Costumes

Halloween 2009 was interesting. Maddy is 12. She was interested in: RED lipstick and dressing as a gangster: "Allie" Capone. The fedora was a key component of her costume.

Nick decided at the last second that although he was too old to "dress up," he wasn't too old to want the candy bonanza that comes from one hour of "trunk"-or-treating, so his "serial killer" involved 2 props: plastic knife with blood dripping inside it, and a paper bag.

And that little guy is Bumblebee the transformer. Am I the only mom that would just rather buy them a bag of candy and ignore the whole holiday?

Cub Scouts

Nick just got his Webelos badge and his Arrow of Light. These are the top awards in cub scouting. He's a good boy.

When he turned 9 and became a Bear, they made me the Bear den leader in our Pack. I'm still the Bear leader. Its pretty fun. The boys do some silly stuff, tho'. We have to have "chair puff" time, with a mandatory maximum of 10 "chair puffs." A chair puff is when you semi-stand and sit again quickly to make a "puff" sound with the vinyl pad on the chair. The boys think it sounds like a fart. So they get 10 "puffs" before the pledge and the prayer. Then, any unauthorized puffing earns them NO TREAT. Begging doesn't help. Once one of the boys actually DID get a little gas and there was a debate about whether REAL farts got your treat taken away. We decided that if you say "excuse me" without laughing you can still get your treat (only with the REAL fart, tho', not the puff).

Anyway, here in a bit Nick will say goodbye to cub scouts forever, he'll be an 11-year-old Boy Scout and then the real fun begins.

Bull Rushing

Nick really likes football. He likes to watch. He likes talking about it. And he likes to play. And when he's playing, he likes to tackle. Problem: Nick plays in a flag football league. When you try to tackle (or move behind the line of scrimmage toward the QB--not the "quarterback," the "QB"--who has yet to release the ball), you get busted. A loud whistle with the call "BULL RUSHING."

OH HOW I WISH I had a photo of the look of utter disgust on Nick's face when he hears this.

OH HOW I WISH I had a photo of Mike's indignant (and disgusted) face when HE hears this.

Looks like we are going with the tackle league this year.

Emery County

My sister-in-law's family has an old house up in Emery County, Utah. We went up to camp, hike, and "off road." We had a great time, I think the boys enjoyed the riding the best, but we got to do TONS of fun stuff. Nick liked the dune buggy on all the deserted country roads. Dylan had fun riding/driving, too. Mostly he just wanted to wear his helmet. Once he found a good "light saber" (stick), and Dark Lord Cloak (Mike's sweatshirt), he pretty much forgot about the off-roading.

We took the 4-wheelers so we could go out into the desert and find petroglyphs and pictographs. We found some AMAZING images on the cliffs. Happily, most were inaccessible to graffiti artists and/or hikers (to touch, anyway). They are attributed to the Fremont Indians, who died off/left the area by 1200AD. We got some hiking in finding these.

We stopped along the way to take some pics, Nick is so good-natured and helpful. He's hanging on to Taylor here (Alan's youngest) to keep him from toddling off a cliff.

It was really dusty. All the riders had helmets, goggles, and bandanas over their mouths. Still, they loved it!

Maddy with some more petroglyphs

These were my favorite--pictographs of hands. Don't know why I like them so much. Just seems a really personal thing to leave behind for 8 hundred years--your hand print.

Here is the countryside around Ferron, where we hiked to see the Rochester Panel (below).

This is the Rochester Panel. They think most of it is Fremont, but there are some obvious recent additions. Its right at path level, so some idiots have totally carved it up and defaced it--a huge chunk is missing. My mom would have said "some people are so ignorant."

Summer corn

Dylan's favorite veggies are corn and peas. But only certain kinds. Corn must be on the cob and then removed, buttered, and salted before consumption. Lucky the boy has a nice Grandma and brother to help with the corn shucking. Oh, and not the kind from the store, the kind from the neighborhood produce stand:)

Soccer SUPER Star!

Oh, the days when soccer was not only about the dribble, the kick, and the goal. I cheered the "Lightning," while secretly absorbed and delighted by the total abandon with which Dylan and his fellow players ignored the game in favor of this or that ninja move, the random "air" lightsaber duel, and flower picking, weed pulling and other activities while simulataneously "tending" the goal.

GO LIGHTING!!