 22nd we ordered new house numbers. 

We had to put up some temporary numbers until the new ones got here. They arrived on Saturday and Today we got them mounted on our house. As you can see, the old numbers were above the garage door with no light shining on them. Now, our new numbers are right under the light.

Now they are well lit !!

We are still moving things around in preparation for our new carpet. Today we moved our "retro-record player" and cabinet to the office. 

We had fun going through all the records. There was quite a variety. From classical, to sacred, to easy listening, to 60's pop, to children's . . . . ALL GOOD STUFF !!

Tonight, we had a Ward activity. They called it 

Let's "TACO" about Conference

The ward provided the tortillas, meat, and cheese then everyone brought their favorite topping or whatever. Needless to say, there was plenty to go around! 

After dinner, we spent some time sharing our feelings & impressions of General Conference with each other. There was a good turnout so we enjoyed the company, and had a good time, with our Ward Family !!

Tuesday 10/7

This afternoon was President Nelson's Funeral.

It was a beautiful service, held in the Conference Center. Russell M. Nelson Jr. stated that nearly all of the 300 "Nelson Descendents" were in attendance. The speakers, including a daughter and son, gave beautiful tributes and the music by the Tabernacle Choir was perfect and included a hymn whose lyrics were written by President Nelson.

Wednesday 10/8

We worked on a couple more "projects"  today

We cleaned out the towers on our headboard, in preparation for having to move it when our new carpet is installed next week. Linda also did some "cleaning out" upstairs. A while back she went through her piles and piles of music, today, she went through her piles and piles of fabric. The pile on the floor is for the trash, there are at least 7 Walmart bags full that will be going to Deseret Industries on Friday, and the box on the bed is filled with fabric she is keeping and will go in the closet. Trim, buttons, zippers, ribbon, etc... etc are all in the drawers by her sewing machine. We are making progress in our effeorts to get rid of things we don't need anymore !!

Thursday 10/9

Our nextdoor neighbors, Bryan & Kym Oliver, are moving to Auburn Washington tomorrow to be closer to their son, Cody. 

They have been good neighbors and we will miss them.

We did two "projects" today.

The top shelf in our closet was completely filled with luggage. We had several sets that we used when we went to Nauvoo on our mission and we haven't used them since. We kept one set and a few smaller pieces that we normally use when visiting our kids. 

The rest are in the car and ready for our Deseret Industries run tomorrow.

While working in the closet, we found a box filled with our old cell phones and tablets. 

Linda spent the next several hours finding charging cords, charging the devices, doing a factory reset, removing the sim and SD cards and adding them to yet another Deseret Industries box. 

Friday 10/10

Today we made our 7th run to Deseret Industries

We had all the luggage, old temple suitcases, several bags of fabric, a box full of old cell phones & accessories, and other miscellaneous items.

We also stopped by Dave's for a visit

It was fun to see these two brothers enjoying recent pictures on Steve's phone !!

Sunday 10/12

A couple of weeks ago we were on a walk in our neighborhood and noticed that the trees were just beginning to show signs of autumn.

Today, after stake conference, we drove down the main street of our subdivision and oh what a difference a couple of weeks makes. The trees are gorgeous now. Red, Orange, Yellow, Brown, and Green all mixed together to paint a beautiful picture.

Monday 10/13

On October 7th we ordered a couple of pieces of furniture... A farmhouse buffet/sideboard and a record player stand.

This afternoon we were trying to think of something to do when we remembered there were two pieces of furniture out in the garage that needed to be put together. We decided to work on the smaller of the two pieces, a record player stand.

We opened up the box and spread out all the pieces. Linda checked to be sure they were all there... and they were, so we began. Mostly, Linda read the instructions (pictures) and Steve, with his screwdriver in hand, followed them. After two hours, we were done! We will not set it in place or fill it up until tomorrow, after the new carpet has been installed.

It's Saturday, and the new stand is now set up... complete with our old 33 1/3 vinyl records, some 45 rpm, and even a couple of 78's !

A little over a month ago, Kevin & Lani's daughter, Sydney, broke her arm

Today, the cast came off !! They not only took the cast off, but also had to remove two pins . . .  NOT FUN . . .  Sydney was very brave though and is now cast-free !!

Tonight, Matt and his friend, Wyatt, came to our house and moved all the furniture out of the three rooms that will be having carpet installed tomorrow morning.

 They began with the living room

A sofa, love seat, overstuffed chair, end & coffee tables, 2 curio cabinets, record player stand, (and a recliner from the TV room) all went in the dining area

Next, our bedroom

Our bed, matresses, frame & headboard (which had to be taken apart), armoire, bookshelf, and sofa all went in the garage

 

Last of all was the TV room

A sofa, two DVD cabinets and a credenza went into the playroom along with lots of miscellaneous "stuff" from our bedroom that we had previously moved.

There were also lots of odds and ends that ended up in the office. It only took the two of them 2 hours to move everything. They hook up their "straps", slide them under the big/heavy items, and move them with ease (or at least they make it look easy).

TONIGHT . . . 

Once the boys left (with Subway sandwiches in hand), Linda cleaned all the baseboards. We gathered up some pillows and settled in, in the TV room. We had both the internet and our DISH Hopper still hooked up so we are watching some TV and are on our devices. We'll be sleeping upstairs in the bonus room tonight!

Tuesday 10/14

This morning, the church held a special worldwide broadcast to announce the new First Presidency and end of the 17 day Apostolic Interregnum.

Dallin H. Oaks, 93, was announced as the 18th president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was sustained and set apart earlier in the day. President Oaks called Henry B. Eyring, 92 as his 1st Counselor and D. Todd Christofferson, 80, as his 2nd Counselor. Jeffrey R. Holland, 84, will serve as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Carpet Installation Day

Our new carpet installation didn't go quite like planned today . . .

We were scheduled for 10 a.m. which was perfect, but that was changed to 11 a.m., still okay. At 10:30 we received a phone call from scheduling saying our time had changed to 1 p.m. At 2;45 we called to see what was going on and they said they were a little bit behind but the installer was loading our carpet & pad and would arrive by 3:30. Scheduling could tell we were upset with them and offered us a $100 gift card to make us feel better. We accepted, but it didn't help us feel any better. The installers (2 of them) finally drove up at 4 p.m.  It was the same installer that we talked to when he was doing our neighbor's house. We don't think scheduling was being totally honest with us because the installer said they called him at 1:00 and asked if he could do our install. We'd love to know the "real" story of what happened !!

Once they were here they got right to work !!

They emptied their van, tore out the old carpet, tore up the old pad, rolled it all up and carried it out to their van, scraped the tacks off, and swept everything up.

Next, they brought in and installed the new pad and tacked it down. Then they rolled out the carpet in our driveway. It went all the way from the house to the street. They measured it all out, cut out the pieces, folded/rolled the pieces up, lifted the rolls up on their backs and carried them all into the house.

They set all the pieces in place, heat sealed the seams, power stretched the edges to the tack strip, cut out the heat vents and an electrical outlet, cut and tucked all the edges, and last of all, they vacuumed everything.

They cleaned up all the small scraps and loaded all the old carpet, pad, & scraps into their van leaving us with the bigger pieces of scrap as we had requested. 

It was 7 p.m. when they finished and drove away. Gabe and Nicholas did a great job for us - we just wish they would have come earlier (and they said they could have come this morning if they had known)

Matt will come with his friend, Wyatt, tomorrow after work to help put all our furniture back in place. That means, one more night upstairs in the bonus room.

Wednesday 10/15 

Matt and Wyatt arrived at 4:00 this afternoon and got to work moving our furniture back into place. It only took them a couple of hours.

They began in the living room. Not much changed in this room. The artificial trees are gone, the small curio cabinet was moved to the TV room, and we added the record player stand.

Next they moved to the TV room.

The sofa required some "assembly". They had removed the backs to make it easier to move, so those had to be put back on. There were somewhere around twelve things that had to be plugged in. Once we thought we had everything hooked up correctly, we set the sofa upright and gave it a try. . .  everything worked - YaY !! 

Again, not much changed in this room either. We added the small curio cabinet from the living room, moved the modem stand and one, of two, DVD cabinets, eliminated the surround sound and the other DVD cabinet.  

Last of all was our master bedroom

They had to reattach the backs of the love seat and plug in the two power cords for the power recliners. Then the headboard had to be reassembled. Linda tried to rearrange all the rooms, but this was the only one that worked out. We moved the bed and love seat to different walls and eliminated one bookcase. 

We cannot thank Matt and Wyatt enough for all their help. We are so grateful for our amazing family and friends. They are always there to lend a helping hand when needed.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you !!

Thursday 10-16

Yesterday, we ordered a couple of new surge protector extention cords from Amazon. They were delivered first thing this morning, sooo . . . 

Linda got busy and put them right to use. One was for our TV room where we had multiple things, including an extention cord, plugged into one outlet. Six devices in all were plugged into that one outlet. We purchased a surge protector extention cord with 6 outlets. It came with a flat plug & cord and a plate cover. We ran the cord to the other side of the credenza so the surge protector was hidden behind the credenza and filled all six outlets. It not only looks a lot better, but it is also a lot safer !! The other surge protector was for our bedroom, behind the love seat. We were able to eliminate an extension cord, plug everything into the new surge protector, and hide all the cords under the love seat.

This morning we moved all the patio furniture out on the lawn so Rob could paint the patio ceiling.  

Later this afternoon, Steve used his leaf blower to clean off the patio and then we were able to move all the furniture back.

Friday 10/17

On Wednesday we started assembling a buffet/sideboard.

When Fed Ex delivered it earlier this month, we had them put the very heavy box in the back of Steve's pickup so it would be out of the way until after our new carpet was installed. That happened on Tuesday and on Wednesday we decided to get it assembled. It was too heavy for us to move so we opened the box in the pickup bed and took the pieces, a couple at a time, into the house. 

Once everything was in the house, we checked to be sure all the pieces were there then, with assembly book in hand, began. We didn't quite finish before Matt and friend showed up to move our furniture back. We set it aside for the day.

Before going to bed, we noticed something on the cabinet that didn't look quite right. There were two cams expoesd on the front of the cabinet. On Thursday morning we figured out that we had put the piece with the cams on backward. We ended up taking the top off by loosening all the cams (14 of them) that held it in place. We continued loosening cams until we could get enough slack to remove that one piece, flip it over, and put it back in its correct place.  We put the top back on and tightened up all the cams. It looked much better after we finished.

 Today we finally finished. We assembled the drawers, attached and adjusted the doors, put the "stoppers" on the back, set the buffet in place, found a few decor items and VOILA' ... project complete!!

Saturday 10/18

Today, we have been working on little projects

Linda got the larger curio cabinet put back together, we filled up the one bookshelf we had left in our bedroom, and Steve brought our old records from the old stand in the office to the living room where our new record player stand is.

This evening was our ward's annual Chili Cook-off

The Young Women were in charge and they did an AMAZING job.

We're not quite sure how long this event has been going on, but it has happened every year since we moved here 18 years ago.

Tonight there was at least 10 crock pots full of different kinds of delicious chili along with the traditional corn bread. After eating, the young women opened up several activities they had prepared. There were hay rides, a cotton candy stand, a cake walk, fishing pond, bingo, face painting & ping pong ball cup bounce. It was fun for everyone and Linda had fun running around taking lots of pictures. After we left, they had the chili & corn bread judging so she didn't get any pictures of the winners... so sad.

Monday 10/20

Small curio cabinet time . . . .

This morning, we finalized the placement of our smaller curio cabinet in the TV room. Steve brought the tote in from the garage that contain all of the pieces that go in it and Linda began unpacking the tote and filling the cabinet.

This afternoon, Steve mowed the lawn then began gathering all our little lawn "critters".

He washed them off while Linda gathered up all her Fairy Garden pieces in a shoe box. Once everything was gatherd together, we took them to their "winter home" in the shed   . . . See you all next spring !!

Friday 10/24

Getting things put back together . . . 

Today, Steve retrieved all our front porch decor and once again, it is all set in place . . .  until Halloween is over, then it will change, again.

(Things change a lot this time of year)

Saturday 10/25

Today we put the finishing touches on our House Painting project

We braved the rain (we actually tried to stay under the eaves) and reinstalled all the garage door decorative hardware. It looks great with the newly painted light fixtures and black address numbers.

Tuesday 10/28

It's "that" time of year. Leaves are falling and so are the temperatures !!

Today, our painter, Rob, was back . . . not for painting and not in his shorts and tank top. Today he was wearing jeans and a tee shirt and ready for blowing out our sprinklers !!

We like "voting by mail" so each election we request absentee ballots.

This afternoon we filled out our ballots and delivered them to the City Hall Ballot Box.

Thursday 10/30

Tonight, we were invited to a client appreciation event at the Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa, Idaho. Though talking about going a lot, we had never been to this museum. 

We had a nice dinner, a fun visit with family, and an interesting time wandering through the museum. WW 1 & 2, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a 911 display where there were bins filled with chunks of the actual stone containing mangled rebar from the twin towers. 

Thank you Parkers for an enjoyable evening !!

Friday 10/31 - Halloween

Tonight was pretty calm. We only had about 50 Trick-or-Treaters. We were glad to see that all but one small group of teens were accompanied by adults who were standing by on the sidewalk in front of the house. All the kids were very polite and well behaved. We were happy to share a treat or two with each of them.

A welcome decoration hangs next to the door, we love seeing all the creative costumes, a variety of treats for the kids, Linda gets our traditional ghost all set up, and a scary spider guards the doorbell but didn't keep any kids away . . . lol

Saturday 11/1

Early this evening, we popped in at Matt & Jen's house for their annual Halloween party. They host it for two days. This year it was the day before and the day after Halloween. Tonight was for their Family.

 

Their yard was decorated so cute and they had several games set up for visitors to play like Monster Mini Golf and Eyeball Toss. They also had this "Photo Op" space all fixed up sooo... we jumped right in and took a picture !!

Just as we suspected, October turned out to be a very busy month. We have one more project to do this year. We will be refinishing our wood floors in November. Then we can relax . . . ??? No, then the holidays begin and life will get crazy again so . . . bring on November, we are ready !!