Happy Halloween!

The festivities began for Elena, Camille, and Carson on Thursday. Elena's preschool had a fieldtrip to a local pumpkin patch. Unfortunately the weather was freeeeeezing, but we still enjoyed the hay ride out to pick a pumkin, a "train" ride around the corn maze, and some play time on the slides.

Friday night we were suppose to take a doctor the hospital is recruiting to a Utah Jazz game, but he canceled and we got to invite Laurissa and Blake (Derek's sister and her husband) instead. The seats the hospital has for the season are really close to the court and we enjoyed watching a great game. We even enjoyed watching some really dedicated fans that sat nearby. One guy in paticular brought a ginourmous Jazz flag, mega-mega-megaphone, and a rubber chicken to use both for cheering on the Jazz and for trying to distract the Clippers when they took their foul shots. It was fun, thanks for coming guys!

Prior to the trunk and trick or treating we took the kids to see some sights in Salt Lake City. Instead of taking the van we made it especially fun by taking the light rail--a commuter train that runs from various northern cities to SLC. The kids liked the train ride (Carson loved it) and seeing some Mormon Church Sites like the Conference Center and the beautiful Salt Lake City Temple.

According to some, the most exciting part of our Halloween Weekend involved Carson, Elena, and Camille dressing up as a spotted frog, a black cat balerina, and a fairy-butterfly-balerina respectively.

Lastly we were protected by a blue ninga from all the "tricks" lurking about on Halloween night(thanks Garrett!).

hiking

Yesterday we took the kids to Adams Canyon (about 12 minutes from our home) to do a little hiking. We were looking for a waterfall, but took a wrong turn. It turned out mostly fine though . .. the kids loved hiking on the mountain and we were warned by several hikers returning from the falls that the falls trail was pretty steep and not very good for little kids. The only bad part to the day was that I slipped with the camera on my wrist and it smacked into a rock and killed the viewing screen. Soooo enjoy these pics because I don't know when we will replace the camera!

You may see this in a future Christmas Card??!!

(note the ever present binoculars with Carson)

Carson insisted on holding on to the binoculars the whole time. We could not convince him to turn them around to look through . . . funny kid

So we're here

Boxes and boxes and boxes . . .but we are getting settled and look forward to our new adventure

Garrett and his new teacher, Mrs. Bowen

Elena and Carson at Bluff Ridge Elementary for Garrett and Camille's first day at their new school

Elena trying out the kindergarten park
Camille approves of her new park and school

Here are some pictures of our new place . . .

nice big master closet

hall to garage entry, 1/2 bath, laundry room and master bedroom

kids bath

kitchen

Front door and entry

The drive goes on and on and on

These pictures are to fool you into thinking our kids actually slept in the car on our long drive.

They did not.

Okay, they slept for maybe 2 hours total (and that's a generous estimation) of the 19+ hours.

Camille, bless her heart, never did succumb to slumber.

This is what we really did.

Talk on the phone. Watch movies. Eat. Complain. Cry a little. Eat some more. Continue watching movies. Eat something else. How much longer? Can we play in the snow when we get there? Can we swim when we get there? Is there anything to eat? Let's watch a movie.

Before the looong drive . . .

So sad to see our empty space

We were so well taken care of before we began our long drive West. Thanks to all those who kindly fed us and helped watch our kids that week as we packed and prepared. The night before we left (Thursday 10/08/09), with our things all in boxes, our fabulous neighbors (and Parsons grandparents) housed us in their five star home. We had a great dinner with the Al & Norma Jean Hendricks and Kay Lawrence and then the three youngest enjoyed a luxurious bubble bath that lasted far longer than their Mom would ever have agreed too . . . aren't grandmas great!