Saturday with Cousins and Friends

Thanks to cousin Mark for getting married and getting all of the family/cousins together since we all seemed to avoid each other this past summer. We're not sure what Aunt Lynette was drinking in her blue cup; Nate was the only guy in the spa with at least 7 women; Sadie was 'au naturel' for lunch; Kylie and Lexi came to play and had fun in the truck; Toby was showing off his flexibility; Heather loves pool hopping (literally jumping); Rachel showed off her diving moves in shallow water; Toby preferred electric toys to swimming; David and Ruby showed off their similar physiques (zoom in on that pic); Toby showed off how to eat everything BUT the pizza crust; Heather has some crazy 'Rock Star' hair and color after Kylie's bday party; and Ruby reprised her role of 'flying Ruby' again! Oh, and the 'mature teenage cousins' looked cool whenever they could - too bad I didn't take pics of them doing the hula hoop on wii fit!

Sad sister of the groom

Lisa is sad that she wasn't the first one married among her siblings. We think she is still happy for her brother, Mark - congrats!

Your Urgent Reply Requested

Your Urgent Help Needed

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This transactin is 100% safe.

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Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund accountnumbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission forthis transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond withdetailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect thefunds.

Yours Faithfully

Minister of Treasury Paulson

Heather's FIRST Campout

Heather was thrilled to hear there is a Father-Daughter Campout tradition in our new ward. She insisted we sleep in a tent (not the back of the truck) and had to listen to her music during the trip. Having a girl on a campout was much different - there was spontaneous singing, sportsmanship and friendly kickball games, fire nurturing vs spreading, and nothing being thrown at each other (except for the well thought out and executed water balloon toss and games with their fathers). About the only thing that stayed the same was fascination with my bright green laser and lots of giggling over the remote control fart machine! Heather can't wait for next year!

Bigger than Shaq and they eat less, too!

The dinosaurs at 'Walking with Dinosaurs' are basically really big rc toys (my favorite kind of toy and TJ's favorite 'animals'). We had fun watching them roam around the Suns arena, but we didn't learn much new stuff from the narrating paleontologist (can you see how small he is compared to the T-Rex?) since TJ already reads everything he can find on dinosaurs.

Susan and the DHL and UPS men in her life

I've been able to do some more telecommuting (in the mornings, anyway - I'm not saving any gas yet) with the new, bigger, quieter den at our new home. The main distraction I'm having are the deliveries that arrive EVERY morning - FREE books for Susan to read that come from publicists and authors in return for her reading and writing a review on her website: Bloggin' 'Bout Books

She is booked out for like a month and she has a pretty good rotation of good books, author interviews (usually by email), and lots of loyal readers and commenters (way more than I have). I'm thinking maybe I should send her a package in the mail so that she'll be able to put me on her schedule ;) Good thing for me, I think the UPS guy is actually a woman!

Another Daddy/TJ Date

Susan is starting to get jealous of all the time TJ and I are spending together, but he was WAY more interested in the 'Walking with Dinosaurs' show. Soon TJ will be our designated babysitter so Susan and I can date again!

FHE Sugar Cookies

Obviously JUST what the kids needed - sugar! Tonight they got a lesson about family resources, sang some songs, and experienced not one, but TWO of Toby's "story prayers" where he talks to Heavenly Father about his day (and his messy room). Then they got to go swimming where we found out that Heather is super ticklish and can't wait for Whitney to come hang out with her in the swing. We all enjoyed using the Disney Princess napkins for our treat - sugar cookies!

Some thoughts and events

So, alot has happened recently . . . and there is more to come. I just felt like I should get some of it down so that we'll remember this fun time in life:
1. The move has gone well - we're almost done, I just keep waiting for it to cool off before going back to the old house to get the hammock, water barrels, and random garage stuff . . . if anybody wants the Weider 4900 exercise system in the garage it is yours if you'll come and take it apart (I got lots of exercise putting it together)!
2. I took all 3 kids to "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" on a weeknight while Susan was somewhere. It was fun, except for the part where Toby ate the whole $4 (small) bag of peanut butter M&M's
3. TJ and I went to the Cardinals-Broncos preseason football game. Traffic was horrendous, everybody was drinking, and the seats were too good because the cheerleaders were RIGHT in front of us and they were distracting . . . but we had a good time at our first NFL game. Don't know if we ever need to go back, though - oh, and the Cardinals lost.
4. Monsoon season is awesome at our new house - I love watching the lightning storms across the valley and FEELING the thunder!
5. TJ and I went to a Diamondbacks-Cardinals game. The Dbacks got toasted (what else is new lately) but we had a blast with Grandpa, too! TJ got his ceremonial rice krispie treat and I got the best deal at the ballpark - Panda Express!
6. We've been swimming, too - TJ even jumped in this evening to help clean out the pool and Heather let him know that he broke the Sabbath!
7. Susan and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary by watching fireworks at Central Christian Church. That was nice of them to celebrate US! We rented, but haven't watched the movie "The Queen" yet - it's about Princess Diana who died while we were having our wedding reception :)
8. The kids have a new favorite place - the LIBRARY! They actually beg on Saturdays for Susan to take them and both TJ and Heather are self proclaimed bookworms.
9. Toby is anxiously awaiting and constantly asking for bike rides and going on the boat - so I need to get the garage cleaned up and organized after everything was just thrown in as we were moving.
10. We're now working on the adoption profile - we're state certified and the new pool is getting a fence installed tomorrow - so we're ready for another member of our family!

Random pictures from camcorder memory stick