No, these are not terrorist being hunted by Jack Bauer of 24 fame. This is our son Jared with several of his friends playing paint ball at a birthday party. It snowed the night before so they had lots of fun running around the snow covered field shooting each other with paint balls. Oh, and Jared is standing on the far left.

October Fun

October is always one of my favorite months of the year- I love the colors, the weather and the activities.

Jared, Nate and Rachel all have birthdays in October, Jared turned 14, Rachel turned 21 and Nate is 25. (Thus signaling that I am in fact getting very old). Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year, decorating has always involved planning a party and this year was no different, even though Rachel no longer celebrates her birthday at home. I have 3 birthdays to think about and the fun of packing up a party in a box and mailing off to Rexburg.

Jared had friends over to our house to go out trick or treating with him on Halloween. Now that Becca is working at the New York Cupcakes store in Bellevue Square Mall, she baked and decorated a dozen Halloween cupcakes for Jared's party. They were yummy!!

Becca is really enjoying her job doing the baking and decorating for the cupcake shop. She loves the creative aspect of cooking and design. She has always loved the culinary arts, and this has been a fun job to keep her busy as she waits to go off to college in January. She is also keeping busy by attending institute and the singles ward as well as our family ward.

Jared turning 14 means he got to go to his first church dance, he seemed to have a lot of fun and got invited to dance by lots of girls. He has become quite the expert at texting these days as well- and it is always girls (oh my! is it starting already?) In fact, his woefully out of date mother has had to learn to text just to get a hold of him half the time.

Chuck is enjoying his new responsibilities involved in his promotion, but with his traveling about 80% of the time, he knows it will get old soon. But when he is not on the road he works out of the house, so when he is in town we see more of him than before. Which is nice. It is fun to come home from seminary or my dog walking and have someone home to keep me company and eat lunch with.

My dog business is building up slowly and steadily, which is great- because I can't integrate more than one new dog into the pack at a time. Also, my business has been expanding in unforseen ways. I have had a lot of requests for boarding, which originally I thought I would not do, but has turned out to be very lucrative, in spite of the fact that I can only handle about 2 additional dogs at a time. Also I have a new client that travels a lot as a consultant and pays me to come let out his 3 large dogs for a few minutes in the morning and then again in the evening. The best part is that I am am meeting many new people that are animal oriented like I am and appreciate my ability to work successfully with their dogs.

Our family is looking forward to the Holidays, as Rachel and Nate will be here for Thanksgiving. Rachel and Becca will be fixing the Thanksgiving meal, as I have dogs to walk that day. Becca is already trying out recipes for the perfect dinner roll, and scouring the Bon Appetite magazines for elegant menus to use. I know we will have a fabulous meal (we did need a fire extinguisher the last time these girls cooked a turkey) and they have my complete confidence.

BACK TO THE ROUTINE

Fall in the Northwest is my favorite time of year. We actually turned the heater on for the first time in about 4 months. There is nothing like crisp cool air and autumn color to make you want to cozy up in front of a fire and snuffle with someone ( I actually meant snuggle, but then the fall usually brings head colds too!)

We are getting used to being back in a routine, school, seminary and Chuck traveling a lot for business. The only one who doesn't have a routine yet is Becca- she is still job hunting. Her summer nannying job ended when the kids went back to school.

My dog business has slowed way down- 3 of my dogs were summer clients only, so I have lost them, which leaves me with only one permanent client right now. Although I am doing some more fill-in work for other walkers. I am trying to use this slow time to focus on getting some advertising. I have 2 ads coming out in local neighborhood publications, and I got some custom decals with my business name and web-site to go on the back windows of the truck and Suburban. Since school has started I have gotten a lot more hits on my website, and more email inquiries, but none have gone anywhere.

This year in seminary I am teaching the freshmen instead of juniors. It is a very small class of 7 students with 2 autistic boys in it. I think they gave me that class because I am the only female teacher in the building. I really have to stretch to keep everybody engaged and with me on subject. It is a learning experience I am enjoying, but it certainly keeps me on my toes.

Jared just got his braces on yesterday, so he is eating a lot of yogurt and smoothies right now. He doesn't want to smile, but that phase should pass quickly. Soon he will forget that he is even wearing them.

As I mentioned, Chuck is doing a lot of traveling with his new position in the company. He was in Denver last week and New Jersey this week. I think his car is parked at the airport more than in the garage. It feels so good to have him home on weekends.

COWBOY UP!!

Our 2nd week of vacation this year was wet, wild and wonderful!

It started with a 2 day white water rafting trip on the Salmon River in Idaho. The weather was perfect- warm and sunny, and the water was cold and refreshing when we jumped in, but not freezing. We camped along the shore of the river on soft white sand that made for comfortable sleeping under the million stars. The rapids were way fun and definitely worth all that paddling and sun screen slathering!

Next on our agenda was a trip to Rexburg to see Rachel and Nate. We arrived on Thursday before Rachel was off work, so we dropped by the Bridal store where she works to surprise her. We got to see her in action, measuring men for tux rentals and helping brides pick out their dream dress. We all went to dinner that evening down in Idaho Falls at their favorite steak restaurant called the Texas Roadhouse. It is a very casual place with a metal bucket of peanuts at each table and you are encouraged to throw the shells on the floor. They have huge steaks, BBQ ribs and chicken to die for and the best hot homemade rolls served with honey butter. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Rachel and Nate have the cutest little house and Rachel has done a darling job of decorating it.


The next day we all drove up to Montana to spend a couple of days at the ranch. The ranch is gorgeous, a beautiful valley with a river running through it surrounded by mountains. I told Nate he had 3 days to "hickify" Jared. He did his best. Jared got to feed carrots to a horse and even kissed the horse on the nose! Nate took him fishing in the river right behind the ranch house.

Nate let Jared drive the swather (cuts the hay in the field) and Chuck got to drive a tractor- they were both pretty excited. Jay tried to pick up a 180lb bale of hay. Nate says it is called "buckin' hay".





































Everyone got to ride around the ranch on the ATV's that are kept up there, and Dad & Jared got to chase cows through the mud in the river bottom. Chuck even made some friends with the lambs in the pasture. There were lots of animals on the ranch, besides the cows, horses, and lambs there were also chickens, ducks, turkeys and 2 dogs. I told Jared I would pay him $50 if he could catch a rooster, and although he spent 3 days trying, I never had to pay up.

Nate took the whole family up in the hills above the ranch for some target practice. It was the first time either Jared or Chuck had ever shot a shotgun- the recoil just about knocked them over. Nate also had two .22 caliber rifles that we all took turns shooting. It was a wonderful experience to be out on the farm away from TVs and cell phones. Just the crickets at night to put us to sleep and those dad-blasted roosters in the morning to wake us up.





It was really hard to say goodbye to Rachel and Nate and start the long drive back home, but it was satisfying to see how happy Rachel is, and how much she loves Nate and obviously loves being married. She took such good care of us all the time we were there. My little Jo Jo is all growed up!!

Whistler Vacation

FAMILY VACATION TIME

Although we have been too busy to go the past 2 years (last year we had a wedding), a summer trip to Whistler has been a family tradition for the Escotos. There is so much more to do there in the summer than winter. As Becca is leaving for college soon, this may be one of our last vacations with her, so we made the most of it. We frequently ATV, hike, swim, ride bikes, roller blade, eat out a lot and shop, shop, shop! I frequently do a lot of my Christmas shopping on the Whistler trip, but this year the terrible exchange rate put an end to that.

This year we tried a new activity- paintballing. Jared, Becca & Chuck loved it- me, not so much. You have to be fast and agile, darting from rock to stump and crouching low to avoid being hit. We had 11 people playing, Jared the youngest at 13, all the rest 15-20 year old boys. Then there were us old folks. You could practically hear the boys groan when I walked out on the field! They were thrilled with Becca however, and she proved to be pretty good, winning the game by capturing the flag for our team. chuck was able to keep up with those young'uns just fine. But I was a definite liability. I kept shooting my own team members because my face mask was so fogged up from all my huffing and puffing running up( well, walking really) and down the hills, I couldn't tell who was friend or foe. The most interesting part of the game was the fact that the local bear population loves the taste of the paint (it's non-toxic) and as soon as the game starts and the bears hear the sound of the guns they come for a snack. They just amble right onto the playing field and start licking the ground, stumps, tires and anything else that has been hit. They totally ignore the people, but they aren't shy around them either. They will come within a couple of yards. Whenever one of them wandered onto the field, we would have to stop play, while the referee would chase them off with sirens and firecrackers. Pretty soon they would be back- in fact one of them climbed a tree right in the middle of one of the playing fields, so we had to vacate it for another field.

This year for the first time Jared rented a high-tech mountain bike and took it on the gondola to the top of Whistler mountain and rode down! He loved it. Actually he did it 4 times . Chuck was so psyched!! He could never get any of us girls to go with him, so he has been riding the mountain solo for years. Now, he has a riding buddy.

We all have our favorite stores and restaurants, that we go back to year after year. This year Chuck made a point of recreating some pictures we had taken in years past of the kids when they were little in front of their favorite places. I wonder how long it will take me to get around to scrapbooking them all!

DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

These last two weeks I have been covering a dog-walking route for my friend who is on vacation. I have gotten a real taste of what this career can be. It can be a lot of fun (especially when the weather is gorgeous) and lucrative. I walked 4-5 of her dogs each day and made over $1000 in the 2 week period. Consider that is only working 4 hours a day. A lot of professional dog walkers have 10-15 dogs daily!! The most important aspect for me is that it is something I LOVE to do. Each day you have a new combination of dogs which makes it a whole new adventure. Each dog has its own personality, there is the crabby old lady, the class clown, the intense- all business, ball obsessed, the socialite who has to greet everyone she passes, and the dog that entertains himself- off in his own little world. It is like being surrounded by a group of your best friends, and best of all they adore me because I give them treats. It makes my day that the dogs are so excited to see me when I arrive, and race out to jump in my truck for another day of fun and games. Who needs Prozac? Just let me walk dogs and all is right with the world.

This is my son Jared just prior to his begining his paper route. Of course with 800+ papers its become a family activity. The first day it took us 9 hours then 8 hours, last night we got it done in 5 hours, so we are getting better.