No New Carter, Yet.

I headed to Utah this past Wednesday under threat that a new Carter could show up at any time.  That would certainly be a great addition to the Carter "Zoo"

Ram sporting his Dino tail

CharlyAnn sporting her cute face

More Zoo mates

Trying the fresh pineapple labor inducer myth....it's a myth.

But when I left on Saturday this is what the new baby looked like.  Never fear he/she WILL appear!  Maybe it's really a turkey CJ's hiding in there and it's afraid to come out until after Thanksgiving.  If it waits that long CJ may call it a turkey!

Whenever the debut occurs ALL the Carters and all of us are SO excited to see who is in there!

Good Luck!

October in Backward Pictures

 This is the month of October, except backwards cause I can't get the pics to move, deirt I....

The last week found us in Tampa and then up to Raleigh.

The Hardings had VIP tickets to the Carolina Hurricanes.

It was evident we liked the food better than hockey...

Renee spoiled us as no one else in this world can.

We went through Newark on our way home.  The new Freedom Tower.

In the third week came a trip to Jamie's and a stop in Provo

Fall was farther along in Utah.  Sum and Andy live in a beautiful tree house.

We had some good time with Kris and not enough time with Billy (he had to work)

We took Ally to school.

In her Little Red Riding Hood coat because

the Lindes thought it was cold cause it was 57!

The second week of October found us in Illinois.  Fall was just setting in and it was gorgeous.

                                       

New display at the Springfield airport.  F-4 baby!

Need I say more?

We trimmed broken branches from trees.  Dad was very brave and handsome.

Home Sweet Home

Minnie's lost 100 pounds!  Our inspiration.

Dad was cold...he fit right in the neighborhood.

The first week of October found us returning Charina and Tyler to Texas.  It wasn't quite fall there yet.

We have no pictures of Texas....but we look like this.

Our Sweet Zoey Jae

Zoey Jae Hiatt arrived on Earth September 28th and returned to her Father in Heaven September 30th.

We miss her.  We have confidence we will be with her again, FOREVER!

Dad has a particular speech that he likes to entertain us with, frequently, that goes through all the family and how we are ALL teachers.  It is true.  And Zoey is no different, in fact she is the best teacher of us all.

In her brief time with us, she taught us so many things.  Not trivial things but things of deep eternal worth.  She taught us about faith and agency.  She taught about love and compassion.  She taught us about determination, patience, courage, perfection, gratitude, joy, and grief.  She counseled us all with tenderness about the eternal nature of families, the restoration of the Gospel and the power of the priesthood.  We know more clearly the love our Father and His Son have for us each day.  We know we are stronger than we think we are.  And above all we know if we strive and endure we too can obey the will of the Father and return to Him and be an eternal family.

Sweet Zoey, we love you and promise to remember the lessons you taught us and will continue to teach until we meet again.

Camping with Ram and CharlyAnn

After the Grand Canyon we headed to Monroe to see the Carters!

This brings back good memories of days gone by...

We loaded the car with CharlyAnn and Ram and headed to Capitol Reef Park.

We stayed up in the mountains (8,500 ')

There were lots of adventures

When the sun went down it got cold.

And we did my least favorite thing--Roast some dang sticky marshmellows.

We all snuggled in our "castle" as CharlyAnn called it.  And had a warm nights sleep.

The next day we hiked a mile and saw a waterfall.

We really liked rock climbing.

It is a beautiful place.

And the reward.  A trip to Bullies for onion rings.  YUM!

Grand Canyon

Three days after getting home from Disney we had things all packed up and headed to

 GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK!!

It was one of the prettiest drives we've ever been on.  Everything was so green cause of all the rain.  It's a pretty long haul from here and we arrived in the late afternoon, too late to get a permit though...

Why?  Because we wanted to hike to the bottom.  Check out that trail!

So we camped out and were first in line at the permit office the next day and got a permit for the following day.  Cool!  If you ever want to do this, and we highly recommend it, apply for a permit 3 months ahead.

We spent our extra day scoping out the trails, complete with wildlife.

 Then the next morning we were ready to descend into the depths of GRAND CANYON!  Not gonna lie, having passed the 1/2 century mark I was a little nervous!

But we just kept walking down and down and...

down and down

 and down and down

 and the views down were spectacular

 and the views up were amazing...

but never doubt, we were always going down

 and down

 with a few rests and then

 down some more until...

 You go through a tunnel and pop out at a bridge that takes you across the Colorado River to the Bright Angel campground AT THE BOTTOM of THE GRANDEST CANYON!!!

And you're so hot and tired that this is what you do.  (Can't show Dad...just image trying on pants in Kris and Billy's living room...)

Then you relax in the nicest of camping spots and go to the ranger show on Condors, and it's so exciting cause the day before we saw two of them!

And then we have a magically, scientific dinner (military MRE) that heats itself and tastes yummy and then go to another ranger campfire program and see lots of stars and the full moon and camp in bliss.

We were up and at em the next day ready to head up and out.

 You might think that is the top...hahaha...it is just a mountain within the canyon.  We're talking a deep hole in the ground!

 We took the South Kaibab trail down and the Bright Angel trail up.  The up trail followed the path of a stream most of the way so it had an "oasis in the desert" kind of feeling.

And after 6 hours and 45 minutes we made it to the top!  (Which is faster than the average time!  Way to go old people)  We're looking at our calendars to see when we can do that again!  Anybody wanna come?