Halloween...and other things

As you all know, I love Halloween.  Ask my kids what holiday I like best... Halloween all the way!  Not sure why but it's way too much fun and I love to scare people... Heather thinks I've lost my mind every year.  So, in this post we're going to cover Halloween and pretty much everything that's happened in October.  What you see above is my ghost lady in our front window that I tweaked a little bit this year.  Now she holds a burning candle and looks right and left at everyone who comes up to our front door.  

Here's a pic of a night we headed over to Lagoon's "Frightmares" with Liam and Kate

In between General Conferences we headed over to the Lagoon Trail to have a picnic and ride bikes

We headed up to the Cheney's cabin for the school's Fall Break

The cousins...

We ran into a couple that had "pack goats" to haul all of their camping gear while they 

would camp all over the area.  Had to get a pic of this:

I think this was a pic of one of the sunsets looking from our frame shop:

Eli finally had the opportunity to clean out the dust collector on our saw...whoah, it was much needed:

I was able to go with Kate on her field trip around the historic homes of downtown Kaysville.  Our favorite stop was going to the home and studio of famous artist LeConte Stewart.

Yeah, it's exactly what you think.  Chloe asks to be able to drive every other minute 

so sometimes on Sundays she, Eli and I will go for a cruise.

Liam and Justin go hunting for varmints and come out on top:

This was at our Ward Halloween carnival (Eli, great costume....what are you???)

The first snow of the season...

We had a great visit from Heather's nephew's family: Levi, Jesse and their son Woodson  ("Woods")

"Woods" loved to hang out with Kate:

Back to "Frightmares" on another night...

So here's my ghost lady again in the workshop getting the final touches

 (she's mounted on an oscillating fan so she can turn left and right)

Halloween night-this is our sideyard graveyard

Another one of the ghost ladies...

The famous "Butler" there to greet trick or treaters

Our witch who also greets guests in her rocking chair

Meet our newest member of our Halloween yard: the scarecrow/graveyard keeper

Here's a pic after I finished putting him together

 and then we have a night time shot out in the yard:

Here's a short video clip to show the movement of the front window ghost lady and also a taste of the 

music we had playing out in the yard on Halloween night.

Looking forward to next Halloween!!!

Eli's first official date...The Halloween Dance!

Eli was stoked when he came home one night and this huge poster was on our front door.  This was his first official time being asked on a date now that he's 16.  He was super excited about going to the Halloween Dance with a good friend, Audrey Johnson.

 So, to answer Audrey back he had the brilliant idea to put on his cop outfit and go give her a ticket for premeditated manslaughter (as the sign indicates).  Here's his getup (it was hard to stop laughing long enough to take a steady shot:

Audrey along with her whole family and us in the background were all laughing as he asked her:

 Next came the "day date".  This is the time when the group planned to have dinner and carve pumpkins together.

The night of the Halloween dance!

Eli and Audrey

Liam gets his "Arrow of Light"

 So, Liam had a birthday aaaand received his "Arrow of Light" in cub scouts.  Our little boy is now movin' on to bigtime "boy scouts".  I'm excited about it since I am his scout leader in 11 year old scouts. So here's a wrap up of the night:

Here is our good friend and dedicated scout leader Kathy Linford.  Along with Maryanne Nybo, the 2 of these gals have been making and awarding these Arrows of Light for years....like 15 I want to say.  This headband thing is new.  Liam received the name of "Skyhawk" and got this cool leather headband with it written on it. 

Kathy puts so much thought and effort into these-it's so cool.

Next, our cubmaster challenged "Skyhawk" to throw this spear through a moving hoop to show his dead-on skills.  Here's how it went after getting the rundown of how it's supposed to happen:



Nailed it!  Way to go Liam!



Next he receives the actual award and parent pin.  Heather's a little miffed because our Cubmaster said: "you can pin it on "your Mom or your Dad"-well, ...you see what happened.

Congrats Liam!!!

Brigham City Temple open house....Liam's birthday continues

The night before Liam's birthday Heather's sister Amy called and said she had extra tickets to the Brigham City Temple open house.  To our surprise Liam was really excited to get up early to do this.  All I can really say is it was incredibly beautiful.

I know you could really say that about any temple but this one is different.  It had a really cool feel to it with the original art throughout and all of the attention to detail we saw...definitely worth going through when you're in the neighborhood.

I love this shot that Amy took of Liam and I.  Liam couldn't stop talking about how cool it was to go there. 

A parent loves to hear things like that...

Liam's bday and other stuff...

Liam looks forward to his birthday the day after his birthday happens.  This year was no exception.  He really wanted to go to the cabin one last time before school started, and with school starting a week later than usual, we made it happen. 

 

First stop, see Grandma Parker in Blackfoot, Idaho: 

Heather was pretty sad after this picture was taken.  She said "this may be the last picture I have with my Grandma since she's 93."

She's livin in comfort with these gems though



Oh yes, and every cabin trip we force Eli to drive a bit, even though he's very hesitant to do so  

 

 

We love to go down to the creek to have a picnic, float boats and just play around. 

We brought Casey and Sam Cheney with us this time too.

 

 

I love this shot of all the kids walking down the stream

Eli was quite proud of the boat he created

Even Harley needed a minute to cool off

 

 

 

Painting rocks and other things is a must at the cabin

 

Grandpa said: "Hey, we're going to have a Hunger Games party tonight!"  He brought a flat screen and the movie and we sat out in the forest one night to watch it...so much fun.

There's a quaint little restraunt called "Boondocks" where we love to eat each year. 

This was some yard art in the front that Eli just had to hold.



 

 

 

Just me and the girls

 

 

 

Liam loves the grilled cheese sandwich

 

 

 

We usually have a talent show of some kind too.  Here's what Chloe and Kate threw together:

 

 

Kate was a little miffed that she couldn't make everyone's lunch as you can see on her face.

She decided to make a triple decker tuna

Here we are taking it easy and playing a competitive game of Phase 10.  Kate won...

We decided to play "Survivor" too.  This is a cabin favorite. 

Here you see everyone trying to shoot the tin cans off the rock with the slingshot...

Everyone always looks forward to the firebuilding contest.   The teams try and  build their fires big enough to burn through the rope that's been strung across two chairs.  Enjoy this video clip:

 

 

 

 

Had to capture Eli's face after blowing on the fire for 10 minutes



Getting ready to head home

 

 

 

 

 

The candy poster for Liam's bday



Liam's favorite gift-Salt Lake Real soccer team jersey

 

 

 

Another great pic-Eli hopped on Lori's roof and we caught the sun just before setting.

Happy Birthday Liam!!!