Needful November

 We received some much-needed moisture this month by getting rain and snow early in the month and then again towards the end of the month. It was enough to get us excited, but more is still needed to help us recover from the drought conditions from last year. 

We've had some really pretty sunsets as well. The picture below was taken by a gal in our neighborhood.  We live in a beautiful area.

With it starting to get colder we have started to see more happening with COVID in our state and area. Here's what came out recently about it:

There have been 5,065 COVID deaths in Utah since the start of the pandemic and in the last seven days another nine Utahns have lost their lives.

Now with 262 COVID deaths in the Bear River Health District since the start of the pandemic, 135 of them occurred in Box Elder County, 123 in Cache County and three in Rich County.

Including numbers from the last week, 56,530 total positive cases have been found in the district, 40,580 of them in Cache County.

There were 156 new cases in the Bear River Health district in the last week and over 68 percent of the northern Utah population (age 5+) has received at least one dose of the vaccine while 2,334 patients in northern Utah have been hospitalized with COVID.

Included in the state’s new release Thursday, Utah’s Division of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reported 107 COVID patients in the state’s hospitals, three more than a week earlier. Included in those numbers are 17 COVID patients in intensive care. Since the start of the pandemic there have been 39,227 COVID hospitalizations in Utah.

According to the state’s new breakdown over two million Utahns have received both doses of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine series which is almost 64 percent of the population.

Almost 44,000 vaccine doses were administered the last seven days to bring the total doses administered in Utah to more than 5.6 million.

Dale and I are getting good use out of our season USU basketball tickets and the boys aren't disappointing us. They've got a great team and are fun to watch. I have a feeling that they're going to do pretty well this year.

Aggie defense shuts down UVU in season opener en route to 17-point win

I ushered at the Eccles for" Afrique En Cirque" by Cirque Kalabante. It was amazing! The music and the stage added so much to the show. It's hard to believe the many positions a body can get into.

For Thanksgiving we went to Garrett & Zandra's house. We had a nice meal in good company. Zandra's mom, Gloria Dennis, was with us as well. We are truly thankful for kids that want to have us in their lives, and homes. What a blessing family is.

Dale and I took Langston on his Birthday Date a couple of days after his birthday. He wanted to go eat at "No Betta's Hawaiian Grill" and then go to the Fun Park.

Dale and Langston got into some pretty intense battles against some dinosaurs on a Jurassic Park video game they have there. We decided as a group we kill it on the Fruit Ninja game too.

Langston got to take home some small toys and a few treats from the points he collected while there too. It was a fun evening.

Happy Birthday Langston! Thanks for adding to our night!

Our Birthday dates with our grandkids are always an adventure!! We look forward to them as much as the kids. This grandparent gig is pretty awesome!!

Nate and Diana got away from the office for a bit over the Thanksgiving weekend and went to Joshua Tree, CA. The weather was pretty windy and chilly, but they got in a few climbs and as per their tradition, they had a dinner on top of the mountain with pumpkin pie to top it off.

The Mallory's have Kennlyn, Langston, and Mazin playing basketball. Dale and I were able to go watch some of their games. After watching one of Langston's games, we stayed to watch Kennlyn play, but the other team didn't have enough players and had to forfeit. However, rather than just going home they took a couple of players from Kennlyn's team and then allowed Langston and a little sister from one of the gals on the other team to play in the game. Not every day do we get to see two from the same family play, but it was fun to watch and see it happen. Those younger kids did pretty well at holding their own too!

The Mallory's headed to Ogden to celebrate Langston's birthday as a family. They went to "Flow Rider", and all got to try their skills at surfing, body surfing or boogie boarding. I'd say Langston got it down. Fun times for the family as memories were made.

Andrew also celebrated his birthday this month. He was back east working so the celebrating with family will happen next month, but a cool thing happened when Danica called to wish him a Happy Birthday. Andrew was out on a job flying the helicopter, she had done a Face Time call and was able to see him in action while they talked. I'd say Danica scored on her call and Andrew did too! Happy Birthday Andrew!

Lindsay got the drive and started up her own business. She's making heat transfer screen printed T-shirts and sweatshirts as well as clay hand-made earrings. They are all pretty cute too. Her business will run under the name of "LazyLouHandmade" and most of her marketing will be done via social media and word of mouth. We wish her the best in this new endeavor. 

Titan's class in school had the opportunity to go into Nora and Arwyn's Kindergarten class to help the kids read. He got to work with Nora. What a treat for both brother and sister. 

Lindsay took Nora's birth mom, Sadie, along with Nora and Arwyn to the "Nutcracker Ballet" at the Eccles for a girl's date. It sounded like the little ones loved it, and I'm sure the big ones did too. We are blessed in our area with some great programs in the Preforming Arts.

Where Garrett and Zandra live close to the Snow Basin ski area, and with the early snow fall this month they got more snow than we did. This being said, Snow Basin sent out this notice -- We are thrilled to announce we are opening early for the 2022-23 ski season on Friday, November 18, at 9 a.m. This will mark our earliest opening on record for in over 80 years of operation. 

So .... Garrett, Zandra, and the kids took advantage of the new snow and hit the slopes. They said it was GREAT!! I'm sure they'll be getting in even better days to come on the slopes.

After we left their house on Thanksgiving Day, they ended up having some visitors from India stop in for a visit on their way through the area. They are both going to school at BYU-Idaho. This is what Garrett posted on his Facebook page --"Had such a fun surprise this evening to have some old friends from India visit! We had a great time catching up and reminiscing about the days in the mission field and the many wonderful people of India. Thankful for the many friendships that I was able to build and still cherish".

To get out of the cold, the Hassell's headed to St. George to spend Thanksgiving with Jason's dad and Grandpa Hassell and other family members.

The weather allowed them to pull out the bikes and take June on her first bike ride. They also went on walks, to the park, and saw some Christmas homes all decked out for the holidays.

June even had breakfast with Santa, but I don't think she was too thrilled about it.

June did start crawling though so now she's really on the move. I think she's just trying to keep up with her dad and mom though.

As I said at the beginning, we needed the rain and snow. We need the moisture to help us get through a drought year. We got a great start towards the end of the month with more snow and are hoping to get more next month.

This month of Thanksgiving, my heart it full of love for family, friends, God. All the things I need to realize the many blessings we have been given.

"It's not what we day about our blessings,

but how we use them,

it the measure of our thanksgiving".

W.T. Purkiser