October.... blah, blah, blah

We had a beautiful Fall Break. The trees were glorious and the weather sunshiney!   Laila's activities included a cousin sleepover with Savannah, shopping, hanging with friends, Frightmares at Lagoon with the Bentley's and Heather,  hugging the Sharkey's and eating Toffee, a  jazz game with Landon and Anson,  Halloween movie and  pumpkin carving with Addison and Bre, and walking around Gardner Village Witch festival with Eileen Sharkey...and the rest of us.

Landon and Laila and a spider...oh my!

Wayne played hooky from work for a bit and joined us

Witchy, Laila, Savannah Bentley, Eileen Sharkey and Landon 

Wayne, Eileen, Savannah, Landon, Laila and Anson Winsor at Gardner Village

Wayne is in China til Halloween.  He and Bob Farley are attending the semi-annual  housewares Fair and visiting factories.  He has a lot of good friends over there that take them to dinner and buy them matching shirts.  Michael is one of these.

Wayne gets to spend time with our friends, Kathleen and Tom Newman in Shanghai this weekend.  They will shop, go to church and their boy's rugby games.

Teacher meetings in New Orleans have filled my week.  I was there with 11 teacher friends from my school.  We had classes on technology and online teaching.  We stayed in the beautiful 32 story tall Hyatt Hotel.... this was the view from my room.

 I like New Orleans...I'm even more fond since Addison served his mission in Louisiana.  The food is amazing...beignets, pralines, catfish, jambalaya, red fish, bbq, po boys, tornado fries...it's all good, plus it was 80 degrees for 5 days!   We went to Oak Alley Plantation and on a city tour  where we visited the unusual cemeterys, listened to Jazz....and spent time in the French Quarter.

Annett Eiting, Kathy Erickson, Annette Pond, Laura Belnap, Me, Brooke Brown

We had a funny Bourbon Street- French Quarter experience... we were walking along and two obvious  prostitutes were having a loud discussion about territory and who did what to whom.  They were in outlandish, skin tight, skanky clothes with pink snakeskin pants.  One was speaking in a "manly" voice and using hand gestures towards the other one.  We all walked by and kind of rolled our eyes.  Kathy was a bit behind the group.  As she passed by, the ladies stopped talking long enough to say to her... "I like your scarf."  Kathy said, "Thanks. Laura made it.   I like your pants."   We all laughed and she just smiled like she had made a new friend.   We laugh a lot when we are together.

Monson is doing good. He loves being a missionary.  He loves to study the scriptures and he is now training his third greenie.  He has gathered a lot  of Michigan stuff while in Michigan State territory.    His wrist still hurts....but he is moving forward with faith.

Truman is busy with studying Chinese, math and Biology and training at Texas Roadhouse in Provo.  He likes his life in Utah Valley.  He was at a Crimson night for the UofU  with friend Sam Strong recently and held a snake??? What's that about?

My garage is cleaned out.  Hurrah.  We can park two cars in there again, just in time for the change of weather.  Add and Bre moved all of their stuff to a storage unit while they are living in Grandma Sheri's basement for a few more months.  They are working in Ogden, rehearsing for A Christmas Carol at Hale Centre Theatre and auditioning for Disney.  All is well in their world...except for a blowout flat tire on the freeway during our first snowfall of the year.