This is Halloween

 

We bought tickets to go to the annual Warren Miller movie in Park City. Tucker and Aubrey came with us too, so that we could get a free ski pass for them too. My cousin and his wife were going as well, so we met up with them.

 My Mom took all the girls in the family to Witches Night Out at Gardner Village the weekend before Halloween. My Mom and sister made our hats and skirts.

 Halle and Aubrey. We borrowed Aubrey's costume from a friend.

 The Foster women.

 My Dad tagged along and took pictures of us everywhere we went.

 All the girls.

 Grandma and Grandpa Grant drove down to see us all.

 My parents threw a Halloween Family Night party. We ate dinner and saw all my Dad's Halloween gadgets. He goes all out for this day. He has coffins, flying ghosts, sound effects, moving candelabras, bats and more. The kids loved the bubble fog machine he had this year.

 Isn't Blake the saddest yet cute little cow. My friend gave me the costume. It barely fit him. Poor kid went to a bunch of houses at first, and ended up in the stroller for the rest of the night. I'd wheel the stroller up to a door and he'd still get his treat. Trick or treat wasn't in his vocabulary this year.

 Neighborhood gang. We've got a pineapple in the back and 2 gangsta kids. Aubrey and Tucker decided to be the same as last year. Tinkerbell and a bat. Cole is Spiderman and little Blakey the cow.

 Cody made some awesome chili for dinner and we invited our good friends, the Ashursts, over for dinner. I decided after trick or treating that I didn't want to do the dishes. Well, this is what happened to our sink later that night. Our sink fell in. We went a day without water until Cody had time to do a temporary fix. Thankfully our dishwasher works great and scrubbed that day old chili left in the bowls, right out.

Randomness of October

 

The elementary had dressup days for Red Ribbon week. Aubrey wore a wig for crazy hair day. My neighbors let me borrow 4 of their dressup/Halloween wigs and she chose one of those. I call it the Mom wig. It reminds me of my Mom's hair, and my own hair I guess.

 Cody went to Moab for a day with his cousin a few weeks ago. Jaron had gone camping with his family and his truck broke down. Cody was kind to volunteer to go back down and get the now fixed truck with Jaron. But, they had to get a bike ride in. They did the practice loop at Slickrock.

 Can you tell they are cut from similar genes. Cody's Mom and Jaron's Dad are twins : )

 I was able to snap a picture of this red tailed hawk that was hanging out on a tree next door. I also got a shot of it flying away with it's reddish tail.

 I took the kids to get their pumpkins from Days Market one Monday night. I told them they could only pick a pumpkin that they could carry. They all did, even Blake, although he wanted no part of this picture.

 

We didn't carve our pumpkins until the 30th. Cole did a Y for BYU, Tucker a bat and Aubrey a plain jackolantern. Cody drew a ghost on Blake's pumpkin.

 Our neighbor has a riding lawn mower and he is so sweet to give the boys rides. Cole loves it, Blake is a bit more tentative. Richard is also one of the boys nursery leaders. Some of our other friends/neighbors lovingly refer to Richard as Santa Claus. Richard joked once that if our friends wanted an underground trampoline, that he could come over and jump on it for them. We really have the funnest neighborhood!

 Cody enjoys bragging about how awesome it is to work in Park City. He took this picture in October showing off the bright yellow trees.

 2 weeks ago this became his view. Ski resorts are open, snow is covering the lawn, it's time for winter.

KSL story

I met a woman at the race that wrote an article on me for KSL. Here is the link.


MIDWAY — Lisa Calderwood signed up for the race hoping to regain a little bit of normal.
One might think that a brain tumor would make small things matter less. But sometimes it's the smallest things — shaving your hair or being told you can't run — that become the very essence of what a person misses most when life turns upside down.
It began for the Midway mother of four with daily headaches last fall.
"It was out of the ordinary," she said. Running a successful online business and caring for four children while her husband ran a dental practice in Park City kept her so busy, she assumed the headaches were stress related.
"They were annoying, but I would take Tylenol or ibuprofen," she said.
At a Christmas family get-together, her mother suggested the pain might indicate something more serious.
"I don't know if she was inspired or what, but she said, 'Maybe you should get an MRI and just see if anything is wrong.’ ”
On Jan. 2, Calderwood called her doctor, who referred her to a neurologist. He was able to schedule an MRI for the next day.

"I wasn't expecting results for three to five days, but the neurologist called the next day, Friday, and said I had a large mass on the right side of my brain," she recalled. "He said to pack my bags and get to the emergency room. … It was just crazy."

In just a week, Calderwood went from a healthy, active mother and business woman to a patient with a brain tumor.
"The word tumor scared me," she said, laughing. "Nobody told me until the next week that tumor meant cancer. I was overwhelmed, but I didn't think I was going to die."
The tumor, which doctors described as a "baseball with fingers," could only be partially removed from her brain. So Calderwood underwent radiation and chemotherapy.
She began having seizures from the radiation and had to take steroids to shrink the swelling in her brain caused by the surgery.
Calderwood was told that the half marathon she'd signed up for in March was not going to happen.
"I thought, 'No, not running! That's what I do,’ ” she said. "Looking back, it's kind of funny to see what I cared about, but that was really hard for me. That's what I did. I loved to run."

Tell us

The soft-spoken redhead had been more a jogger than a runner since high school. But eight years ago she became more committed to the sport because it offered her a reprieve from the demands of a busy life.

"I just love how I feel during and after," she said. "Just to be able to get out and relieve stress, especially where I live in Midway; it's so beautiful. I just love getting out and being by myself or running with friends. I've made a lot of really great friends through running. You get to talk — a lot of times about things you would normally have time to talk about."
She ran three half marathons — including her first — while she and her husband lived in Maryland where he attended dental school. Four years ago they moved to Midway, and between her business and having two more children, she just couldn't find the time to run another half marathon. That is, until she signed up for the Moab Half Marathon last March.
"But the doctor said, 'No, you won't be doing any running,’ ” she said.
While the doctor told her exercise was good for her, running was a little too high impact, and sometimes it hurt her head to jog. So she started out walking on a treadmill.
Over time, however, she began running, and doctors told her if it didn't hurt, she could run.
Running isn't just her reward or her escape, it's how her friends chose to help her raise money for the chemotherapy medicine she'll need to take for the next year. The 15 pills she takes each month will cost her $3,300.

"It's amazing," she said. "I had to start running a little because I had to be able to run my own race."

Shortly after that, she saw a local half marathon that caught her eye — The Best Dam Half Marathon. The 13.1-mile race transported runners on the Heber Creeper (from Heber City) to a trail along Deer Creek Reservoir. Race director Mark Nelson said she was one of the first to sign up for the first-year event.
"I've wanted to run a half (marathon) for a long time," she said. "Timing wise, it worked out that I could run this race. It was close to home and one of the cheapest races I've ever seen!"
The race was harder than she expected — not because of the cancer that still inhabits her brain — but because running up and down trails and streets for 13 miles is a little more difficult than she remembered.
Calderwood was disappointed that she couldn't run as fast as she once had. But she was, in the same moment, grateful that she was able to run at all.
She placed in her age division and reveled in receiving hugs from her children on the course and at the finish.
Calderwood enjoyed the experience a little more knowing that four days later she'd start her maintenance chemotherapy again.
"For a week to 10 days after that I'm sick to my stomach," she said. "I just don't feel good, I lose energy, I lose my appetite, I just can't do anything. If I try to push myself, I'm like that longer."
So while she battles the cancer, she respects the treatment.
But while she does, she will relish with more gratitude the small victories, like an early morning jog, a conversation with a friend, or the chance to run a beautiful local race.