October-GC, Alex, Deb's visit, Homecoming, and Halloween

Eric, Glen, and I really enjoyed General Conference at the beginning of the month. We collected everyone's words for our tradition of eating a candy for each time our chosen words were said. Only this time, we were trying to be a bit healthier, so besides whoppers, skittles, and almond M&Ms, I also had fresh blueberries and pistachios. Turns out Glen started a no-sugar challenge for himself, so that worked out really well.

Our words this time around: Glen-sacrifice, Beth-focus, Andrew-quail, Heather-goal(s), Henry-Henry (ha! with President Henry B. Eyring there, he was sure to have his word chosen several times), Joy-Jesus (which was said so many times, we only took a treat for every 5 references), Eric-UFO, Ryan-listen, Angeles-balcony, Hannah-brother (because she misses Alex), Kaellen-care, Alex-remember, and Alex's companion Elder Rosengren-boat. As you can guess, some of the chosen words weren't referenced. But it's all in good fun, and it really helps me pay close attention. And, as always, Conference was amazingly awesome!

Alex turned 21 on the 10th. We pick him up from his mission on November 10th!

Alex on a P-day hike at the end of September

Glen and I started facilitating a emotional resilience group at church. The class runs for 10 weeks. I'm really loving it. The manual is online. Check it out!

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/emotional-resilience-for-self-reliance

My childhood friend came to visit for a week!

I moved to Scituate, Massachusetts at the end of 4th grade. I met Deb in 5th grade. We became best friends when we had to work on a project together in 6th grade. I moved to Louisiana the summer after 7th grade. That summer, in 1975, Deb came to visit me. The next summer, in 1976, I went to visit her. (it was awesome being in Massachusetts for the 4th of July that year, celebrating our country's 200th birthday, by the way).

That was the last time we had seen each other. We wrote letters for years, and then lost contact for about 22 years. I had tried to find her from time to time and finally managed to do so at the beginning of this year. She flew out to see me this month.

We had a wonderful week together. My book club met the week she was here, so we went together (The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle). She also stamps, so we did a bit of that, and she joined me for a night with my stamping group. And geocaching is a new hobby of hers, so we did a bit of that. And we ate out. And we talked. And we just relaxed. It was great.

I am on the left under the globe, Debbie is on the bottom row, 3rd from the right

Deb and Beth, 10-22-2021

this geocaching gem was less than a mile from my house

It was Homecoming week the week that Deb was here. Glen dressed up every day, but I only got this one photo. Can you guess what the theme for the day was?

Halloween 2021--Eric as Van Gogh. I am justifying my having bought Remi, the shoulder pet (from the movie Ratatouille), when I was at Disneyland and I was dressed up as a cook for the church Trunk or Treat.

And here's a photo of Joy holding the Halloween card I made for her and Henry.

September-floor, games, calling, and Disneyland

kitchen floor--a few months ago when the kitchen floor began to sag, we discovered a small leak under our kitchen sink. A huge portion of the subfloor needed replacing. Luckily we were able to get a vinyl pattern that was extremely similar to our old one...just a little more brown to go with the gray swirl than it had previously. So glad the job finally was taken care of.

new games: Point Salad and Letter Jam--Andrew had rated some games in a recent blog post (https://agamedesignersblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/cosmere-and-andrew-reviews-some-games.html) and Eric went out and bought 2 of the games. We really like them. Point Salad is very easy to play. Letter Jam in kind of like a cooperative MasterMind game using words--not as easy to play as Point Salad. Our first game of Letter Jam was painful, but it didn't take us too long to get the hang of it.

Andrew's review of Letter Jam: Letter Jam is a game which in my opinion logically shouldn't work yet somehow does. And I loved it. The main idea is the cards all have a letter on them. You can see everyone else's card, but not yours. It's co-op, so you are trying to give them clues so they know what their letter is and they are doing the same to you. How it works is you spell words with those letters, laying down number chips. So if I see an L, a T, an E, and an R, I can put the 1 chip in front of the L, the 2 chip in front of the E, the 3 and 4 chips in front of the T, the 5 chip in front of the E, and the 6 chip in front of the R. So the player with the T is like, huh, the word is LE**ER, is it lesser? letter? And the other players are doing so as well, narrowing down what their letter is. (9/10)

Andrew's review of Point Salad: Point Salad is a fast card game where every card has one of six types of veggies on the front, and on the back of every card is a completely unique scoring condition. On the table are six cards veggie side up and three scoring condition side up. Turns are fast: either grab two veggie cards or one scoring card. If you grab veggies, the card with the scoring on them get flipped to their veggie side to take their place. I enjoyed this one a lot. The game is fast, fun, with lots of options, cool scoring conditions, and clever plays. I highly recommend this one. (9/10)

Glen's new calling...isn't too much different from his previous. He was 2nd counselor in the Elders Quorum Presidency, and when the EQ Presidency was reorganized, he was called to be the first counselor to a new President. He'll have the same tasks as before, but if the President can't come to our Ward Council meetings on Sundays, Glen will get to go with me (which he did a few Sundays ago).

My trip to California--I got to go to Disneyland and California Adventure Disney with my friends! We had such a wonderful time just visiting, eating, and riding the rides (loved Guardians of the Galaxy, Rise of the Resistance, and a bunch of other rides as well as the interactive Turtle Talk show, and if I ever go back to Disneyland, I plan to never go on the Matterhorn ever again).

I love Merry-Go-Rounds!

The Turtle Talk show was AMAZING (how'd they do it?)