Long Time, No Post

 Our camera died a while ago, so the blog has been quiet. A new camera should be here soon, but in the meantime, here are some pics that were on my dad's camera. The above picture is Rebecca and her friends Tebowing after their Christmas Carol show.

 Eva fell and cut her lip during our hike in to Vagabond Ranch after Christmas. She was a trooper, though, and had a good time with Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

 Here we are, hiking to the Ranch.

 I think this is Adam, or else maybe there was an ambush I was oblivious to.

Pretty, pretty.

Go Green Alligator Pandas!

 Eva doesn't really identify with the name that was democratically voted for by her intramural volleyball team: The Green Pandas. She wanted to be the Alligators, which happens to be the team name of her t-ball team a couple of years ago. So, to make things right, I call them The Green Alligator Pandas.

 Today they played the Turquoise team. I don't know what they voted on, but I'm going to call them The Terrific Turquoise Tarantulas. The Terrific Turquoise Tarantulas won the first game. The Green Alligator Pandas won the second game, and Eva contributed to their winning score with several awesome digs that made her mother very proud. Then, the Terrific Turquoise Tarantulas won the tie-breaking third game. Darn. But kuddos to the Tarantulas.

 This picture looks weird, but I just had to include it because it's a picture of one of Eva's awesome point-scoring digs.

And in this picture it looks like her arm belongs to Elastigirl, which is totally awesome. Elastigirl could be very valuable on an intramural volleyball team.

Halloween!

 Eva helped me make these cute, yummy little hot dog mummies. You just wrap refrigerated roll dough around the hot dogs and bake them for 15 minutes. It looks like Eva was really getting in to the Halloween spirit while she made her hot dog mummies. Frightening.

 We had excellent weather for Halloween this year, the best Halloween weather I remember since I lived in Texas many, many moons ago. Halloween got caught between two snowfalls, just at the peak of warm spell between. It was almost 70 degrees during the daytime, and Eva didn't even wear a jacket while we were trick-or-treating. Of course, I carried it around and kept asking, "Are you cold enough for your jacket yet?" because I just can't imagine why a person would refuse a jacket after the sun has gone down.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 had a good time on Halloween. I don't think they caused near as much destruction as the real Thing 1 and Thing 2. Rebecca's wig recovered really well from Rocco's attack on it. He must have thought it was a bird because he tore that thing up and left little blue feathers flying all over the basement.

Unlike years past, these two put off costume design until about 5 minutes before we left for trick-or-treating. We're not exactly sure what they were supposed to be, but it doesn't seem to have mattered.

These two, on the other hand, have been planning their cowgirl Halloween costumes since springtime. Giddyup!

First Snow

Our first snowfall of the year really packed a punch last week. We lost a couple dozen tree branches and had to call the power company to have them detangle some from our power lines. The city has set up a tree branch drop-off site, and we're hoping to get our branches over there this weekend because they're taking up a lot of yard space. It was an exciting way to start the snow season, but I hope our trees don't suffer too much more trauma this winter.

Denver Rescue Mission

 Spencer has been working on the Citizenship in the Community merit badge, and he had to volunteer 8 hours for a local charity. He dragged the bike trailer around the neighborhood and asked people for donations to the Denver Rescue Mission, which helps homeless people downtown.

 Our living room filled up with donations all week. People in our neighborhood were so generous. One man went straight to his closet and just took things off the rack to donate to the Rescue Mission. One sweet old lady couldn't hear what Spencer said, which is saying something because Spencer has a loud voice, but she gave him a dollar because she could tell he was asking for something.

On Saturday, I took Spencer and his good pal downtown, and they unloaded all their donations. It's going to snow this week, and they felt good that they rounded up some coats to keep people warm. Go Scouts!

October

Our lives have become a whirlwind of driving, piano lessons, driving, swim practice, driving, ballet rehearsal, driving, scouts, Activity Days, young women, firesides, driving, and driving.

Eva started playing the clarinet, and she's really taken to it. This picture was from one of her first days of practice. Since then, she's learned to keep her cheeks from puffing out like that, which is too bad because I thought the cheek-puffing was really cute.

Spencer's swim team had a big meet at this awesome pool in Thornton. He's one speedy fish.

But in the midst of all this activity, it appears that the kids still have time to goof around. Thank goodness.

Jug Dance from La Bayadere

Scarf Dance from La Bayadere