Beware ye land lubbers

Over a year ago (probably closer to 2 years ago) I got a pirate murder mystery online. We have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to do it and since September 19th is National Talk Like a Pirate Day we thought that doing it on that weekend would be best. Our friends were really great sports and did such a great job with their characters. My only regret is that we couldn't invite more people.

Meet some of the cast. One-eyed Wanda

Our Commodore and Governor.
Two of our pirate crew (I don't remember their character names at the moment)
We ate out of pie tins, drank out of jars. Back in the corner by the flag their is a treasure chest full of jewels and chocolate coins next to a barrel of homemade rootbeer.
We enjoyed giant turkey legs, rice and beans, tropical fruits, goldfish, bread pudding, and the rootbeer.
The Cap'n enjoying his turkey.
The poor Commodore was getting picked on... lots of tiny fruit swords in his lovely hair.
The Governor and his daughter.
Those bold enough to wear fishnets.
The whole cast.
We had a great time and several of us even solved the murder. Can't wait to order the next one.

Another first

Claire started dance class, so far she loves it.

First Day of Preschool

Kiddos had their first day of preschool on Monday. They are going three days a week now, they love it. I love it. It is amazing how much I can get done by myself in 2.5 hours.

Here is Jacob and teacher Tina.

Claire and Teacher Sherry.
At the school.
Their new backpacks (they love them).
I can't believe how much they are growing up and how fast they are growing up. One year until kindergarten... yikes!

Jacob's Testimony

It was fast and testimony meeting last Sunday, and Dani bore her testimony. I had kiddos try to pay attention (which they did for probably 25 seconds). We were told after church last Sunday that Jacob insisted to the Primary leaders that he had a talk, so they let him go up. He proceeded to give the following talk:

"I want to bear my testimony, but I left it at home." Getting close to the microphone, he concluded, loudly, with "I know the church is true."

Dani asked Jacob about it after church, with a smile, and Jacob said, very seriously, "It's not funny. I know the church is true!"

cousins

We don't get many chances to be with our cousins from the Streeter side... kiddos had a great time with their cousins. Here are some cute cousins warming up on the sidewalk.

Cousins are fun for swimming at the froggy pond with.
Cousins are fun for riding bikes with.

Cousins are fun for playing duck duck goose and freeze tag with.

This cute guy sure thought it was fun.

Cousins are fun for watching pretty sunsets with.

Cousins are fun for having baths with after all the other fun things.
We had lots of fun with our cousins... more pictures from our Cody trip to come.

Walters Reunion 2010

As always the Walters' Family Reunion did not disappoint. This year we stayed in two amazing and huge houses that shared one beautiful property near Bear Lake. We enjoyed so much time visiting, playing games, eating, four wheeling, boating, riding wave runners, hiking, eating more, swimming, building sand castles, watching movies, more eating, playing ultimate frisbee, etc...

We hiked to a beautiful little lake called Bloomington Lake with quite a few family members. It was a beautiful hike and a beautiful little lake with glaciers feeding right into it.
Four of the biggest tallest guys in the family went cliff jumping and then hopped on a log to swim across the lake, the log was pretty much submersed.
Jacob hung out with Papa to watch a lot of the action.
There was an awesome rope swing there that I had a lot of fun on. Lydia was so brave and surprised us all by walking right up and swinging right out without any hesitation, I barely had time to snap a picture.
Matt, and Jared, and one of Jared's cousins hiked out to jump off the cliffs too. If you can zoom in and look really close there is a tiny Jared in mid air.
We spent a day at the beach playing in the sand, boats, and wave runners. These handsome architects constructed this castle.
Andrew and Keith had to pause to admire the beauty. There were a couple impressive sand castles built by our family.
Jacob who is usually very nervous was very brave about the wave runners and really had a great time on his rides. Jared and I also sneaked away for a ride on the boat and I got to ski on some choppy water and we both got to try some wake surfing.
Claire liked the beach too much for those other things. She spent most of her time filling the mote of uncle Matt's sand castle and decorating it with sea shells.
I had to document Bethany's sweet husband Jake helping her in and out of the boat.
Jacob also really liked swimming in the water at the beach. He was a trooper considering he had spent the entire day before trying to recover from a wicked stomach flu and then the night after the beach relapsing with the stomach flu.
Claire got it that night too, so we spent the night in watching "All Dogs Go to Heaven" and "Ratitouille" because that was what was on the tv. Most everyone else went to the "Pickleview Playhouse" for a show that was apparently really hilarious. Unfortunately the stomach flu did not stop with our kids, rumor has it that over 40 of the 70ish people ended up with that nasty bug. It was a strong one, but we all really managed to have a lot of fun around it. Can't wait for 2012!

Big Accomplishment

So, when we found out that we had to patch Jacob's eye I thought I was in for the fight of my life, but it has been really easy. Jacob picks his choice of patch every morning and we put it on and take it off three hours later... he wears his glasses with no problem too. I can tell that it is harder for him to see when he is watching TV, reading, or drawing with a patch on though. Whenever Jacob has a successful day of patching (which has been every day except an unfortunate day of the stomach flu) he gets to put that patch on his poster. Each patch is a colorful scale of a 50 scaled dragon. Just a few days before his checkup appointment he finished his dragon. He was very excited to show his poster to his eye doctor.

Our check-up was today and we are going to just keep on with more of the same for 2 months. We are working on a snake poster now!

An observant little boy

Jacob is a very observant and complimentary little boy. For example, tonight, we went out to pizza with Michael and Heather Hornibrook and some of their extended family, and Jacob told Jessica (6 yrs old), "I like your pretty necklace." How sweet!

Sometimes, it's funny, too. We stopped by Albertson's on the way home to pick up a movie, and Dani ran in while we waited in the car. A somewhat overweight young woman in a white tanktop showing off her tattoos came walking out, and Jacob said, "She looks like Holly." A little surprised, I ask, "Why does she look like Holly?" Jacob responds, "Her belly is the same size as Holly's." Clarification, we saw our friend Holly when we went back to Cincinnati when she was 7 months pregnant! It was very cute, especially since we were safely out of earshot!

Speaking of bellies, kiddos often tell us how their bellies are little, and our bellies are big. Thanks kiddos!

Cinci Trip

I realize that this is a marathon post and that looking at other people's pictures is not that fun... but my pictures are fun and rest assured that I took A LOT more pictures than I am posting. We had not been back to Cincinnati since our move to Oregon, so at the end of May I packed up my kiddos and I and flew across the country. They did a great job on the planes for me, it was the first time I flew with them alone. Once we got there it was a party right away. We did a lot of swimming. Camie and her family were there too, so we got lots of great cousin time. Here are the girls on the first swimming day (Ellie is a sorta cousin).

Sweet little Wyatt loves the water, he is such a happy little/big guy.
Our second day we took a giant trip to the zoo. Lots of us! Our cousins' cousins are in Cincinnati for the summer, so they came too. Papa was great at keeping together the 4 year old boy team.
Here is our crew on the zoo train.
The 4 year old boy team sat together on the train.
I love this little boy, his big blue eyes make him irresistible and his tiny voice even more so. Lydia was a good big cousin keeping track of him.
The whole group (I was taking the picture).
This sweet little baby was so good for the whole HOT trip to the zoo (her mom has 4 kids 4 and under and is so good and calm about keeping it all together).
One of our nights we went to a Reds game (thanks Papa for the tickets and Nana for the idea.) Lydia and Claire had a great time taking it all in (especially the treats).
Clayton and Jacob had a great time too. Here is their picture with Mr. Red, the girls got a picture too, but it is on Camie's camera.
Cousins at the game together.
Jacob spent most of the game like this, we have a lot of pictures of him covering his ears at the game... he doesn't like noise, but he really was having a good time.
By the way, Jared joined us in Cincinnati after a couple of days, so he was here for the game and was so excited to share a baseball experience with his son.
We even went to the game on fireworks night, so we stuck around for a great fireworks show after the game (with much more ear covering by Jacob).
Then we did more swimming. Jacob scared himself at the beginning of the week in the pool and would not be away from the stairs or the edge for most of the week.
Claire loved the water.
Nana and Papa even borrowed a bouncy house from a friend for a swimming day. Camie and Wyatt enjoyed it as much as the gaggle of kids.
Ellie found a great outfit for the occassion.
Andrew and his sweet girlfriend Elizabeth were so popular with the kids and spent a lot of time playing games with them on the trampoline and on the grass.
Jared even got some uncle bonding time with Wyatt.
The men were in charge of the bouncy house clean up... doesn't it look like they are working hard.
Andrew graduated the Sunday that we were there. Congrats Andrew!
Grandpa Russ even came down for the occasion.
He is a popular uncle (Clayton was there too, but was done with pictures).
He is headed off to BYU in the fall.
On Memorial Day we were able to make it to the ward picnic of our old ward, it was great to see so many people and get involved in the game of softball.
After the hot picnic we went back to Nana castle to cool off in the pool with lots of friends.
We love the pool.
And Jacob finally discovered that he could float and swim with his floaties and started to really enjoy the pool, he thought he was enjoying it before, but he had much more fun once he was no longer confined to the stairs and edge.
We were so happy to see so many friends while we were there, we didn't have our camera for all of those occasions, but we saw so many friends that we have really missed. Thanks Nana and Papa for having us... we can't wait to come back in August!