The Cruise

Jerry & JoAnn celebrated 46 years of marriage this November by taking all their kids and their spouses on a cruise. Sadly one couple could not make it. But we had fun anyway.

We played mini golf on the top of the ship

We hung out in each others cabins

The boys had a fantastic routine in the synchronized swimming contest.

And of course they won!! The host said in all the times he had done this contest , this was the first time the boys had ever beaten the girls. This was one of the highlights of the cruise.

We enjoyed our evening meals in the dining room with everyones company.

We did a jeep drive and cave tour with Mom & Dad. We also went snorkeling and saw a sunken ship.

The beach was beautiful

We got to see Brittany Spears (Carrie) sing.

We participated in as many games and activities as we could bean bag toss, break-dancing, karaoke, game shows, etc. everyone had such a fun time and laughed so hard. Thanks to Mom & Dad for such a great time. We will just have to do this again.

Halloween

Zack from Legend of Zelda, a cartoon character. Dan worked very hard on this costume, when he got to school some of the kids made fun at it so when he came home from school he was very downtrodden. It was sad because it was such an awesome costume, I mean look at that sword!

"There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!"

Sarah's school had a theme of Heros, so she choose Underdog.

Isabelle was a pirate with a ghost eye patch that she made. Of course that evening she was a Vampire because she got plastic vampire teeth at school.

One little Indian girl

2 little indian girls

Hannah has been fascinated with indians, she got this bow and arrows so she had to have a costume to match. Both girls have had fun playing in their costumes.

October Birthdays and a first

Shem turned 17 this month, I am still shocked that he is that old!

Daniel turned 14

Sarah is 12 (sniff, sniff) what happened to my little girl?

And finally here is Isabelle with her first long awaited & worked at tooth. She was so proud.

Aleena's Baptism

October 4th, Aleena was baptized. It took her a little longer to be ready than the others kids did. She didn't like the idea of people looking at her and being the center of attention. Instead of interviewing her at the church, the Bishop was very considerate of her and invited us over for dinner so that she would feel a little more comfortable, and he interviewed her at his house.We only invited a few people so that it wouldn't be so scary for her. but word got out and there was more people there than we thought would be. When Aleena saw all the people you could see her countenance fall and visually see her anxiety. Even though it was hard she handled it very well and is a better person for it.

We are so proud of her and the decision that she made to follow the Savior.

Broken Arm

The kids were outside playing and I was inside talking to my mom when I heard this call "Mom?" from Hannah. Being on the phone I halfheartedly said "what" and then went back to my conversation. I then heard a "MOM!" from Shem and immediately knew something was wrong. "I think Sarah broke her arm." I ran down stairs and noticed it was quite obviously broken. I did panic a little but Shem helped me keep a cool head. The 3 of us hopped in the car and ran over to the Church to get Shaun, where he was having meetings.

We then ran over to the Emergency room where we sat and waited and waited and waited... They finally got us in and x-rayed it, put on a temporary cast, and told us to call the Orthopedic doctor in the morning. Here is Sarah looking so sad and distraught.
Well the Doctor said she needed to have surgery to put a pin in the bone because a cast would not keep the bone in place. Poor Sarah was so worked up over this surgery, but she was a good patient and did very well. The Surgery took place in August and as an update she will have to go into surgery again in a few days to have the pin removed. Needless to say she is not looking forward to it. We now keep telling her to drink more milk, especially since she is the only one in the family that doesn't like it.
Oh, by the way she broke her arm barrel rolling. You don't hear that to often do you.

Catch up

This summer we went camping and canoeing with our friends the B.'s. We took the kids on a hike, played in the water and set up camp before our husbands got there in the evening. That night we had some raccoons pay our campsite a visit, they were trying to find food to eat. We canoed down the Buffalo river, it took us all day. The kids were troopers and didn't complain at all and were very good paddlers. We had a fun time.

This is Isabelle's picture of her first day of school.