Vacation month!!!

fort ligonier days
painted barn
fall colors
Monticello


Italian festival
The italian festival happened before vacation month but I thought I would throw in a couple of pictures. The italian festival happens every year here in scranton and it is the biggest festival/ tourist attraction that scranton has to offer. I thought it was a disappointment for all the hype it receives but oh well.

Smitty had the month of october off and we tried to take advantage of every minute. WE tried not to think about or speak of school. I worked the first couple of day and then it was off to D.C to see Smitty's parents and help out his sister while she had baby Ben. (photos of the baby will come later, they are on smitty's phone) while we were in DC we took a day trip to Monticello, the weather was perfect. I thought I was taking Smitty to Mont Peiler but it all worked out because we had both not been to Monticello before.

After 10 days in DC we left for Pittsburgh, PA to watch the U of U play Pitt. The Utes dont make to out this way very often and Smitty was determined to go. He talked about it for months.

and the rains came down

Well from talking to friends and family across the country I have found out that the NE pennsylvania flooding was not as big of a deal as I thought. Anyway, about three weeks ago most of our area was under water (except out house) even all the freeways were underwater so there was no escaping. Clean up is stil underway almost a month later and to top off the bad news it has been raining almost nonstop for the past 10 days. We have only had sacrament meeting for the past couple of weeks so that we can volunteer our time on the weekends to the clean up. we went with a few members of our ward last sunday helped fill dumpsters with peoples belongings, and took nails out of studs so a family could hang new drywall. I was exhausted when we came home even thought we have not done near as much as other members have been able to. I am so grateful we were able to give service to the area

NYC

smitty was sick of taking pictures so I told him to come take a picture with this fake plant
central park
Lego store!
CHOCOLATE!!!!

Smitty has a week left on his general surgery rotation this month, and a couple more days until he heads to Ohio for a month for the next one. Before he gets to Ohio he has to stop in Erie, PA to take a couple of tests and golf for a friends of scouting tournament. He hasn't had a whole lot of time to study with this month because of the schedule the doc keeps so I thought on saturday I would let him study and for a break we would swing over to Pittston, PA for the tomato festival. Not long after I told smitty the plan we got a call from out neighbors Mike and Cassidy. Mike's mom was in town and they were headed for NYC to catch a show and we got an invite to come along.....um YES PLEASE!! 10 minutes later we were on our way. The weather was perfect, we did not hit any traffic and the show was great. We saw the Addams family musical.

Restoration Site

So Smitty is following a doc who works here in Scranton and at a small hospital in Susquehanna. Last week during surgery one of nurses told the doc to take Smitty to the shrine in Oakland (Harmony, PA) so he did. Smitty and I went up there on Sunday to check it out. There is not much there yet but we ran into a senior missionary couple serving in the area and they explained the restoration site's future plans. It is going to be great!

Mustache Sunday!!

Angela had to get on dane's shoulders to take this!

On Sunday my mom hosted a whole house of people for a salmon dinner. Our Utah friends Joe, Tai and Jaxson (now they live is Washington) and Kerry, Jill and Millie (who came up to seattle for a vacation) came over. We missed you Paige and Landon! We all put on mustaches and took pictures, it was so funny and the adhesive was really sticky so it was hard to smile. Kerry and mine match our hair color to well they almost look real! After dinner, fun drinks and Peach tart we went out to Snoqualmie Falls to show off more of our beautiful state. I think the pic we took of ourselves looks pretty good.

On Wednesday a couple of my childhood friends got together for dinner. I really need to scan in the photo off us dressed and angels for the nativity when we were 10, I think it would look so cute next to this photo. We had fun catching up!!

Dad had a saturday off which is pretty rare so we made sure we had a good family activity (brian reagan voice) We went canoeing at the arboretum and under the 520 bridge. It was so fun. I just laughed the whole time. I was in charge of steering our canoe and when smitty would get rowing really fast I would turn us in a circle. Smitty was the only one that had to duck to go under the 520, my poor short family. We saw lots of turtles and blue herrings. We also had to go over a log that had fallen. When we arrived, there were a couple of other canoers and kayakers were just sitting there trying to figure out what to do but my family and I cut infront of everyone and went for it. We all had a different way but we all made it. Afterwards we went to the Portage bay cafe. This is a must if you are visiting, they have a pancake/ waffle bar!!

our second week here, my parents neighbor let us borrow her cabin in Winthrop, Wa so we could celebrate our 5th anniversary early because Smitty will be in a surgery rotation next month and we dont know what his schedule will be like. The cascade pass had just open so we had some really great scenery. We also saw a bear!!! we were driving around a bend in the road and about 30 feet in front of us was a brown bear on the road. we stared at each other for a bit but a car was coming the opposite direction so the bear took off up the mountain. it was pretty cool.
We were going to just stay in Winthrop the whole weekend but when smitty found out that there was more to the cascade loop he wanted to drive the whole thing. The next day we drove to to Lake chelan and topped to have lunch by the water and hike a little. We had wanted to hike in Winthrop but we started on the wrong trail (ran into a group of mules and petted them) and I didn't want to start over, I wanted to keep driving.
After Chelan we finished the loop in Levanworth. This is a cute little german town set at the foot of the mountains, it is so pretty. We couldn't find a hotel room because of a festival so we grabbed some dessert and headed back to the eastside