Boo at the Zoo

Yesterday we went to Boo at the Zoo at the Tautphus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls. A bunch of businesses set up booths at the zoo and you get to go trick or treating. It was a beautiful day. Probably the last nice day until spring. Kevin and Ethan found some of their kind. One of the businesses were all dressed up like Star Wars characters. It was pretty impressive. They even had an R2D2 and Darth Vader's voice was cool. So we had to take a picture with them. One of the ladies we ran into said, "You know, Darth Vader and Yoda would never go trick or treating together." A radio station was also sponsoring a trick or treat at an RV park. They made it sound pretty cool on the radio but when we got there, there were only 6 RV's to trick or treat at. So it's a good thing we still had the zoo to go to. Oh, and Darren's blog isn't working very well right now. So don't get after him for not updating until he gets it fixed. He has some photographs ready to go when it gets fixed. (And Jon's out of town so he can't help him.)

Pumpkins!!

All week the boys have been begging to carve the pumpkins and I finally gave in on Saturday. So here are some pictures of us hard at work. We should have waited until Darren got home because Kevin says Darren is better at carving pumpkins than I am.















Kevin was queasy about pulling the yucky stuff out of the pumpkin but he got brave.















Here's me pulling the yucky stuff out.















Our finished pumpkins. Kevin's is the one on the left.
















More yucky stuff.

Snow

We had our first real snow, as far as I'm concerned, today. Most of it is gone now so I'm glad we got these pictures this morning. Here we are on our way to work this morning. I took the picture of me by myself. Not the most attractive picture but it helps you see what it was like.

Kevin the acrobat

I'm afraid I don't have anything exciting to post this week. But I did find Kevin climbing the walls one day so this is what you get to see.

A Playful Saturday

Yesterday, the weather was beautiful so the boys and I took advantage of that. We spent some time outside and, since it's fall, a lot of our play involved all the leaves on our lawn. Be sure to check out Kevin's photos in the blog entry following.















Jake playing in the leaves















I thought I could get a darling picture of the boys sitting in the bright yellow leaves but Jake would not cooperate.















Kevin showing his acrobatics.















Kevin jumping in the big pile we made and Jake having fun, too.

Kevin's Photographs

The following are the photographs that Kevin took when we were playing outside yesterday. What do you think? Does he have some of his dad in him?

Our Weekend

These are just some random photos from our weekend in West Jordan/Provo. We went down for baby Dexter's blessing and to have a joint birthday party for Kevin and Carson (when Darren read that he started pretending to smoke a joint - that's not what I meant).















Here is Kevin blowing out his candles on his birthday cake.




















I found these two strangers in my house. On our way out of town this morning we stopped at the new Target in West Jordan to check out the Halloween costumes. They had just what my boys wanted.
















Pat had her Halloween monster out with Smarties in it. I knew it was just a matter of time before Jake found it. He found it before my other boys did. Luckily he couldn't open the candy.




















Jake playing with his Grandma.
















Kevin and Darren playing Sorry after we got home. Darren won.

Another birthday post by Kevin

this is kevin and i got a bike lock, a bike, and Yugioh cards for my birth day. Okay, now it's Susan because Kevin is already bored with blogging. We had birthday lunch at Artic Circle because that is where Kevin wanted to eat. One of Darren's students makes cakes and she gave Darren part of one she had used for something else. It also had two mini cakes decorated with "grass" and "ants". So that is being used as Kevin's birthday cake. Wasn't that nice of her to make Kevin a birthday cake?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KEVIN!

Happy Birthday, Kevin!!!! He's 8 years old today. This first picture I took right as he was waking up. His birthday morning picture. The other two pictures are of him doing his birthday dance. When you see him in person next time have him do it for you. It's much better in real life. We love Kevin and we are glad he's in our family. He's a great kid!

Lipomas

Many of you have seen the ugly lumps I had on my forearms. They were lipomas (or in other words, big balls of fat under my skin). This week I had the biggest ones cut off. Here are some before shots.











































First they gave me a shot of lydocane (spelling?) to numb the area. That needle was big and did not feel very good. But that was the only painful part and it worked really fast. As soon as the doctor gave me the shot he started cutting the skin. Then he had some tweezer like instrument and pulled and tugged until the fat came out. And that's exactly what it looked like too. It just looked like curly fat on a piece of meat. Then he sewed me up. He took out five of them and I still have a bunch of little ones. But at least they are not so visible. He also said they are very common on arms and backs. My grandmother is the only person I had known before this that had them. Now I hear all sorts of people that have them. Here are what they look like right now with the stitches in them. (Photography by Darren Clark)



































The stitches in my arms are kind of hard to see. But that is what I'm trying to show in the above photos. Sorry, I don't have a picture of my lipomas.















Ethan didn't want to be left out. He had to show his spongebob bandaid.

Clematis

So here are a couple of pictures of our clematis and it is still going strong. Yesterday we spent a few hours cleaning out the dead plants in the garden and cutting back perenials that had died. But there are a few things that still look beautiful and this is one of them. Some of our leaves are also starting to turn colors. Fall is here. (Photography by Darren Clark)