Staggering On

Summer was sorely missed so we tried our best to enjoy the last few sunny weekends of the year.  We went on a little nature hike and found this gem of a rope swing.

We also went on a little hike with friends up in the pass that ended at this waterfall. Some of the kids were more adventurous than others but daring or not the buns of the one who ventured up onto that cliff were destined to have a meeting with my hand!

Of course, why would I be surprised by the daredevil antics of one of my children when their own father made it his day's goal to swim through this ice melt waterfall.

 

Fall and School also meant soccer season and lots of soccer watching for the little girls. This was Gunner's last with his team and coach of the last four years and they had a great season.  Coach Tucker will be missed.

 

I had a birthday somewhere in there and turned 33.  This birthday we all learned, especially Joe, that even though mom might say she doesn't care what she does or where she eats on her birthday what she actually means, is take me out to dinner and make it Italian!

The chilly part of fall meant multiple visits to various pumpkin patches.

 

This one happened to have an awesome punkin' chunkin' area.

  The Pumpkin Patch closer to home, though not as cool provided several great photo opportunities.

 Gunner was assigned the heavy and serious burden of finding the perfect pumpkin and of course, he did.

 

We had a great Halloween dinner replete with jack o' lantern pizza, mummy wraps, spider cookies and a bubbling cauldron of vampire punch. 

 Who wants a hit!?

 

 PS Betsy HATES! Scooping the innards out of the pumpkin; she was careful, as always, not to get any nature on her.

Toward the end of the month was the beloved Church Trunk or Treat and finally the night where knocking on strange doors gets you delicious treats instead of kidnapped! Wahoo!  And Yes Joe and I won for best costumes with Jack Skellington and his gal pal Sally.  In an effort not to terrify the small primary children over whom I have a charge I opted for the friendlier Minnie costume while on church grounds and saved the scary stuff for a private party.

After Halloween and when  the air was really getting chilly we had a short visit from the grandparents and Uncle Stevo.  And what is really chilly about this picture, other than the cold shoulder Stevo is giving Joe, is the fact that in one fun hour from when it was taken it was discovered that my girls had lice and our visitors were out of our house as fast as their little legs would carry them, psychosomatically scratching their heads the whole way.

 Treating the lice isn't so bad, it's all the @$#% laundry!!!

Lice behind us and anxious to get our jingle bell cheer on we headed for the highly recommended Candy Cane Lane in Bellvue, but this sea of humanity yielded no cheer and from then on we stuck to what we knew, Zoolights at Point Defiance.

 

Somewhere in there we decided to take a family picture for the old Christmas Card and what a day that was.  You can see from the severalshots and retakes we had that many unkind things were said, epithets were hurled and maybe by the end of the day it had even been suggested that someone was adopted. This first one we call "Stop acting like a dweebus."

 This one is aptly named, "Eyes Wide Side."

  Here we have, "I see my father kneeling."

And this is simply titled, "Malice."

Finally we got something to put in the card though I think some one's head had to be photo shop swapped for another one.

 And then came Christmas, Scottie got the ultimate gift that keeps on giving, her own Camera, self portrait below.

One of the favorite gifts was an Xbox 360 and Kinect which meant one of the only Sundays the kids have ever been allowed to play video games on a Sunday. For some the gaming was quite intense.

For others it was the perfect Christmas day activity.

And for one in particular, it was exhausting.

 

The girls were less interested than the boys in the Xbox and after a while decided to make this cute little candy village instead.

After the Christmas festivities it was off to Ensign Ranch for our annual snow camping trip.  the unfortunate thing about this year was the lack of snow.  What was there when we arrived quickly turned to ice as the rains settled in.

 

I think this is the place where Ethan and Gunner thought they'd try walking on the ice to see if it could hold their weight, guess what, it couldn't!  They were severely scolded and then to add insult to injury we all walked over to see the scene of the crime. 

And with that we Beaver into a new year!  We can't wait to see what 2012 brings!