December – Utah for Christmas!

In October, I had a feeling that it would be good to go home for Christmas. Teresa only had 1 day off work and we hadn’t thought it would really be possible. But I followed the feeling and looked up flights. That day ended up being very difficult for Teresa and I helped her feel better by saying, “We are flying home for Christmas!” Yeah, I scored big points for that.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our visit home. We made it just in time for the Spilker Christmas Eve.

And on Christmas day we made it to the Favero home just in time to hear my brother Joe call home (over Skype) from his mission in Belgium/Brussels/Netherlands.

Here we all are – gathered around the laptop talking to Joe.

When Becca put Fia on Granny’s lap she said, “Get that ugly baby with it’s ugly face off me....she looks like her dad.” Her dad, Jon, pointed at himself and raised his eyebrows(like “what’s she saying about me?”).

Yeah, she wasn’t feeling all too great – but I’m glad she came!

This one is for Mom – thanks for the sweater!

October/November

We stayed a couple nights in a beautiful home in the Columbia River Gorge in October with the Barnettes, Batemans, and Humpherys (our dinner group friends here in our apartment complex).

 

Halloween - Teresa pulled off a pretty awesome punk rocker-esque costume for our church’s “trunk-or-treat” (decorate the trunks of your cars and the kids come around to each car in the parking lot).

I call this photo “Missing the Big Picture”. So often I am focused on the minutia right in front of me and ignore the magnificent in the background. I become too caught up in what’s coming next to step back and appreciate the big picture. Bridal Veil Falls, in the background, is actually pretty gorgeous (and worth the “stepping back” to appreciate).

Jeff’s birthday – I chose to take a bite out of my birthday pie (Favero family tradition!).

Thanksgiving was awesome at our friends, the Eagers. Napoleon, a refugee of several years from Liberia, was there also and recounted some of the wars, violence, and suffering of his people. It was very memorable, and made me feel very thankful for home, family, country, freedom.

September – Oregon coast, Columbia River Gorge, California!

Septembers are always full of beauty up here and we took advantage of it this year. For Teresa’s birthday we headed to the coast (Seaside, OR) and then into the Columbia River Gorge for Labor Day.

There is a loop of farms & vineyards near Hood River that they call the “Fruit Loop”. We enjoyed the gorgeous views of Mount Hood with our good friends the Gneitings (from Idaho) & the Martins (from Alaska).

Teresa bought heaps of pears for a great price & proceeded to can them all the next week. Delicious! Later, she did the same thing with apples and then peaches. What a woman!

Oh, Dave and Josh – it’s the simple things, isn’t it?

The Gneitings daughter, Becca, got dirty playing with the car’s exhaust pipe.

These are some gorgeous views in the Gorge when I hiked up “Angel’s Rest”.

At the end of September, I was fortunate enough to still be out of school and drove down to California to pick up Teresa’s dad. He had ridden his bike in the Seattle to Portland bike race in July and got in his mind that he would come back to Portland and ride all the way down to California! So I picked him and his bike up near the Redwoods and got to see some of God’s beautiful creations.

Here are a couple nice views of the mouth of Klamath River in northern California.

This is the morning we sent Teresa’s dad off on his own for the next 1-2 weeks (he rode to the coast and then all the way down to Fortuna, CA).

August – Jeff flew to Utah twice!

After returning home in July, I found out my Grandpa Flamm had passed away. I was able to fly back to Utah again for his funeral and see my family and relatives. It was a good experience.

The day after the funeral we visited the resting place of Grandpa’s body. It is in the mountains looking down on Ogden. We sat in the grass under the shade of the tree next to his grave for a while – a nice, peaceful spot. I’ve always felt a little weird at cemeteries, and haven’t really had much experience with death. But I felt ok this time, just smiling there with my family, thinking about all the goodness of Grandpa.

This is Fia - my sister, Rachel’s, little girl. Isn’t she darling?

Later in the month I took my scouts on a 5 mile hike and then to our ½ week of scout camp for the 11 year old scouts (called Camp Helaman). Wow, they can be a handful!