Week 39

{September 26 - October 2}

On Monday evening, I worked on my college math task. I'd submitted the project on Sunday night, but it was returned back to me with a few revisions required. I worked on the phone with a mentor that night to understand what needed to be changed, and then re-submitted it. When I was finally done with it, I came out to the living room and saw that Josh and the boys were watching the first Presidential Debate between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. I only watched for two minutes, before being so irritated and turned off by it that I went back into my bedroom until it was time for Family Home Evening!


Kanyon had a school field trip to the Sacajawea Center on Tuesday afternoon. The weather was glorious, and he had such a great time with his fourth grade class! Unfortunately, I was unable to go. However, he talked to me excitedly about the races they did, the rainsticks they all made (and did a rain dance with afterwards), and the stone soup they ate. I was so grateful for another student's mother who took these photos!

The Bigley's are the teachers in the outdoor learning classroom. 

Scottlyn, Kanyon, and Hesstyn watching the Stone
Soup being made inside a pumpkin. 

The three older boys had a XC meet on Wednesday at Harriman State Park (near Island Park). Once again, I was unable to go to it, but thankfully Josh could since he drove the bus for it. It was another gorgeous day, and the site was beautiful. Josh hadn't been to the location since he was in high school; and none of our kids had ever run there before. It was a long bus ride: it took 4 hours to get there, so it was a full-day affair. The Junior High races were first; our boys' middle school team won first place. Micah was the 6th runner from Salmon, getting 9th place overall (and medaling) with a time of 10:10. Jonah was 19th place (out of 77 runners) with a time of 10:39. In the Varsity race, the Salmon boys got 2nd place as a team. Ammon was the 3rd runner for Salmon, and earned 9th place overall. He received an individual medal with his time of 19:44.

The Junior High teams doing a warm-up lap around the course. 

Micah near the start of the race

Jonah mid-way through the race

Micah earned a medal for 9th place

The HS Varsity boys team doing warm-ups at the start line. 

Ammon and Hannah both got 9th place, too!

On Thursday after school, I taught a piano lesson, packed my bags, then headed to Utah to spend the night at my mom's house in Tremonton. I had a flight out of SLC the next morning with some of my siblings to head to Denver for the weekend for a sibling reunion. Lisa had instigated the plans (since she lives so much further away than the rest of us) and we'd originally planned to go last spring, but then one of my brothers wasn't able to go, so we re-scheduled it for this fall, but then the other brother was unable to go. It was a stressful time of year for me, with my college deadlines and all, but I'd committed myself to going, and felt like I couldn't back out regardless of my excess stress. I was grateful for Lisa's push to try and get us all together!

The leaves were so pretty this fall!
Josh took this pic at the golf course on Thursday,
capturing some of the season's colors. 

On Friday morning, Cody drove over to Tremonton and we drove together to SLC. We met up with Tabbi at her house and took an Uber (my first uber ride ever!) to the airport. Tawna and Bryce met up with us at the airport, and we took the same flight out together. They kept switching the gates on us, and Cody and I walked back and forth between two gates three times until the airline finally got it correct! It was so annoying! But, I saw some old friends (Melissa Wright and her kiddos) in the process, which was a bonus. Lisa had arrived in Denver before us, and she'd gotten a van as a rental car. She picked us up, and we went to 16th street for lunch at the Paramount Cafe. We walked around the shopping district for a while, and then drove to a fun bookstore called the Tattered Cover. It was a quaint, older building with a fun bookstore inside and I enjoyed looking around. Everyone got tired, so we headed to our rental house, and Bryce's sister came and picked him up to go to a friend's wedding outside of Denver. It was an amazing rental home that we got from Air BnB--it was a 4-level duplex, with 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. It was beautiful and spacious, and I totally forgot to get a picture of the outside of it. We celebrated Tabbi's birthday with tiered cupcakes that Lisa put together, and took a rest before heading out to the Rockies game that evening. We took another uber ride to get there. The Rockies won the game! It was their last home game, so they had a fan appreciation day with a display of fireworks at the end. I've NEVER seen a fireworks show like it! It lasted for about 20 minutes with music playing the whole time, and the finale was nothing short of amazing. There were so many fireworks going off that we thought we were under attack for a minute--there was so many explosions, so much noise, and so much heat exuded that our faces were warm and we couldn't hear! It was probably my favorite part of the entire Denver experience. Afterwards, we walked for a few blocks, through an Oktoberfest celebration, to get another uber ride back to our rental home. It was a fun evening!

Finally made it to the right gate!

Ready to fly!

There's a giant sculpture of a Bronco on the
highway leading to the airport. 

Lisa was our designated driver!

I loved this sight of the perfectly aligned stools!

I really liked this sculpture that was in the middle of the street along the 16th
Street Mall--a road closed to cars, and open to pedestrians. 

Can you spot Lisa, Tabbi, Tawna, and Bryce?!

Beautiful old architecture surrounded by modern lines!

Happy Birthday Tabbi!

Coors Field!

Spectators getting ready for the fireworks show

Walking through the Oktoberbest celebration

There was a photo booth set up in this VW van!

The kitchen/dining/sitting area on the main floor of our rental home

Loved these stairs leading up to the 3rd level!

On Saturday morning, we set off for Red Rocks, about 30 minutes southwest of Denver. It was breathtaking! The weather was gorgeous, too! I totally want to go to a concert at the Red Rocks Amphitheater someday! It was awesome! We were surprised to find lots of exercisers at the location on Saturday morning--apparently a lot of people go there to job, climb steps, do lunges, and walk. Lisa, Tawna, and Tabbi joined the crowd and walked for a while. I walked around the Visitor's Center and museum inside. After 45 minutes, Cody and I were bored, so we walked down the road to the place where there's an arch carved in order for cars to get to the amphitheater. The other 3 drove down to us, and we went to the nearby gift shop. Lisa also wanted to go to a nearby dinosaur place before we headed to the airport to pick up Trina. Tabbi and I got into an argument, and I left the gift shop and walked for two miles. Tabbi called an uber. I arrived at the dinosaur place where Lisa, Cody, and Tawna had driven to, and we rode together to pick up Trina. We decided on a Thai place for lunch called Chada Thai. Tabbi joined back up with us there. It was my first Thai experience ever, and it was delicious! It was just a hole-in-the wall restaurant, but the food was phenomenal! I ordered the Thai curry, but Lisa had ordered an extra Pad Thai for us all to try, and I loved it! We went to the Denver Art Museum for a while, and walked around. It was free to the public that day (every first Saturday of the month is free for patrons), which was a bonus. We didn't see it all--but we got too tired and left to go back to the rental home. Everyone was tired and took naps except for me and Trina. I felt bad because she hadn't been in Denver very long, and we spent the bulk of the afternoon/evening just hanging out at the rental home. I decided to go for a walk to see if I could go look inside the nearest Dispensary, which was a mile and a half away (our home was in a residential area, not a commercially zoned one). I walked/jogged to get there, and arrived at 6:50, but it was already closed (although online it said it closed at 7). I walked to another one down the block from it, and it was also closed. So I just walked back to the rental home. I was gone about an hour and 10 minutes. When I arrived, everyone was getting ready to go to dinner at the Lakewood Restaurant Casa Bonita. I remember eating there as a kid, and was so excited to finally go back and see if what I'd remembered in my head was actually correct. The restaurant hasn't changed much, and I was a giddy as little kid as we walked through the line with our trays to receive our food and be escorted to our table. Every hour, a man dives from the platform into the inside pool/waterfall, and there's areas inside the restaurant for kids to do activities. It was awesome and I enjoyed it immensely! We drove past our old home we lived in when I attended Kindergarten before driving back to our rental house for the night.

You can see Denver in the distance

This rock is on the north side of the amphitheater.

Walking across the top of the ampthitheater, with the
jutting rock visible from the southern side. 

The stunning amphitheatre with natural surroundings. 

See all the exercisers?

I loved this hole in the wall!

One of our Thai desserts: mango with sweet coconut sticky rice

The outside of the Denver Art Museum

I loved this horse--it reminded me of a similar one
I saw in the Washington DC museum I went to last year!

In the modern section of the museum, you could get these
colored marbles and put them in glass containers by
several of the art pieces, to help convey how you felt
about that particular work of art. 

I really liked this piece of Native American blankets folded
to make a tall totem pole. Very cool!

This was also very appealing to me and my
Idaho lifestyle!

A view of Denver from the upstairs window in the Art Museum.

These homes were just a few blocks down from our rental home. The
neighborhood was a mix of modern structures (like our home), and
artistic, historical structures like these. They were so beautiful! It was a
charming neighborhood!

I enjoyed my evening walk alone! 

Tabbi, Lisa, and Tawna in line with their trays!

Trina and Cody going down the line to get drinks.

I love this restaurant!

The diver did 3 dives every hour. He's swimming to the
side after his first dive...

The beautiful fountains outside
the restaurant

The house I used to live in when I was 4 and 5 years old. 

Meanwhile, as I was busy traveling all day, Josh was working on installing the first ever fountain in the pond at the golf course. It was a successful project, with beautiful results!

On Sunday, we went to church services at an Episcopalian Church in Lakewood. The services weren't very well attended, and it was kind of confusing going between the paper, the hymn book, and the prayer book, and it also felt un-personalized. We wanted to go to the big Catholic church in downtown Denver, but we'd noticed the previous day that there would be a big 5k race in downtown Denver on Sunday morning, so we knew parking and traffic would be a problem, so we opted to go to this church instead. After the church services, we went to back to Denver, went to another site of the Tattered Book Cover (Trina really wanted to go because she missed our first visit to it). I walked around a nearby outdoor market, and got a few handmade meat-filled empanadas to eat before we headed back to the airport, because Trina and I had the same flight home. Everyone else flew home the next day. When we arrived, it was almost 4:00. Dan picked us up, and I needed a ride back to Tabbi's to get my car. He accidentally missed the exit, drove miles out of the way, and then we had a detour because General Conference had just gotten out and there were pedestrians everywhere. After 45 minutes, I finally made it to my car, and began the drive home. Overall, it was a fun trip, but I was happy to be back in my own bed that night, surrounded by my family and my daily comforts of living!

All together after church services

Lovely day for an outdoor market!

The Denver Airport--Trina said it looks like a circus tent!

A closer look of that Bronco structure near the airport

Yay for being back in Idaho!