Halloween

I'm a Fan

When I was young I listened to the radio, waitin for my favorite songs.
When they played I'd sing along, it made me smile.
Karen Carpenter

I learned to sing by listening to Karen Carpenter. We both had low voices and I learned every song. Also in those early days I fell in love with the voice of this man.



I took a quick trip to California to see my favorite singer. My mom was given tickets for her birthday to see him at the Hollywood Bowl. So she invited me to go along. We also took my Aunt Sally (my Dad's sister).

Our first stop was dinner at CPK. Then we walked to the Bowl. I have been to 4 of his concerts in my lifetime. This is the first time he has ever performed at the Hollywood Bowl. This was a one night engagement. He was actually raising money for the Los Angeles Unified School district to go toward purchasing musical instruments. The concert raised over $100,000. Sweet!


Here are my mom and Aunt waiting for the concert to start.




These are the two crummy pictures I got.


Here we are at the end of the night with our glow sticks.



While I was there, I took pictures of the aftermath of the fires that burned the hills by my parents home. This is the second time these hills have burned so badly. While we were moving into our house in 1976 we had to be evacuated. These fires were much worse. The scary thing to note is that in 1979 we had severe mudslides because of the fires. This area will be on alert for the next 3-5 years.

The hill used to be green.

This tree was incredible. It went from black to brown to green. You can see right where the fire stopped.

These sandbags will be a permanent fixture for the next 3-5 years.

These K-rails will hopefully stop the mud when, not if, it comes.

An ugly side effect of the fires. THe rats lost their homes and showed up in ours.

October break Part 5-Salt Lake City

Today we went to Salt Lake City.

Here are the buildings we saw.

The Salt Lake Temple


The assembly hall


The tabernacle


The new Church History Library


The Church Office Building



We stopped at The Lion House for some rolls to tide us over.

Here we have 8 of the 9 girls from our 2 families
Where's Brenna?


This is my favorite photo of the kids.
Where's Brenna?

Another pose.
Where's Brenna?

Here's our twins. Anna and Lindsay were born just two days apart. It would be so fun if we lived closer to each other. They even dress alike.

Me and Jenna. She is so little. She is 5 years younger than me.

Rachael is a great big sister. She was willing to carry Megan at the end.

THERE'S BRENNA!

She had been at her preschool party.
We ended the day at California Pizza Kitchen.

October break Part 4-Scarecrow Festival

Pictorial from the Scarecrow festival at Thanksgiving Point.

October break Part 3-Temple Day

We started our morning by going to the newest temple.




My sister, Jenna, looks great at 6:15 a.m.

President Hinckley encouraged the youth to touch the temple.

The cousins are heading in to do baptisms for the dead.

Due to late start, there were lots of kids there. We had to wait about 1 1/2 hours. Nathan, Katie, Aubrey and Rachael after finishing.

I'm so proud of my teenagers.

Here are the pictures from the rest of the day.




































This car was parked at the Draper Temple and it just made us happy.

On one last random note, I was able to visit the elementary school that I taught at 17 years ago. My sister lives right across the street from it and her kids go there. Go figure!
We really couldn't have asked for a better day.