After the camping, back to SLC

Bernie's camera had this group shot of us...I had to share it. Perfect for the Christmas card for this year I think!

Monday when I woke up this was the view from the guest room window. Nice, huh? Glad we didn't go camping up there like we first had planned.

The tree in Jeff's front yard...

And a tree down the street. Actually I could have just snapped my camera out the window of the car as we drove along, and gotten picture after picture like this one.

Monday morning Laura had to go to the hospital where she is currently assigned to turn in her time card. I went along for the ride, and to see the place where she works.
The Huntsman Cancer Institute turned out to be a very impressive center funded by the Huntsman family and the Church of the LDS.

(Couldn't get the whole facility in one shot; had to take two pictures....)

The entrance to the building.

The lobby. I've visited quite a few hospitals since Laura has become a nurse, and I am always thankful and impressed when a cancer center is a beautiful facility. This hospital is a teaching hospital as well, part of the University of Utah. Laura says teaching hospitals are the very best to be in, both as a nurse and as a patient.

That little detail is worth remembering should you ever need to be hospitalized and have a choice of places.

Remington sculptures and other art work enliven the space. The patients rooms were beautiful as they could be, with pull out beds for families, chairs with foot stools next to the bed, and computer stations outside each room which are also available for family member usage.

Flowers were around the area too which caught my eye. The last few hospitals Laura worked at had policies that NO flowers could be in the cancer wards, as the chemo treatments often made scents intolerable to patients. Laura is finding that "absolute rules" are absolutes only by location. I think that is interesting; as a librarian working in different libraries in the same system, I found rules at one branch that were absolute, were unheard of at other branches.

I think sometimes folks just like to make up rules!

The view from the hospital was great too. Each room had a lovely view.

After that, Laura and I did some house hunting, just for fun, and shopped for fall decorations. Girls gotta decorate for the seasons, right?

Jeff had the day off (banks are closed on Columbus Day, I didn't know that...) and he decided to tackle planting his springtime bulbs before the ground froze.

It just tickles me that Jeff loves to garden like I do. He has a green thumb and one day hopes to have a really fantastic garden with fruit trees and vegetable patches and great landscaping.

I miss planting bulbs now that I live in Texas. In San Diego I had three hundred daffodils one year, and in Dallas I had tulips. It's so much fun to be planting bulbs with Jeff; he'll be able to send me pictures as the flowers come up. Crocus, Hyacinth, Narcissus, Tulips, plus some little bulbs I had never heard of before. His dahlias were still blooming like crazy, so we just worked around them for now. He'll be adding pansies later.

I really don't mind getting my hands dirty...especially when the soil is good potting soiling. A real treat compared to mucking in the heavy red clay at our place.

Inside the house, my grandcat Meowsie was exploring our autumn decorative efforts. Meowsie is seven now. As a kitten he lived in a fraternity, and has lived in San Diego, Newport Beach, La Jolla, and two places in SLC. Whew...no wonder he is so easy going.

If you can't take your grandcat to the Pumpkin Patch, then bring the Pumpkin Patch to your grandcat.

All the other grannies out there are flashing pictures of their grandkids in pumpkin patches...why shouldn't I get to have a picture to show too?

Isn't he cute? Auntie Lau-Lau took my camera and took FORTY pictures of Meowsie for me. Meowsie is a very tolerant kitty.

Love this pumpkin...the rest of the ones we got were real ones.

Ahh...look at those pumpkin colored eyes!

Jeff's front porch is now decorated. The garland even has orange lights twined into the foliage, so it will look cheery at night.

The Sugar House area of SLC has cute houses built in the 1910-1920's, and one block had switched out their regular white street lamps for black lights and wrapped the poles with orange lights. I'm not a fan of Halloween, but I had to admit the effect was quite playful.
A Greek dinner together, a frozen yogurt run, lounging around the living room watching Monday night foot ball, and general chitchat rounded off the day. I flew out at 7 am the next morning.

From the plane the Aspen could be seen in golden blaze upon the mountain tops.

Can't say I'm all that happy to be returning to 90 degree summer temperatures. Oh well, eventually fall will come to Houston too. And I'm sure I'll be on another adventure again really soon.