Here’s a bit of what went on in October 2024.
Wine’d Up
I spent nearly all my time in October building a new Wine’d Up in Smoke website. It was countless hours of computer work and a TON of cooking on Jac’s part…but we met our goal to go ‘live’ at the end of the month. Here’s one of the pages:
And in addition to a website, we now have a new Wine’d Up stockroom! It started like this (formerly my garden shed):
Mid-month, Jack built some additional shelving:
And at the end of the month, we moved all the boxes in. We’re ready for business!
Go Go Garden!
Lucky lucky us….October stayed warm and the garden kept going and going and going. We got this many goodies every few days for several weeks!!!
Jac, of course, turned it all into delicious food:
like this super healthy, super fresh marinara sauce:
But, all good things must end. It eventually got too cold for our little plant babies, so it was time call it a summer. We picked EVERYTHING, ended up with
all this goodness, and ‘closed up shop’ for the year. Look at this loot!!! Lots of green still, yes, but it will change in
time.
Third Anniversary
Mid-October was the three year anniversary of our first date, so to commemorate it, I wrote this little ‘ditty’ and gave it to Jac. 🙂
Southeastern Utah Getaway
One long weekend we headed to Southeastern Utah for our big fall trip. You can read about it by clicking HERE.
“The Ghosts of Camp Floyd”
The real standout of the month — the thing we’ll never forget — was our real life ‘ghost hunting’ experience at a local historical site. I was actually SUPER excited for this when I first hear about it. This was how it was advertised:
Step back in time and discover the haunted history of Camp Floyd.
Participants will join a guided paranormal investigation through this
historic military site. Armed with flashlights, cameras, and paranormal
equipment, visitors will search for ghostly orbs and sounds. This event
is extremely popular, so make sure to reserve your spot!
Following around real ghost hunters, with all their gear and such…this was gonna be something! We drove about 30 minutes away to a small town called Fairfield:
The instructions said to meet up in the 100+ year old school house for an orientation to the night’s activities. Here’s Jac beforehand being a kid:
Finally the presentation started, and wow…it was utterly, truly, astonishingly….bad. The presenter brought about as much excitement to her job as I would if I had to teach bathtub cleaning as a job.
And
turns out….there were exactly ZERO professional ghost hunters to
follow around. Whaaaat? Nope, none. Just us. (They did give us really
fantastic advice like…use your cell phone camera. Oooooh. Fancy.)
Okay, so, yeah…this adventure was gonna be a dud. Dang it! Argh!
After the presentation, we were set free to go find all those ghosts. They apparently are just chillin’ at:
- the old schoolhouse where we were
- the only building that remains from an old US Army outpost called Camp Floyd (at one point the largest military installation in the country)
- the old Pony Express / stagecoach inn (which has been restored and was moderately interesting — we walked through it before the ghost adventures began)
Here are some shots I took. (I was using a flash. The lights were out inside the buildings so it was nearly pitch black.) Here’s Jac hanging out with his new ghost buddy:
Look for all the orbs. Those are ghosts! Ooooooh! (Argh!!!)
We tried to have fun anyway. Jac’s always a good sport, which is good because while I come up with some great ideas, some are real stinkers like this one!
In the end, the only ghostly looking figure I saw all night was this one:
Buffalo Round-Up
Near the end of the month, mom, Jac and I headed to Antelope Island (in the Great Salt Lake) to catch the annual rounding up of the island’s 500-700 buffalos. It’s carried out each year by hundreds of local ‘volunteer’ cowboys and cowgirls and it’s quite a sight to see. I saw it about three years ago and it was AMAZING, like a scene straight out of the Old West (or an Old West movie to be more honest). Here’s a picture I took that year. (Please click to enlarge):
This picture doesn’t even begin to capture the experience. It was totally fantastic! I was REALLY excited for Jac and Mom to see it too. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. The buffalo were NOT cooperating this year and the cowboys and cowgirls just couldn’t seem to wrangle them all in the right direction.
Here’s our spot alongside the road, watching one group of buffalo refuse to follow orders:
Here’s some of the volunteer cowfolk riding by to their new spots in the ever-changing plan to get back in control of the herd:
In the end, this is about as close as we got to seeing some buffalo get rounded up.
Bummer.
Big bummer. But I guess that’s how it works sometimes. We’ll head
back and try again in a few years. It’s worth another shot because when
it works, it works!!!
Halloween
I got festive this year. (And I’ve decided I’m getting festive from now on. It’s just more fun!) I decorated a corner of the front room with a Day of the Dead theme. I love it!
My favorite part — this Day of the Dead skull that Jac painted last year. It’s so cool! I added it to this colorful painted box and I think it’s just perfect. I love using meaningful decorations that we collect or make together:
We also did a few fun Halloween-themed activities. We carved these awesome guys:
and made delicious pumpkin seeds out of the guts:
And we also played a super silly game of Halloween Truth or Scare on Halloween night. The idea was to play the game in between trick-or-treaters….but that didn’t really pan out. We only got THREE trick-or-treaters the whole night, and two of them had to be coaxed over to our house after passing us by. Whateva! We’re the bomb. And we had fun anyway, so nee-ner-nee-ner-nee-ner.
So back to the game. Inside each circle was a Halloween-related truth question or scare (dare) question — all silly and simple and easy to do. Here’s the cards (showing some of the questions):
And here’s some shots of Jac doin’ his dares like a silly trooper! Here he is being a witch riding around the front yard on his broom:
and here he is trying to open and eat candy without using his hands:
And here’s the makings of a ‘magic secret potion’ that I made for Jac, who had no problem guzzling it down. Gross!
It was so silly but so fun. I love how much fun we have together. 🙂
Other Good Stuff in October
With the weather getting colder, baker Jac was feeling like bread. A lot!
The family came over for a yummy Beef Stroganoff dinner one Wednesday–probably our last one in the backyard until next summer. 🙁
Jac cooked A LOT and even Oliver liked to sit and watch him do this stuff:
I started walking more regularly for exercise, and this was my beautiful vista on my daily walks. 🙂
And Rachel and Chloe came to town for a fun visit. It was great to catch up!
In all, another good month in the lives of Jac and Betsy.
