Visit from Yuma

My brother Trevor and his wife Mayumi and their two girls came up for a visit. We were able to have dinner with them on Friday night and hang out for a little bit. They came up to see the boys soccer games. Tylor's game was at 8am. Ryan's game was 9am. and Kyle game was to 2pm. They got a little distracted comming to Ty's game, as the price of gas in Yuma is like 20 to 40 cents more than here... But the boys loved having them come to the games and we really appreciated it too. Thanks guys!

All I want for Christmas is...

Kyle's two front teeth!

So a little more than a week ago Kyle lost one of his front teeth. The other one has been insanely loose, but he's refused to really wiggle it, he said it hurts but I think it was because it feels odd not so much hurts. Anyway today after church I convinced him to lay his head on my lap and let me look at his tooth with this piece of dental floss in my hand... what? no I didn't lie to him I only wanted to look at it AND maybe wrap the floss around it and see what happened. Well now he's missing both his front teeth... so he cannot "wiss you a merry Chrissmiss"

Halloween

So last Saturday (the 25th of October) the ward had a trunk-or-treat. Tylor went to a friends birthday party so we only had two little ghouls with us. Here they are eating hot dogs. Side bar -so we save every Halloween costume -no I don't know why either but it makes it nice as we only bought one costume this year, and the boys were different things at the trunk-or-treat then they were on Halloween night when we took them trick-or-treating with friends in the neighborhood.
Here's Thomas the tank engine and Harry Potter...

And here's Anakin Skywalker (yes we're still way into Star Wars), Spiderman and Spiderman, Guess who's who...

Oh and the Spiderman costume Kyle is wearing is the ONE costume we bought this year. He's too big for the one Tylor wore when he was 7!! Ryan's "wearing" it, it's just a hair big on him...
Ryan wanted to be batman again but the costume from last year didn't fit him and we couldn't find another one -at least not on Halloween when he decided that's what he wanted to be...
So a note on weather, for those who don't know, it's W.A.R.M. in AZ pretty much 9 to 10 months out of the year. So we don't even bother to take jackets with us trick-or-treating. In fact James was in shorts and we were both warring flip-flops...
So because of our "balmy" weather real pumpkins don't really last outside, they sort of go bad overnight. Here are the boys (including their dad) carving our pumpkins on Halloween afternoon.

Primary Program

On Sunday, the boys had their primary program. I have to say they all did a great job. All three boys had their parts memorized. Yea!! This was Tylor's last primary program and Ryan's first. So I was able to watch the program with all of my kids in it. I love to see the work that all the primary kids put into their parts. The Primary presidency made invitations for the kids to hand out to Friends and/or family. James and I asked the kids who they would like to invite. They all asked the people that they wanted to come. At first they wanted to asked their grandparents but as both sets live in Portland, OR, we suggested that although we were sure they'd love to come it may not work and maybe the boys should think of other people to invite. Ryan asked his friend Jacob for preschool. Jacob and his mom, Dawn, came to the primary program, Ryan was very happy to see them there. This was the first time that they had been to the LDS meeting. Jacob and his mom both really enjoyed it so good job little missionary Ryan!

The kids a practice on Saturday with pizza afterwards. The only problem was that the pizza didn't show up until a half an hour after the practice ended... So some of the kids were a little disorderly by then, but what do you expect.

Congratulations Trevor and Mayumi

Congratulations Trevor and Mayumi! They both completed masters degrees, Trevor in Information Systems and Mayumi in Business. The commencement ceremony was last night at 7pm. We drove down after school -making it just in time. But because of the boys first soccer games of the season this morning we didn't stay and turned around and headed for home at 8:45PM last night! We rolled in here at about 11:30 or so. But we were /are really excited for them as it's a huge accomplishment especially with two kids and both of them working on degrees and with full time jobs! Congratulations again! Thanks for inviting us celebrate this accomplishment with you.

Soccer season starts again

Yes! The soccer season is in full swing again. The boys had their first games of the season today. They are all on different teams.





Ryan's team is called the Killer Whales (because their uniforms are black with white letters). It is really fun to watch 4-5 year olds play soccer. They sometimes look like swarming bees around the ball. Ryan got to play goalie for two quarters. He was really good at it. For one quarter, he got to be a forward. He is not afraid of the ball or the other players. That is why he makes a good goalie, even though he is one of the smallest kids on the team.

Kyle's team is called the Flaming Snakes (they chose the name before they knew what color their jerseys would be). Kyle's team had a double header today, and Kyle made a goal in the second game, YEA!!!! And we are going to buy a shade thing, like a patio umbrella or something. Because it was to hot in the sun at two this afternoon. It was 97 today!
Tylor's team is called the Raptors. Ty did not get to vote on the team name because he was not at the practice when they chose. He was with us driving to and from Yuma. Ty was a mid-fielder when he played. He was able to make some good plays. He is becoming quite a soccer player. Tylor's pictures are further away because they play on a regulation sized field.

Tylor's first campout (as a scout)

So it took a little while for the 11 year old scouts (aka Blazer scouts) leaders to get their act together enough, and I'm speaking from experience. We kept wanting to plan a camp out but it just didn't happen UNTIL I posed the question to the boys. "When and where should we go camping?" we couldn't go soon enough was their response and they were open to suggestions for locations. As all three of the wards that meet in our building don't have large youth organizations, the cub and boy scouts meet together, and do activities together -as I'm sure Ty would have had a lot less fun if it were just him and me, my knowledge on video games is dreadfully deficient to maintain a lengthy conversation on the merits of... yeah I don't even know. Anyway, we had four of the seven boys commit AND make it to our designated rendez-vous for the caravan /car-pool up to the campsite. Sidebar: One of the things that is considerably different living here than anywhere else we've lived is that you almost have to drive for two and a half to three hours to go camping, otherwise there aren't any trees (saguaro and other large cactus are NOT trees) AND there isn't any water. So we drove up northeast of here to a little "hamlet" about 20 miles east of Payson called Christopher Creek. The campsite was just under the "Mogollon Rim". Here is what the forest service says about the "Mogollon Rim" and no I have no idea what it's called that name...
"The Mogollon Rim is a rugged escarpment that forms the southern limit of the Colorado Plateau. It extends across the entire forest and provides excellent views within Plateau Country and Desert Canyon Country as well. Dropping as much as 2,000 feet in some areas, the Rim provides some of the most far-reaching scenery in Arizona."
http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/recreation/mog_rim/rec_mogollon.shtml
So anyways we were down below that looking up at a section of it along Christopher creek. Which must be spring feed because it has water in it year-round.
To assure that we weren't setting up camp in the dark we decided to meet at the church at 2pm yesterday and head up. I figured it'd be at least 20 mins before everyone was there and ready. But I was wrong, we were pulling out of the parking lot at 2:10. We got there and picked a campsite by around 5pm. The boys went down to the creek to throw rocks in to see if they could get each other wet. We had to drag (almost literally) them back up to camp to help set up tents (to fill Tenderfoot requirement #2) and then start a fire (Second class requirements #2e and 2f) and finally put the tinfoil dinners together and cook them (Second class requirement #2g). The best part is they didn't even know that they were going through a check list of requirements they just thought they were being given free reign of the campsite...
After dinner and clean up we had a campfire -Ty was the M.C. as that was one of the two requirements he had left for the communications merit badge. Then we played a game, it doesn't really have a name it's kind of like capture the flag but there wasn't a flag. How it worked was that the boys (and /or the adults -we had several variations on different teams over the course of the couple of hours we played this game) would go up the dirt road to the latrine (about 100 yards from camp) then they'd have to try and sneak back into camp without getting caught by the team "guarding" camp. So it was a no flashlights roll around in the dirt and brush kind of game -perfect for boys of all ages. I have to admit I enjoyed it as much as they did.
The weather held (I was a little worried as there had been forecasts of thunder storms for up in that area this weekend -along with high winds) we did get some strong winds but the tall Ponderosa pines kept it from really being a problem for us -other than a pine needle or two in our food -but it's fiber so...
This morning the boys worked on a slew of requirements for first class as they cooked breakfast for the adults. They did good, they just aren't going to win any neatness awards -it's going to take a pressure washer to get the pancake batter out of every nook and cranny on Br. Conways folding camp table...
We then did the requisite ax, saw and knife training (basically the "Totin'Chip"), and the boys had to have another round of splash each other by throwing rocks in the stream game before we left...
Well that's about it, I'm glad we did it. I think some of the boys were becoming disaffected with scouts as if it was just this Wednesday night I don't get to play video games thing, now it's cool, for a little while...