Well in my usual all or nothing style, I wanted to post the latest at the Guymon house, and hopefully include more than just my health drama, so here's what we've been up to:
Halloween!
Well pardon the pics, since I still haven't replaced my old camera, and my little Nikon Coolpix runs through batteries like crazy and is having lens problems so I have had dead batteries or a defunct lens. Thank heavens for crappy cell phone cameras, but despite all.... the kids have had a great halloween. We actually managed to get our costumes figured out early in October, so that wasn't much of a stress. Cai was Woverine, although he couldn't wear a mask most places so we gave him hair like Logan's with big chops like he has in the movie. Then we had gotten some Wolverine claws for his birthday that fly out and have sound effects, so he got to use those a little
Cole has wanted to be a ninja for about the last three months so his costume was a piece of cake. He had a tough time keeping his special Ninja weapons backpack in it's package until halloween night, but he finally got to wear them. Somehow I knew four swords and daggers would dissapear or break before Halloween. Cate was very close to being a fairy, but she found the Super Girl costume and was sold. I was just glad to have her chose something that wasn't slathered in pink princesses. So somehow for the third year in a row the kids have managed to keep some kind of theme. Last year they were a fairytale... knight, dragon and princess. I guess this year it was superheroes.
The kids were excited that they could use the pumpkins that they grew in their garden to carve. So I let them have free reign on the design. The colored what they wanted in marker and then I carved it. I took a bit of creative freedom in interpreting Cate's jack 0'lantern face, but kept pretty true to the original. I've decided I need to be a little less picky, and honestly didn't have the time or interest in doing a super complicated carving this year. I was shocked at how gynormous Cole's pumpkin grew. All summer they excitedly watched it grow bigger and bigger! I could barely lift it by myself to get it into the house to carve. At the end of night I had to laugh. The boys were determined to take-off early to get the most candy possible. They went with a big group of boys their age and hit tons of houses in the neighborhood. But still when they arrived home and everyone dumped out their candy, Cate's pile was by far the largest. She left later, came home earlier and still she had almost twice as much. Chris said she was a little charmer. She would go up to the door and announce "trick or treat smell my foot!" and then run back to her daddy exclaiming "they were home!" At one house she said "thanks stinky!" Somehow that non-traditional tactic worked because Chris said nearly ever house gave her several pieces of candy. This just confirms my theory that a little blond curly haired girl can be as big of a stinker as possible and still charm her way into getting whatever she wants!
Viva Las Vegas! U2 concert
Pope family trip to Moab
It was so much fun to get to
spend a weekend with my sisters and parents over General Conference weekend. We wanted to meet somewhere half way in-between Pueblo Colorado, Mesa Ar
izona, and Logan Utah so we came up with Moab. We managed to find a group camp site down there where we could fit a bunch of trailers and a few tents and we managed to find a great place. It was about 17 miles from Moab, but it was so pretty. It was a short hike to some pretty red rock formations, with ATV trails straight out of the campsite. The kids just had
a blast with their cousins. My sister Cami couldn't make it since her whole family caught the swine flu, so we were really sad and missed them terribly, but the whole rest of the family was able to get together. The kids just loved playing with their cousins. We hit a few hiking trails in Arches, but I think the kids had the most fun hiking to the rock formations near camp, and making Halloween masks, pet rocks, and decorating Halloween cupcakes. We even let them put their masks on and trick-or-treat from trailer to trailer. As usuall we ate way too much food, stayed up way too late talking and laughing, but I think we all decided that the camping trip needs to be an annual event. Although It certainly could have been warmer. The first night was FREEZING! The kids and I ended up in my parents trailer, but the next two nights after Chris got there we stayed in the tent, and were at times a little too warm since we were so paranoid about bundling up after the first night! So maybe next time we'll go for a slightly earlier time in the year.
Well pardon the pics, since I still haven't replaced my old camera, and my little Nikon Coolpix runs through batteries like crazy and is having lens problems so I have had dead batteries or a defunct lens. Thank heavens for crappy cell phone cameras, but despite all.... the kids have had a great halloween. We actually managed to get our costumes figured out early in October, so that wasn't much of a stress. Cai was Woverine, although he couldn't wear a mask most places so we gave him hair like Logan's with big chops like he has in the movie. Then we had gotten some Wolverine claws for his birthday that fly out and have sound effects, so he got to use those a little
Cole has wanted to be a ninja for about the last three months so his costume was a piece of cake. He had a tough time keeping his special Ninja weapons backpack in it's package until halloween night, but he finally got to wear them. Somehow I knew four swords and daggers would dissapear or break before Halloween. Cate was very close to being a fairy, but she found the Super Girl costume and was sold. I was just glad to have her chose something that wasn't slathered in pink princesses. So somehow for the third year in a row the kids have managed to keep some kind of theme. Last year they were a fairytale... knight, dragon and princess. I guess this year it was superheroes.
The kids were excited that they could use the pumpkins that they grew in their garden to carve. So I let them have free reign on the design. The colored what they wanted in marker and then I carved it. I took a bit of creative freedom in interpreting Cate's jack 0'lantern face, but kept pretty true to the original. I've decided I need to be a little less picky, and honestly didn't have the time or interest in doing a super complicated carving this year. I was shocked at how gynormous Cole's pumpkin grew. All summer they excitedly watched it grow bigger and bigger! I could barely lift it by myself to get it into the house to carve. At the end of night I had to laugh. The boys were determined to take-off early to get the most candy possible. They went with a big group of boys their age and hit tons of houses in the neighborhood. But still when they arrived home and everyone dumped out their candy, Cate's pile was by far the largest. She left later, came home earlier and still she had almost twice as much. Chris said she was a little charmer. She would go up to the door and announce "trick or treat smell my foot!" and then run back to her daddy exclaiming "they were home!" At one house she said "thanks stinky!" Somehow that non-traditional tactic worked because Chris said nearly ever house gave her several pieces of candy. This just confirms my theory that a little blond curly haired girl can be as big of a stinker as possible and still charm her way into getting whatever she wants!
Viva Las Vegas! U2 concert
Pope family trip to Moab
It was so much fun to get to
spend a weekend with my sisters and parents over General Conference weekend. We wanted to meet somewhere half way in-between Pueblo Colorado, Mesa Ar
izona, and Logan Utah so we came up with Moab. We managed to find a group camp site down there where we could fit a bunch of trailers and a few tents and we managed to find a great place. It was about 17 miles from Moab, but it was so pretty. It was a short hike to some pretty red rock formations, with ATV trails straight out of the campsite. The kids just had
a blast with their cousins. My sister Cami couldn't make it since her whole family caught the swine flu, so we were really sad and missed them terribly, but the whole rest of the family was able to get together. The kids just loved playing with their cousins. We hit a few hiking trails in Arches, but I think the kids had the most fun hiking to the rock formations near camp, and making Halloween masks, pet rocks, and decorating Halloween cupcakes. We even let them put their masks on and trick-or-treat from trailer to trailer. As usuall we ate way too much food, stayed up way too late talking and laughing, but I think we all decided that the camping trip needs to be an annual event. Although It certainly could have been warmer. The first night was FREEZING! The kids and I ended up in my parents trailer, but the next two nights after Chris got there we stayed in the tent, and were at times a little too warm since we were so paranoid about bundling up after the first night! So maybe next time we'll go for a slightly earlier time in the year.
