September 2026 Books Read (plus more)

 September felt like a very busy month, and still I managed to read seven books.

1. Girl with brush and canvas: Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist (2019) by Carolyn Meyer. I grabbed this from the America 250 display in the library because I needed a book. I think it was a day that Josie had an appointment. I really liked this work of historical fiction, but it was very well researched and felt biographic. I guess it is actually a biographical novel, because it is told in first person, but obviously the story was not told by Georgia herself, but by Carolyn Meyer. Still, well done. A good read.  

2. Restart (2017) by Gordon Korman was recommended by Diana G. Chase Ambrose has amnesia after a fall, a chance to change his life for the better. Because he was...not a very nice guy. But he didn't remember that. Thougth provoking and also funny in places, because that is the way Gordon Korman rolls. I am very proud of Gordon Korman, who has been a published author for most of his life, who is Canadian, and who is only six years younger than me. I was a university student when he published his first book. You can read about him here. (My favorite book of his is still McDonald Hall Goes Hollywood. Laugh out loud funny, imo.)

3. Short Stories in French (2018) by Olly Richards--I mentioned this book before, as I was slowly reading its eight short stories over the course of several months. The book has comprehension questions and vocabulary lists, and the stories were of interesting variety. I have started the second book with more intermediate vocabulary--I will probably take months to read it, too. It was delightful to read and understand.

4. Portuguese Irregular Verbs (2003) by Alexander McCall Smith was on the display shelves when I was working at the fifth floor help desk, and it is thin, and I like the author (No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series) so I started it when the desk was quiet, and finished it because I liked it, even though the protagonist of the book is quite insufferable. Poor Professor Dr. von Igelfeld never quite gets the girl, the job, the prize...easy for the reader to understand, bewildering to him.

5. When rain clouds gather (1968) by Bessie Head takes place in Botswana. A friend on Facebook, Ruth, has a friend named Charis (who is a music person and friends with many of my friends, though I do not personally know her) and they recommend books to each other. They are reading their way through 150 place books, set in different countries, and this was the one for Botswana, and it was good. Blurb on back of book: The poverty-stricken village of Golema Mmidi offers a haven to the exiles gathered there. Makhaya, a political refugee from South Africa, Gilbert, an English agriculture expert, Paulina from the north work together to revolutionize subsitence farming. The pressures of tradition, the opposition of the local chief, the harsh climate--threaten to bring tragedy, but hope remains for the future.

6. Heartburn (1983) by Nora Ephron is also a biographical novel. It is about her own breakup with her second husband, Carl Bernstein (of Woodward and Bernstein Watergate fame) and it was thinly disguised to the point that Bernstein wanted to sue her, but I don't think he did in the end. Nora Ephron is best known for her screenplays, like Sleepless in Seattle, for example. 

7. The correspondent (2025) by Virginia Evans. Oh my. Very touching. I loved this book. I read it in a day. I had placed a hold on it months ago because it is our Book Club book for October, but it came too soon, so I returned it so the next person could have it, and then by the end of September, I was the third hold and worried that I wouldn't read it in time, but then suddenly my hold came on Friday, and by Saturday, I was finished. So beautifully told! Life is hard, and this had been true for Sybil, who is a letter writer, and an e-mailer, and a note-writer, but not much of a talker. She has a very painful relationship with her daughter, and this sentence just resonated with me: "You think of me as your mother, but inside I am just a girl." Yes! Me, too. This book is Beautiful.

Plus more: Monday was a terrible no good very bad day. I was upset with myself over many small things, but they added up to feel heavy. Just silly things like I left work too late to stop and get gas, I didn't remember to get the envelopes to mail things to Nancy, things like that. Although, I also needed to deposit a check that came for Andrew, and when I really looked at the check, it said, "Void if not cashed by October 26," and I was freaking out because it was the 28th!! But then Rachel said, "It is only September still; you have lots of time."

Then, we decided that Josie would go to her PT appointment, and then take Rachel's car over to Linda's house, where it is going to live for awhile, since her PT is in Springville, halfway to Linda's house. But holy traffic jam!!! Josie had to call and reset her appointment because it was clear that we weren't going to get there in time or maybe at all. So since we were in two different cars, she called me to say to just drive straight to Linda's. It took one hour and fifteen minutes to get there!!! It is like a 15-20 minute drive. Maybe a half hour if driving slow. Crazy!

I took a picture of Rachel with Trevor and Linda:

It has been 13 years since Trevor's bike accident. That is a long time. The car will be happy at their house. They have more driveway space than we have here.

Monday or Tuesday, I should mention, Microsoft did this new thing to Outlook, and we now have to sign in with Duo, or two factor authentication. This messed up my LibCal Calendar, so that happened, but I didn't have time to deal with it that day. 

Tuesday, I took a picture of our one tomato plant. Because it is ginourmous and taking over the yard!

I was watering it so carefully while it was always 100 degrees, and then I stopped and have not watered it specifically at all--it just gets what the lawn sprinklers give, and what the rain gives upon occasion, and apparently that is what helps it to thrive.

We had Panda Express with orange chicken for Rachel on Tuesday for her "last" meal. For her birthday, I got Panda Express and didn't get enough food. This time I got LOTS of food...and then Rachel was leaving and didn't even get to eat lots and lots of orange chicken.

Wednesday was MTC drop-off day, which Nancy wrote about. I was also feeling a bit "off"--probably because I have become used to having Rachel around, and she just walked right off to the MTC all ready to go, and maybe I wasn't feeling really ready. I am a sentimental old lady. 

Also on Wednesday Nancy's blog roll finally updated! I guess it was getting into the spirit of moving day, since Nancy and family moved and Rachel moved. It mght as well move, too!

And then, at work, I did put in a help desk about my Outlook/Calendar problem, but told them I didn't have any free time on Wednesday afternoon because I didn't. And then, Adam brought me this folder of Lena Stein-Schneider music which had gone to Ellen for scanning for ScholarsArchive, and said it was all finished, and that reminded me that last week when I was spending quite a bit of time at home with Rachel so she had a person to walk with and talk with, that my opera singer friend in Germany had sent me an email asking about some Lena Stein-Schneider pieces, only I couldn't remember which ones because the titles are all in German. So I looked up her name which is quite unique, and my email didn't find it. Well, my email is bad at finding things, so I used the built-in copilot option to look for it, and it told me that I had NO emails from her. It found her name, but only in emails from me to her. So weird--I knew that she had emailed me often in the past year, which is only as long as I have known her, since some time in 2025. 

So then I scrolled down in my email to try to get to a few weeks ago...and my email ended on Monday at 12:47 (that was September 28) and if I clicked on "find more on Microsoft Exchange" the more started on September 29...2025. Literally one whole YEAR of emails to me were gone.

So I put in another help desk. But...no time for it on Wednesday, because I had to take Josie to the PT appointment she missed on Monday due to the traffic jam. (We made it on time going via the Freeway--but only because her appointment started 15 minutes later than we thought, so we ended up being about ten minutes early.)

So this morning, the IT guy came. He fixed my Microsoft/Calendar problem, although the calendar glitch HAD double-booked me, and I didn't notice, so a poor student got stood up by me because I had to be at the 5th floor help desk for the same hour his appointment was, and the next appointment, too, only Tim took that one, and it was a football player, and they had a good time. Probably better Tim than me. 

But the IT guy could not find any reason for a year of emails to disappear. Like, my SENT folder is fine, just my RECEIVED folder is not fine. There was nothing in my "Deleted Items" folder, and nothing in the "recover" folder. So he told me he would scale it up to OIT.

And he did, and a few hours later, they found my email, and by the end of the day they told me it was all in my "recover" folder...and that thing is a beast. Over 9000 items, and the display is not super user friendly, and everything that looks like what I am looking for turns out to be SENT from me, and is already in my sent folder, so then I have two of them?

I think I will just send an email to the library telling what happened, and saying, if you sent me something important and I didn't do it, because I have been away a lot the past two weeks, please send again, because I do not have it.

AARGH. So frustrating. I did email my friend in Germany and ask her to resend her email, which she did. So I have that. (Now I just have to find the music and THAT is also frustrating me extremely.) 

Totally feeling frustrated over here!! And I still forgot about the envelopes!!! (I did get gas on Wednesday, so at least I succeeded at one thing. No, two things. I did deposit Andrew's check, too.)

But tonight I went to a lovely dance recital at the MOA. This was the follow-up to the Mimi Chen Ting exhibit I wrote about in April. Dances inspired by her art. It was lovely--good music, lovely dancing. 

It happened that a girl asked me if she could sit by me, and then her friend came and sat by her, and we had a lovely chat. Her name was Zuzu, named after the character in "It's a wonderful life." And she said her aunt worked in the library and I said who is your aunt, and she said Lili Sharp, and I said, how is she your aunt, and she said she and my mother are sisters. And I said, so Betsy is your grandmother? And she said yes, how do you know Betsy? and I said I worked with her at Orem Public Library, and she said, oh my other grandmother worked there too, Kathy Homer, and I said yes, I knew her too. So small world. And I told her that also my son David is friends with Tracy, who is her uncle. I don't remember how David knows Tracy. Maybe they were in a musical together? 

Anyways--we had a nice visit! And I am feeling slightly less frazzled. I will try to get ahold of myself--maybe I need some stimming, which I had never heard of before, but Nancy talked about here. Maybe I need a baby to hold and rock! I will try to dream of one tonight.

Sunday 9/27/2026

The blog roll on Nancy's blog, which is honestly what I use to get to my own blog, just barely updated to show my post of a week ago!! So, while I am writing this today, who knows when it will show up at the place I use as an index! Internet stuff is weird. I think it finally updated because Nancy commented! My sister's blog has also not updated in over a week--maybe Nancy needs to comment there, too! She is, apparently, all powerful that way.

However, my brother's blog updates like clockwork. Mind you, he is a computer programmer par excellence, so he probably has done all the right things that I have probably not done.

This week, Reid, Nancy's father-in-law, had asked Rachel to find someone to do four baptisms for a woman man (somehow I got the idea it was a woman?) in Abu Dhabi's ancestors. She He wanted a picture of the temple cards at the temple. When I asked friends for suggestions of a young man who could do this, they said that Daniel would do it; he is a frequent flyer at the temple doing baptisms. I emailed his mom, Naomi, and he consented to do it. He was here on Sunday (stopped at our house) and told me he planned to do them on Tuesday. But I didn't get any pictures until today! I was happy to share them with Reid!

There are Daniel and Naomi at the Lindon, Utah, temple! (Which I recognized only after first thinking it was the Orem temple, but then was like...wait...I just saw that temple yesterday! Because yesterday, Rachel and I drove Josie to her friends' house in Pleasant Grove, and we did a scenic tour which included our old house (which looks nothing like our old house) and Rachel's old house, which she took a picture of out the car window) and then after dropping Josie off, we came back and went to look for the Lindon temple, which is right beside Oak Canyon Junior High where Patrick and Josie (and Andrew and his siblings) all attended junior high. I think Rachel took a picture of the Lindon temple from the car window, too.)

The coolest thing to me is that the woman man from Abu Dhabi (who is actually from Egypt) had ancestors listed on these cards from Gabon (which is in Central Africa) and Bavaria and Germany; the baptisms were performed in Lindon, Utah. And the proxy is from Australia, living here in Utah for a few years while his Dad is the Mission President of the Provo, Utah mission. The family is actually from Adelaide, the only place in Australia that Josie and I have been, and spent several weeks with Barbara Hobby, and one of her nieces or nephews married into the Ellis family. Small world!!  And so cool that in this Family History effort, so many countries were involved. God loves all his children, everywhere! Worldwide effort!

Fun fact about Josie's evening with friends--she and Katelyn had a conversation that involved the name "Nicholas" and they both had 2nd great-grandfathers with that name! Katelyn's mother was a Muhlestein! Katelyn's great-grandfather is Enoch, the brother of Josie's great-grandmother Ida. That makes them third cousins, which in my book is a very close relationship. (We know many many of our third cousins, but clearly not all...I do not know Katelyn's mother at all. And I guess to me she is a second cousin. In fairness to all of us Muhlestein descendants, there were 18 children in that family, so it is hard to keep track of all the people!)

Last of all, Rachel's mission plaque is up!

Sorry for the glare. The ward clerk was so nice to take it out of the cabinet and move it down, so there is less glare, but I could not completely eliminate it.

Also fun fact: if you go to that link about Daniel's dad being the Provo mission president, also there you will find the couple who are mission presidents in Rachel's mission, Vietnam Hanoi Mission. 

Sunday 9/20/2026

 Today was the day for Rachel to speak in church prior to actually leaving on her mission, which is now only ten days away. In the invitation Nancy sent out about Rachel speaking, she said we would meet at our house after the two-hour meeting block, and so I thought I was also playing the piano for Relief Society as I normally do, but it soon became apparent to me that we would need to go home immediately after Sacrament Meeting--Aunt Linda needed to be in her own ward to teach her Sunday School class by 1:00, and the Lewis family needed to get on the road because they were hoping to get as far as Denver, on their way to their home in Georgia.

So, I texted someone to see if she could play in my place--she couldn't, but suggested someone else--and also texted the person in RS, Rosemary, so I didn't pay as much attention to my friend Krista's talk as I should have! But then I settled down to sing the congregational hymn which was a song by my nextdoor neighbor, Jane. 

Well, that was an interesting exercise. I do not know how to use print screen on my new laptop, and so I googled instructions, and I was somewhat successful, though not entirely!! Like I wanted to do a better job than this, but this is better than nothing.  If I have the keyboard I have at work, I can still do it; I just don't understand the laptop's own keyboard!!

Rachel was next up, and she gave a great talk, even if she was speaking too fast. I was sitting with Andrew's Aunt Linda, and she and I were doing slow down motions, but Rachel was not looking at us, though apparently she did look at us but not when we were doing the motions!! She did eventually slow down a bit. People were reacting to her, though, so apparently it was okay that she was a tiny bit fast!!

Aunt Judy and Uncle Wally came, and so did Janice and Steve, who had been in Idaho and got up at five to be back in time to hear Rachel, and Josie was there, and I saved her a seat, but she chose to stay in the lobby, and also Rachel's friend Hoi who is from  Vietnam, from Saigon (which is now called Ho Chi Minh, and I did not realize they are the same thing) also sat in the lobby, where you can hear and the seats are soft.  And a bunch of Rachel's friends were also there. I was proud of Rachel; she did a good job.

Here are all the pictures I took:

First of all, the Lewis family. I took their picture right away because I was afraid they would decide to leave for their long drive without coming to our house, but they did come to our house, so it was a groundless fear! First I took this picture:

But then I realized that I was sort of cutting Sara off, so I backed up a bit and took this picture:

This is better, too, because Rachel's eyes are open!!

Then Sara told me that she is my friend Libby's niece, so we were both apparently texting Libby to let her know that she missed out on an opportunity to see her niece. It is fun that Libby is Sara's aunt because Libby was the first person who has reached out to Rachel with interest the most, I think. She and her husband recently returned from a mission to Winnipeg, and even the Winnipeg mission president's wife took a picture of Rachel's friend Hailey which she texted to Libby, who texted it to me, who texted it to Rachel, because Libby told her about the roommate connection of these two girls. (Libby and her husband own property in Oregon, and are often there doing things, which is where they are today.)

I took the rest of these pictures after church:

Rachel and a friend I do not know...so I just sent to Rachel and asked, and it is Katie, who was Rachel's RA (Resident Assistant?--person who helped the kids in Heritage Halls, in her hall/floor.)

This man wanted to talk to Rachel, because he thought she might be Nancy and Andrew's daughter, and he was right! He is Steve Colton, and he is dating my friend Tracie. Tracie was in the RS presidency, over music, so we talked about that regularly for several years, as well as I was her ministering sister.  Rachel wondered how the two of them might have met, and I don't know, but Tracie is the career director in the School of Accountancy in the Marriott School, and I see from googling that Steve is on the Marriott School's national advisory council, so it might have been that Marriott School connection? I don't know, but I love Tracie, she is the sweetest. Tracie is Lebanese, so she immediately began speaking to Rachel in Arabic which was an unexpected surprise!

This next group is a bunch of Rachel's friends. And also the girlfriend  fiancée of one, who seemed to think she did not belong in the picture, but I thought she did, because she was there! (I was about to put one of my pictures here, but then I realized Rachel's eyes were closed, so I went back to my phone and found the one with her eyes open, since she is the Star of this Sunday. For me.)

That pretty girl at the left does belong, because she is Christian's fiancée, and then he is beside her, then Jackson, Rachel, and Hanna. These are Rachel's friends from Arabic.

At the house, they had a lot of fun talking to the Lewises, because Brother Lewis is also an Arabic speaker, army trained. That made it fun for Brother Lewis to talk to Wally, because they were both active duty at the same time, Wally being a linguistics interpreter/interrogator, both in the Iraq conflict. And then Wally connected with Steve Bunker over Sons of the Utah Pioneers, which Steve just joined, and Wally just finished his stint as the national president of SUP. 

So pictures from the house:

Rachel with Aunt Linda. Linda is the sweetest. I had Josie ride with her from the church to the house, so she could easily find her way. We will see Linda again when we take Rachel's car to hang out with her until Miriam is here to drive it. Fingers crossed it keeps working!

Rachel with Josie, Janice, and Steve. Josie, Janice, and Steve were very helpful in the kitchen while Rachel had the responsibility of visiting with all the people who were there to see her.

Rachel with Hoi. He got up at seven AM to walk for 45 minutes, arriving early and then just waiting at the church. Dedication, much! He walked that early in order to be cooler while walking. Don't worry--he got a ride home! (Honestly, I would have gone to pick him up. Only, I was doing food prep all morning, so I am actually thankful that he walked, now that I am thinking about it!)

The above picture is Rachel with Uncle Wally and Auntie Judy. They are so busy with their 11 children and umpteen billion grandchildren and with the presidency of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers at the national level...that we do not see them very often. We were glad they came!

Rachel with Margo, one of her roommates. I actually came upon Margo giving Rachel a heartfelt thank you for calling her out on things that she needed to hear, even though it was difficult for both of them--like leaving dirty dishes and stuff--and I thought it was cool, but I ducked back out into the garage because I didn't think I was meant to hear anything, but I thought it was very sweet.

Why is there a bucket on the stool behind them? Well, that is Bruce's puzzle table behind them, and he has a bucket to put pieces in, which happens to be sitting there in full view to make viewers wonder why.

Rachel with Lydia, sister to her friend Corbin. Lydia served a mission in Mexico. Funny story, I gave the three last people to leave (Hoi, Lydia, Margo) a bag and told them to take anything they wanted of the leftover food. Hoi took only chips. Margo took all the leftover green vegetables, and Lydia took all of the leftover tomatoes, plus I gave her another tomato, a big one, because she likes tomato in sandwiches. Nobody took any of the desserts, of which we got too many!

And then my next door neighbor Jane came over. (Well, she came over while Hoi, Lydia, and Margo were still there! She left before they did.) Jane said she just had to talk to Rachel! Jane was so excited that Rachel is going to Vietnam! That is where her husband died 57 years ago in the war!! Jane coming gave Auntie Judy the opportunity to congratulate Jane on the song (above, that we sang today in church) and Jane accepted some lunch and took the opportunity to visit with the young people. She mentioned that Vietnamese people are short, so we had Hoi stand up--because he might not be tall, but he is also taller than Rachel, and certainly taller than Jane.

Here is Rachel and Margo with Jane. Jane wanted both of them in the photo. 

And then Jane wanted a picture of me and Rachel with the flag, that Rachel had hung on the cat cage in the kitchen. (I do not think anybody realized there was even a cat cage there!) So I had Josie take a picture of us, too, because I realize that I got no pictures with Rachel today.

From this vantage point, it totally looks like a cat cage under the flag, doesn't it? It does.

Also, I forgot to say that at the beginning of Sacrament meeting, they thanked the people who came on Saturday to help with assembling the newest printing of hymns into the binders, and Rachel and I did that! It was a nice thing to get Rachel out of the house, and she met a few people that way. Just as she is gearing up to leave, she is meeting more people! That is probably my fault--I am not the best joiner, the best social person. I am among the worst. However, I was glad we could help, and I am glad that people are so interested in Rachel going to Vietnam. One lady who went up to talk to her, whose name I do not know, was married to a Vietnamese man and has many family members, including her own children, who claim Vietnam as home. It is fun to see so many people excited about Rachel's mission!

Edited to add my daughter Kelli's note to me to share with Rachel: Tell the first speaker, I'm the best Auntie, (Krista had claimed that title in her talk--and to her nieces and nephews, she is!) and Rachel did a fabulous job, love the Forrest Gump quote and sometimes confidence comes when you don't have any other options... I'm learning this at my new job.

Breaking News

Yesterday, my coworker Milan, a cataloguer who works on level six, sent this email, which I thought was pretty funny:

Breaking News: Cucumbers Continue to Ignore Production Limits

Dear colleagues,

It's Friday morning, and the garden has once again produced more vegetables than one person can reasonably explain.

Please come up to the 6th-floor breakroom and give these cucumbers, zucchinis, and other assorted produce a good home before the weekend.

For those concerned about the neighbor's goat mentioned before: rest assured, her vegetable supply remains secure. She will not be filing any complaints.

Have a great weekend and thank you for supporting this ongoing vegetable relocation program.

Milan

(FYI: I waited too long to go upstairs. When I finally went, I took a plastic bag all ready to fill...but all the vegetables had already been relocated. I missed out!)

And in other breaking library news, after months of waiting, finally some explanatory posters went up on the walls. I have scheduled an open house so people can come and see the changes on our floor, so I was happy to see that this display had been mounted before the day of! Two different students who work for Eric, who is the designer, designed new posters giving information about the Paul Pollei Piano Collection, and about Lotta Van Buren, who donated many instruments to BYU in the 1940s and 1950s, including that small harpsichord which stands in this corner. 

I do not think the chair goes there? But chairs tend to wander in our library, across the floor, in and out of rooms, even to different floors. 

And that is all the news for today!

The day of David

(I was about to call this post "David Day" meaning a day that was for David -- but then we know a person with the name David Day, so that was weird. So "The Day of David" instead.)

Before leaving to visit David and his family, Josie and Rachel needed to say goodbye to their hosts for Sunday night, Lavon and Dennis.

Lavon sent me this picture of the two of our girls with two of her granddaughters, Miley and Sadie Adams, daughters of her daughter Heather, who has been a close friend/cousin to Nancy during their growing-up years. Miley is wearing the hat, beside Josie, and Sadie is beside Rachel.

While they were enroute to Airdrie, to visit David, their “check engine” light came on. That is no fun!!

The first picture I received from Josie was this cute picture of Rachel holding her little baby cousin Chloe! Aren’t they so cute!?

Then I had to wait for more photos!! It is hard living vicariously through others—so much waiting! But it was worth the wait. David sent lots of photos.

Josie has a turn holding Chloe:

     

Millie got in on the action:

 They went out for lunch somewhere. Millie was the photographer for this photo of David sandwiched between Rachel and Josie. I am impressed with Millie's mad skills clicking the button on the phone! Pretty great for a girl who is almost five!

These ice cream enjoying photos of Ethan are adorable!! Well, he is adorable, and these are good photos of his adorableness!

Then David led the girls to a Canadian Tire, so they could check out the reason for the “check engine” light to come on. I was a bit annoyed because Josie messaged me that some Andrew said to take it there, where the diagnosis was going to cost $287! Which I knew would happen because my check engine light in the KIA used to come on all the time—if I went over a bump, if I got gas and the gas cap was a tiny bit not tight enough—and I knew not to go to Canadian tire. I told Josie “If the check engine light is flashing, then it is a problem. If it is a steady light, it isn’t.” (Because Google told me that.) And she responded, “It’s not flashing, but Andrew is her dad so we are doing what he said.” OHHHH!!! THAT Andrew!! Oh, silly me.

However, they at least knew what was wrong—“We learned that the car is running cool. Like something is not right so it’s running more coolant. So it will need something replaced but we are fine. And also both brake lights were out.”  That is good to know—they could get a ticket for not having working brake lights. So it was good to get that fixed.

And as for David, he took his children back home, where they immediately set up the Hot Wheels track that was David’s when he was small! Which I fortunately FOUND so it could get taken on the trip!

They hooked it up to a newer Hot Wheels set:

I am so glad they all got to be together! If only for awhile, getting together is so good. 

Three Provinces

 When Josie and Rachel started planning their (extended) Labour Day weekend trip to Alberta, they looked at maps, of course, and noticed that Grassy Lake is pretty close to Saskatchewan, and that Banff, a place Rachel particularly wanted to go, was very close to British Columbia, so they decided to make it their goal to at least set foot in all three of the western provinces. And they achieved their goal!

I already talked about their Friday on the farm, but I did not say that Josie got to drive the combine! Rachel did not--they each rode along with different farm drivers, and Byron let Josie drive, while Craig did not suggest such a thing to Rachel. (While Rachel is probably a more experienced driver than Josie is--driving to Athens from Peach Tree Corners in freeway traffic a couple of times a week for several years--Josie did spend part of a summer working on the farm, and they would throw her the keys to the truck and tell her to run and do this or that, and so Byron had that experience with Josie, while this was Rachel's first time on the farm since she was 11 years old.)

Saturday, they drove to Medicine Hat, and then on to Saskatchewan--since I was stalking them on "Find my" I think they got close to Maple Creek, so they went a few miles into Saskatchewan, but it is mostly just prairie, scenery wise there, and then they turned around and went back to Elkwater Lake which is in Alberta, but in a BC/Sask shared provincial park, Cyprus Hills Interprovincial Park.  It is beautiful there--a green oasis that arises out of the prairie with trees in abundance. 

One year we drove there, Bruce and I with Patrick, Josie and Rosie, and we entered Saskatchewan through the park road, which was pretty terrible, and in fact it is recommended by the park that you not drive that way, so I passed that recommendation on to Josie and Rachel. I know we took "Welcome to Saskatchewan" pictures then, but can I find them? A-ha! July of 2017! They are in that post. Our welcome sign was old and wooden on that off-road trail we drove through.

For Josie and Rachel, it was the official Trans Canada Highway welcome to Saskatchewan sign:

Josie sent me this picture, and I asked "was the sky alive?" so she sent me some sky pictures.

Beautiful!! Here are some more pictures, to prove the point that Rachel was also there:

Notice all those stickers on the sign top right above Rachel's head? Why would people do that? Like, is it YOUR sign to put stickers on? No, it is not. (Remember this picture for later!)

And Josie sent me one photo from Elkwater, the lake in Cyprus Hills Interprovincial Park.

So, that was their Saturday visiting Saskatchewan day, for us all to live vicariously by looking at the photos.

Sunday morning, they grabbed a photo opportunity with their kind hosts and cousins, the Eric and Jocelyn Torrie Family. They had set a timer, so everybody was not totally ready, but hey, they are all there, present and accounted for.

I thought they got a bit of a late start on Sunday morning, since they wanted to get to Banff! But it was not my trip, so I have no say in the matter!

Josie sent the family High River pictures, so clearly they spent a bit of time there. First, the Happy Face Barn!

The lakes, but I don't know if this picture is of Emerson or Sunshine:

And the house of our children's growing up years in High River, 908 16th Street. It was a good house. Probably my second favorite, because the house we live in now is my favorite. 

Looks like it was a bit rainy--Josie said it was more a mist than a rain.

And then they were on their way to Banff. And Josie drove all the way from Grassy Lake to Lake Louise. (So I said, from Colleen Louise (since she is usually in Grassy Lake, though not this year since she is in Cebu) to Lake Louise, courtesy of Josie Louise!)

And here they are at Lake Louise!

Isn't this a lovely picture of Josie and Rachel enjoying their mountain surroundings?

So, remember the stickers on the top corner of the "Welcome to Saskatchewan" sign? Well...the "Welcome to British Columbia" sign takes stickering to a whole new level.

It is so sticker-covered, you can't even read the sign!! Rachel is NOT impressed...

But sometimes you just have to laugh at the absurdity of things!

And goal reached! Made it to the third of three provinces--and they just had to drive back to Okotoks a few hours away, where they were spending the night with Lavon, our cousin.