Halloween Fun!

Halloween is over and the kids really had fun. This was the first year that everything made sense to Jenna. I am going to be curious if she still thinks that she gets candy for saying "trick or treat" at people's doorsteps. She's so cute, she would probably succeed at still getting candy from them.

Here is our handsome Jedi Knight and beautiful Cinderella. This picture was taken before our church trunk-or-treat party last Saturday night. (Caution: This is a bragging moment -- By the way, I am pretty proud of myself because I made Little Robby's tunic and robe. I told him to count that as extra special mom treatment because he will probably never again have a costume sewn by me for Halloween. Of course, since we are moving this year, don't be surprised if he is wearing the same costume next year. Nobody but our family will know.)

Here is our princess with her prince. (Okay, maybe he's the king because I am the queen.)

At the trunk-or-treat Robby was surprised to find his arch-nemesis, Darth Vader. These two enjoyed several light saber duels throughout the evening.

Fortunately, we were able to get them to stand still for a little bit to pose for a picture together.

And this is the part Jenna liked the best... the candy!

Actually, Robby sold us his candy for $2 a pound after he got home. He earned $5 total. I think he figured that Jenna would need help eating her candy so he could stand to sell some of his own and get the best of both worlds. And no, we are not trying to get the candy for ourselves, we got the idea from a local orthodontist who will buy candy from the kids. Now what are we going to do with all of it? Dad is going to take it to his office to share with his colleagues 'cause I sure don't need to be eating 2 1/2 pounds of candy by myself!

Wind Cave Trail Hike

Guest blogger Robby here. In preparation for our Grand Canyon hike, we took family practice hike #2 yesterday, with special guest stars Andra and Audrey. This time we actually managed to bring our camera.

Here are a few of the highlights, from the cave (more like a large alcove) at the top:

Jenna enjoys some rock climbing. (It's not as steep as it looks--the camera was tilted.)

Our good-looking boy, still looking a little flushed from the hike up.

As you can see Roo wasn't the only red-faced one in the group.

Jenna's looking fresh because she got to ride up the whole way. We had three loads of about 25 lbs.--Jenna, Audrey, and a backpack full of 72-hour-kit goodies--that the three adults passed back and forth up and down the mountain. (Jenna did walk part of the way down.) Roo carried about 12 lbs. of water in an ill-fitting school backpack, although his load lightened quickly as we consumed its contents.

Overall, we gained 800 feet over the 1.6 miles to the top, close to the grade of the Grand Canyon trails we'll take. We were pretty wiped out by the time we returned to our starting point.

Here are some bonus Jenna pix, as she models several of her favorite moods:

And, finally, our sign of the week, perhaps helpful for the pilot who left the map at home:

We're tied now, Summer!!! (Date #2)

First of all, we want to thank Summer for the motivation to actually go on dates. Secondly, we want to tell Summer that we have already been discussing what we want for the dinner she is going to buy when we win this contest. (Just kidding! We figure you still have the advantage, Summer. Anybody want to take guesses as to who's going to win and by what margin?)

For date numero dos we went to the temple together (sorry, no kissy pictures this time). Robby loves it when I get complete strangers to take our date pics, especially when I try to explain why we need a picture. You know, we're having a date contest with his sister and we need a picture to post on our blog as proof that we actually went on a date. It always comes out weird and the people always respond in a way that makes it clear that they think we just landed from another planet. Robby finds this extremely embarrassing, so today he said, "Just ask for the picture, DON'T tell her why we need it, okay?!"

So this is our picture of evidence, not the greatest (way too much shadow), but it was the best we could do at the moment. (Take my word for it, that's me in the darkness).

Jenna sings for us

We wanted to add to the primary song fun that Molly started and share a clip of Jenna singing one of her favorite primary songs, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."

Future Grand Canyon Hikers!

So have you future Grand Canyon hikers been getting prepared for the expedition?

Yesterday, Robby, Little Robby, Jenna, and I went on a 4 mile practice hike on a mountain about 45 minutes from here. I have to say I don't feel as sore as I thought I might. I'm still trying to decide whether I will be joining everyone on the hike. It's less than a month till the trip, so I hope you are all preparing yourselves physically! We look forward to seeing many of you soon!

This one's for you, Summer... (Date #1)

We won't be left in the dust quite so easily! We actually went on a date!!! The first one in a long time. I can't even tell you how long because I don't remember. (We have a dating contest with Robby's sister Summer. To see the rules click here and read Summer's Date #1 post.)

Anyhow, a friend of ours agreed to babysit because we watched her kids a week ago Saturday. When we turned into her neighborhood we thought we heard a bad sound, like something stuck to a tire, or a hissing noise coming from one of the tires. We parked at her house and looked at the tires and thought one of them looked a little flat. So...

We spent our date at Discount Tire! How romantic.

Not really, luckily for us the guy just said the pressure was low, but not too low. Thank goodness! Otherwise it would have been a really disappointing date at the tire store. Instead we went to a place called Amazing Jake's (kind of like Chuckie Cheese's but with the addition of go karts, bumper cars, putt putt, bowling, rock climb and a few small rides.)


We had fun playing air hockey (I won both times! :) Robby beat me in putt putt. We had a great time racing around the go kart track and enjoyed bumping each other in the bumper cars. Robby also showed how to climb to the top of the rock climb (It was much harder than I imagined!) Best of all we got some great time talking, enjoying each other, and discussing what we should do for our 10th Anniversary this December. Can you believe it?! (If you have any suggestions let us know.)

On our way out we even took a moment to take some silly pics in a photo booth.

Let's do the Shamu Splash!

On our second day in San Diego we decided to try out Sea World.

When we arrived it was raining a little, and we sadly realized that we only had one umbrella for six people. I forgot to pack the another umbrella, so we all huddled together as we waited to go through the admission line to get in the park. Fortunately, the rain was not drenching, just steady and a little heavier than a drizzle.

My parents decided that they would rather not get wet in the rain so we went to the gift shop in search of another umbrella. They had sold out by the time we got there, so we ended up getting ponchos instead. We found out later that we were glad to have them because...

Chap wanted to sit in the "Soak Zone" during the Shamu Show. Okay, Robby has not stopped giving me grief because I told him that although we were sitting in the "Soak Zone" I figured that sitting 10 rows back it wouldn't be so bad, right?! I figured we would be splashed, but not "soaked."

Well, as you can guess, I was wrong! Laugh all you want... Poor Jenna wasn't laughing. She was a little disturbed by Shamu splashing her. About the worst part was that I tried to cover Jenna with one side of my poncho to protect her and managed to accidentally expose my lap in my haste, so my legs got soaked. Yes, soaked!

Fortunately, the whole show is not about Shamu splashing the audience so Jenna still came out with a smile in the end.

Here is my one picture of Shamu jumping out of the water to splash the audience.

Actually, what got us soaked was not Shamu doing a belly flop, but what you see at the end of this video. (I found this on YouTube, and it is exactly what we saw!)

Aren't we cute in our Sea World ponchos.

Eventually the sun did come out and we were able to put away our ponchos. Here we are taking a ride on the Sky Tower overlooking the park. Jenna was so happy to be able to go on a ride with everyone.

Boy would she have been excited if their new Sesame Street exhibit had been open. As you can tell she was happy just looking at the Elmo picture.

It was fun seeing a few creatures I have never seen in real life like this beluga whale...

and this walrus. Boy was he huge!

Okay, so you might guess from the fact that we are wearing long sleeves and light jackets that the outdoor tempurature that day was not extremely warm. (Robby was only in short sleeves because he doesn't like his jacket. Not to mention the fact that jackets aren't something you worry about too much in the Arizona desert.) And when it is chilly is definitely not a time that you really want to be getting wet, but Little Robby just had to ride Sea World's one roller coaster, Journey to Atlantis (seen here). Luckily those ponchos came in handy again!

After the roller coaster was done our Sea World Adventure was over. We saw four shows (Shamu, dolphins, sea lions, and pets), saw sharks in a tunnel through their tank, viewed penguins, and several other interesting creatures. All in all, it was very fun!

Thanks Mom and Dad for helping us make this trip possible! We really enjoyed going with you!

Legoland take two!

We just got back yesterday from a fun vacation to San Diego. One of Little Robby's favorite places to go is Legoland, and we just had to go back before we move from Arizona. This time we had fun going with my parents. My dad wanted to go back to San Diego because he served there while in the Navy a long time ago (I won't tell you how many decades it's been since then! ;)

This was our second ride of the day... the traditional "Teacup Ride." I wish I had pictures from the first ride that the boys took, because it was interactive, and I got to splash them with "water bombs" by pressing a button provided to spectators. It was great fun trying to time my sprays to get them wet!

One of the highlights of the day was for Robby to get a chance to play with the Lego Mindstorms. The last time we went to Legoland we didn't know that you had to sign up to play with them so we missed our opportunity because all the sessions had ended by the time we got there. This time we made sure not to miss out!

Lego Mindstorms are programmable Lego robots. You create programs on a computer to tell the robot what to do then you download it to the onboard computer and run your program. Very cool, I must say! As other participants left our session, the instructor even let me play with one for a while. It was great!

Here you can take a look at Mindstorms in action. (Little Robby wants me to tell you that in the last segment of the clip -- the segment where I get a chance to play around -- you can see him in the background working on his own made up mission.)

During the first half of the day, poor Jenna was feeling very left out watching Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, Mom, and Chap go on the rides when she didn't get to. She would watch from the side very forlornly and plead, "My turn?! Jenna's turn! Ride!" Eventually Robby had pity on her and took her over to where there were rides that she was big enough for. She was so happy! The picture above was of her in the helicopter ride sitting next to Daddy with the camera.

Here she is checking out Lego Miniland USA (an area of impressive Lego made buildings).

Little Robby and Grandma and Grandpa stand in front of Legoland New York City. It was fun seeing the Lego version of buildings we had seen last summer on our trip to see Aunt Donnette (August 2006).

And to end a good day at Legoland we had to have pictures with everyone. First the kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Then the four of us.

And lastly all six of us.

And finally our little Lego maniac in front of his favorite place -- Legoland California! Maybe some day we will have to go to Legoland UK or Denmark or Germany!

One last bonus pic... Jenna discovered that standing in the bathroom drawer in the hotel was lots of fun! What a silly girl!

Another chipped tooth!

Okay, so back at the end of August Little Robby chipped a tooth when he fell off of his bike. I guess Jenna looks up to him so much she just had to do the same thing last week! I couldn't believe it!

Jenna loves to dance, so on Monday of last week she turned on one of her favorite CDs (yes, she can operate the CD player, and smudge the CDs so parts of them skip now) and was dancing and boucing around the family room. I was sitting on the couch as she danced her way onto the tile walkway when all of a sudden she slipped and fell. Her face smacked the tile really hard, and I rushed over to see if she had a busted lip or anything. When I turned her over in my arms I was surprised to see that she chipped a tooth!

Later that day we went to the dentist and he said that she was lucky that she didn't crack the tooth, but he did think that she broke the bone above the tooth. He suspects that the tooth will turn dark, which disappointed me. I hope that it heals and doesn't change color. I know it can, because when Little Robby was 4 he knocked a baby tooth back (another "fun experience") and it healed okay. Well for the meantime Jenna will have that chip because I am sure she is too young to sit still for the dentist to fill it or file it.

Ahhh, the adventures of childhood. If only I could get through the childhood years of my kids without any of them breaking major bones like my in-laws then I would be doing good. (They have eight children, and have had no major broken bones, of course Logan isn't grown yet). I can hope, can't I?

Little Robby's Blogging Again

I just wanted to tell you to check out Little Robby's blog ... he's back!

http://blogger-roo.blogspot.com/