Sunday, October 19, 2025

2025, October 13-19

This week Mike had the chance to go back to Springville for a few days to celebrate Landon's birthday. 

Mike woke up to snow on Monday morning. It didn't stick, but it was a reminder that fall is fleeting here in Montana. For the last week, Mike has had allergy symptoms (itchy eyes, congestion) while at his apartment and at his office. They only seemed to get worse over the weekend, and he's trying to figure out the cause because he didn't have symptoms until he got back from Simi. 



Mike had the chance to go back down to Springville to celebrate Landon's 18th birthday. The kid's 18 already? What the heck?! He drove down on Tuesday, and Hallie, the kids, and Jocie picked him up from the SLC Airport. They went to the grand opening of the new Mozz Artisan Pizza downtown.  




Jocie is quite the artist! She only had 4 colors!

After pizza, we went to the home of the Out of the Blue sculpture on 900 S 1100 E. Mike has wanted to go there ever since it became a pilgrimage site for The Church of the Sacred Whale of Ninth-and-Ninth after the Whale brought the blessed massive snow season of 2022-23. All hail the whale! 


Hallie owns froggy pajamas, which reminded Mike that she and he could wear costumes to the No Kings protest in Provo on Saturday. 

Hallie got some love from her Starbucks friends. 

Fergus is always happy to have Mike around. Mike is always happy to sneak new pics of his favorite kitty. 

We got some precipitation on Thursday, with snow dusting the mountains and highlighting the brilliant leaves on the changing trees. 

While Mike and Hallie were shopping at Smith's, one of Hallie's Starbucks customers let the people there know that the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile had shown up in the parking lot.

Of course, we had to get pics and swag! 

We have seen the 1952 Wienermobile many times at the Henry Ford Museum, and we got a picture of a more modern one in December 2009 when we visited family in California. We also happened to catch a glimpse of one on the freeway when Eliza went to the Utah State Gymnastics finals in May 2018. This one looks a lot like that one.  




Hallie's brother got her a Starbucks tumbler from a US state. Guess which one?

On Friday, we celebrated Landon's 18th birthday a little early while we had Mike here. After going to Golden Corral (Landon said we finished before he was done), we came back home to open presents. Maybe he'll even get a cake and balloons next week! 

New Minky Couture blanket. 

He finally got his coveted motorcycle. 

And Dunder Mifflin boxers!

Mike and Eliza got prepped for the protest. Ribbit. 

Eliza originally planned to wear an inflatable costume, but then she found Hallie's old Raggedy Ann one instead. 

Saturday afternoon, the two of them went to the Provo Government Center and stood up to express our love for America and our opposition to the authoritarianism of the current presidential administration. 

A ladybug landed on Mike's glasses, and we coaxed it over to Eliza before it flew off again. We took the bug's arrival as a fortunate sign. 

Far more people came out than at any of the other protests we've been to. Mike was proud of how many people of good will chose to stand up and show their disagreement with the current president. 


We're grateful for those who helped ensure that the proceedings went peacefully.


"Fight the Empire!"

Later, Eliza helped Hallie fix her hair before Hallie went out. This is the before shot. Eliza put so much product in Hallie's hair that Hallie had to wash her hair before going out.

Hallie and friends from Starbucks went out to celebrate the upcoming wedding of one of her coworkers. Hallie will be officiating at the wedding next week. 

Eliza has taken to sitting under the stars out front. She took this picture of Ferg, who came to sit on her, calling him her "personal fur heater."

All too soon, Mike had to head back up to Missoula. He drove up through mostly fine weather, only hitting a couple of bouts of weather on the way up. It's almost getting routine. Almost. After getting to his apartment and unpacking, he went on campus, catching a couple members of the local herd en route. At present, his eyes burn a little bit, but he's still not sure what's the cause. 


Hallie and Brooklyn enjoyed what will be one of our last Gatherings before we have to close up for the winter.




 

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