Halloween

We had fun this Halloween. Wesley made his own costume this year. As you can see, he was Duct Tape Man....

Tyler went as a movie theater floor.

I didn't get a picture of Heather :( in her real costume, this is her wearing the hair from my costume. She was a penguin in a tux and big red bow tie.

Here I am, boy do I hate looking at pictures of myself. I was a vampire. Marty and I went all out in dressing up for Rachel and Joe's great Halloween party.

Marty was Mcgyver. Don't you love the hair.
Tyler had to try out the Mcgyver hair too and Joe's mustache.

Rachel was a gypsy

Joe was a Nace car fan.

Rachel and Joe's friends, our favorite vampires of the night.

Curtis Mission Pictures

Curtis recently sent us his picture card. We didn't receive any commentary along with it. So, I don't really know a lot about the pictures, but they are fun to look at.

The missionary just below Curtis was his companion in the MTC.

There was a baptism right after Curtis arrived in Germany. It was in (I believe) The Rhine.

Here is Curtis with his companion, Elder Kowalis.

I believe that this is the area that Curtis and his companion spent a lot of time talking to people. It is a tourist area.

Marching Band

Mountain View Marching Band Sweeps Division

Tyler's band won all awards for their division, best music, best percussion, best color guard, best general effect, best marching, and 1st overall. They also won 3rd place in the sweepstakes which included all the bands in the competition. Mountian View is in the 5A small division meaning large school, small band. The first two places went to 5A large.

This is a picture of the whole band with the color guard. This picture was taken in Oregon while they were on their competition trip. Marty chaparoned and had a great time.

The show was titled Equinox. It represented musically and visually the fall equinox. Here you can see the fall colored silk backdrops they used.

The music was from the beautiful scores of "A Beautiful Mind" and "Signs".

Near the end of the show, the season changes and so do the colors. The band formation is a snowflake and the backdrop colors change to wintery colors.

Jason, Tyler, and Alan (Jason and Alan are twins). Check out the eyebrows.

Wesley's Birthday

Wesley had an awesome birthday party. Marty made a great obstacle course that was a real hit.

Here it begins...

Then they had to climb over the swing set and slide down on the other side.



Under the net...

Rope swing...

Tether ball

And end with walking on the barrel.

Wesley, like the rest of my family, prefers cake with no frosting. He had an angel food cake with a berry topping and whipped cream. Yumm!! Then for the family party later in the evening, he requested zucchini bread.

Parker


Sam (cousin)

Mathew

David

Spencer

Blake

Ethan

Ryan and Bryson Fenn.
Wesley's cousin Nick came too, but sadly we missed getting a picture of him.

My sisters, Amber and Sheila love greeting cards. I think it is their favorite part of the birthday party. Here are their cards for Wesley. Amber's is the Scratch and Sniff and Sheila's is the Pokey Bear one.



Ha Ha Ha!!


If you can't read this, double click on it and it will enlarge it.

For Wesley party, we played a game called "Pin the nose on Wesley". Each kid had a turn to "pick Wesley's nose". Then it was played like the traditional donkey game. The kids really enjoyed it.

Sheila's gift bag fit the theme well.

Labor Day at Anderson Ranch

We had a fun day trip to Anderson Ranch which is about 1.5 hours from Boise.

The reservoir was very low. You can see all the dirt is usually part of the lake. It has been a very dry year here, plus they are using a lot of water to fight all the forest fires in our state.

We found a nice place for a picnic near a beautiful stream.

I made Marty take my picture to prove I was actually there.

Pretty caterpillar!

In the stream, there were little interesting looking fish. Here they are trying to catch one.

Look close in the middle, I caught a picture of the tiny fish. They thought it looked like a rock fish, who knows what it actually was.

They did end up catching one eventually.







Here is Wesley's leaf collection. He loves to find art in nature. He always wants to take it home though. The leaves didn't make it, except in picture form.

There were hot springs in the creek in a few places. I didn't actually get a picture of them, but this is just downstream from them. The water coming in was very hot. So, there were dams built by people to keep the hot water but mix it with the cold water and it was pretty nice. I think it would have been even nicer on a day that was not 100+ degrees!!


This is just down from the hot springs where Marty and Tyler found something fun to do.