Going to Chaplain Conference, Travis' birthday and Halloween

Travis and I at the Roof Restaurant for his birthday dinner!

Receiving a painting from the artist of Elijah at conference

Dinner with good friends

I always loved going to the Salt Lake City temple, such wonderful history!

The boys sure love their Austin

Getting to see Marie Osmond in person was amazing!

Getting to see Alex Boye was pretty awesome too

I love it when they cuddle each other !

Getting ready for Halloween, as cat boy!

Gideon loves playing with play dough

So the big event in October, was that Travis and I got to go to Chaplain Conference together.  I wasn't going to go, but then a few weeks before the event, I felt inspired to try, and I'm so glad I did!  The kids didn't have school that week for fall break, so the older kids would all be home.  I talked to Betsy and Austin about taking turns being in charge for the day, and taking care of their younger brothers so that I could join Travis is Salt Lake City.  They agreed, (although offering to pay them, helped a ton)  I would be gone 5 nights and 6 days.  They haven't ever watched each other this long before, but we decided that we could make it work.  I arranged for Samuel to stay the week with friends, so they wouldn't have to worry about him, and made sure the neighbors were willing to help, and give the girls a break as needed.  I left Thursday evening (Oct 4th) and flew all night to SLC. Travis arrived the day before, so I took a shuttle to the hotel we were staying at, but he wouldn't answer his phone (he was asleep), so a security guard had to take me to his room, while I knocked on the door and waited for him to answer.  But he got up, and let me in the room.  I was ready for sleeping too, so I went to sleep for an hour or two (I didn't sleep well on the plane).  Then we met Travis' sister Maia and her husband Jaimie for lunch at red robin.  After lunch we went back to the hotel and got out temple stuff, and went to the Salt Lake temple for a session.  We went to the Friday night dinner for the Chaplain Conference kickoff, and had a nice time.  The speakers and food are always really good.  We got to talk with our good friends the Croaks, and we saw Travis' niece Alyssa, who was working with the cafeteria staff to provide our food.  I was able to get all the conference tickets I needed, (I registered late so I wasn't sure I would get the tickets or not).  Saturday and Sunday we went to all the sessions of general conference.  It was so amazing to be there, the spirit is always so strong! Saturday in between conference sessions Travis' got to meet John Bytheway and get a CD signed by him for Joseph, while I stood in line to get us food.  I got to go to the first Women's session held the during the conference weekend, instead of the week before.  I was able to get tickets for Maia, Nora, and Aleah, so it was nice to go with them.  Afterwards we met up with the guys and went to the roof restaurant, it is an expensive gourmet buffet restaurant, so we celebrated Travis' birthday.  Also while walking to and from conference session there is always this same guy protesting on the corner every year.  Travis always talks (debates) this him.  This year, he tried to invite him to come with us next year, and the guy declined, but every time we would walk by he would always treat us as friends.  It's amazing what a little kindness and welcoming attitude can do.  We also saw a homeless man on the side of the street with a wheelchair that had broken.  We stopped to help, and talked with him a bit.  A temple square worker was working on trying to get him a wheelchair.  Travis said a beautiful prayer for this man down on his luck, and we gave him $20 to help him get something he needs.  Sunday afternoon we went to Maia's house for dinner, and had a nice meal and was able to meet Anaya (Mayra's newest baby) and Travis was able to give both Maia and her husband beautiful priesthood blessings to help them with their struggles.  We were also able to give them some money ($120) to pass on to Travis' Dad.  I earned the money from playing at a funeral, but didn't feel good about keeping it, and felt like I should give it to Travis' Dad.  Monday started the Chaplain Conference portion, and we had a wonderful day listening to great speakers, and talking with good friends.  We went to Deseret Book and got some gifts for the kids.  We also had dinner with some good friends, which we rode an electric scooter too, that was an adventure!  While we were at the dinner, I got a call from Betsy saying the Gideon and Malachi were attacked by a chicken, and were really upset.  It turns our that they were chasing the chicken and it turned around and attacked them.  They mostly got upset, and scared, but Gideon did get pecked a little bit, but no broken skin.  I talked to them for a minute, and they were okay.  Tuesday was our last day, and we really enjoyed our time in Conference Session, again the spirit is so strong there.  When we were walking home, we saw our homeless friend on the  side of the road again.  We stopped to talk to him again, and when we saw he was still wearing hospital pants (he didn't have any of his own), we went into the department store and bought him a pair of pants.  I think the man reminded Travis a little bit of his own father, and felt a desire to help him.  We drove down to Provo and met my sister Cristin and her family at Dairy Queen and had dilly bars, it was nice to see them and talk with them for a little bit.  Then we went to Café Rio and had dinner, and then did some shopping at Winco for things to bring home to Hawaii.  We left the next morning and said farewell to the mainland again.  My flight left first, so Travis dropped me off.  I spent the day travelling, and had one layover, so Travis actually arrived in Hawaii before I did.  It was nice travelling by myself, much more relaxing, and I got to enjoy reading.  Travis was waiting for me when I got to the airport and we drove home and got to enjoy lots of hugs and kisses from the kids.  Austin and Betsy did a good job taking care of the kids, but got overwhelmed a lot and needed more breaks.  Six days was definitely too long, we decided to take the whole family to conference next year, and even booked a hotel.  Travis' birthday was the day after we got back, so we had an enjoyable birthday celebration and had cake and ice cream with him.   We enjoyed the rest of our fall break, and then the kids went back to school on Monday.  Another fun thing in October, was we got to go to an interfaith concert with Marie Osmond, some of her family, and Alex Boye, it was awesome!  Lots of different faiths sang songs, as well as the Osmonds.  It was very nice, and we were able to meet them and take pictures with them afterwards too.   Travis left the last week of October to go to a training in Louisiana for a month, so we were sad to see him go.  The kids had fun dressing up and going to the trunk or treat for the church and going trick or treating on Halloween.  I forgot to take pictures of them in costumes so sorry.  Trick or Treating starts here at 5pm, so I took the little boys, and ended up with two neighbor boys too, and Joseph.  We went for about 30 minutes, and the little ones were worn out, (it was hot out). So we came back to the house.  Gideon hadn't been feeling good, so I had been pushing him in the stroller, and he would get out at each house with his bucket and go get his candy and then climb back in the stroller.  He was really good at talking to everyone and getting lots of candy at each house.  He fell asleep on the floor of our living room clutching his candy bucket. Then the kids went out a couple more times with older siblings, and they ended up with tons of candy!!!   I wasn't very good and policing their candy this year, and they ended up eating way too much.  But they had fun..