Another shot of the dog

Marci posted about how much fun our new dog is. I have to say that I agree for the most part. However, he is a bit of a freak though. VERY enthusiastic at times. But, dude is pretty dang cute, so it's hard to not like him.

A motley crew to be sure

Here are our children in their Halloween costumes posed in front of the pumpkins they designed and (Caleb) carved. Marci made the "hair" for Sabrina's Rapunzel outfit. Caleb mostly wanted to be a gangster because it let him get a hat. Gavin, well - let's just say that the sunglasses were the bomb on that kid. He would even tell you "the sunglasses make the outfit" - cannot deny the kid has style.

Speaking of freckles

 Speaking of freckles, Sabrina has awesome freckles too. She won't let me take pictures of them or "count" them, but I managed to get her to pose for me a bit.

 The scrunched nose when she's really happy is just the BEST.

Caleb's freckles

Caleb took these self-portrait when I let him use my camera. All three of these he took by himself. I helped him do some editing, but they are mostly his work. He even made the choice to have the first two be B&W.

I love this picture. It shows off his freaky cool eye color and those awesome freckles.

Out on the farm

Just before Halloween we went to a local farm to enjoy a little fall festival action. The kids had a great time. They had a petting...area...where they had chickens, ducks, geese, pigglets, a turkey, a rabbit, several goats, a pony and a couple of dogs. The kids could NOT have had more fun. They chased around and picked up all the birds and were just generally abusing the heck out of those poor animals. 

 Sabrina was especially tickled that she could capture and pick up some of the birds all by herself.

 Of course, some of us were just left holding a bunny and being stared at critically by a turkey. Such is life.

 They had pony/horse rides. None of our kids wanted to ride the pony. The specific request was to ride the big horse. So that's what they did. They all had a great time. I mean...just look at that smile on Caleb's face:

 Or Sabrina's smile:

 Or Gavin:

 They each got to ride twice and LOVED it. They were even being nice to each other as we had them pose for a photograph.

 I, unfortunately, was not behind the camera most of the time. Marci is the one responsible for nearly breaking the camera by taking pictures with me in them.

 But, she also captured this absolutely precious shot of Sabrina after she got her face painted with butterflies.

 Gavin got his face painted with "lightning bolts" and this is his "fierce" face. Intimidating!

 Then, it was hay-ride time to go pick out some pumpkins. There isn't a photo of it, but I totally took a dive as I was stepping off the wagon. Good times. The driver of the wagon let our kids sit in the driver's seat (a totally awesome setup of a car seat bolted to the wagon) and even let them control the reins a bit. He was a very nice man that you could tell had spent his life as a farmer.

 Just in case anyone didn't believe me about "breaking the camera":

 Gavin showing both his love for and skill with horses:

 And there they are, the best looking of our family at the end of a fun afternoon of doing totally pretend farming activities. It was a good day.

Caleb's first scout camp-out

Caleb went on his first Boy Scout overnight campout. All of the scouts get a chance every couple of years to go out to a section of the "Mormon Trail" that crosses through the Phoenix area out near Maricopa. It's a pretty cool thing to see that the Mormon Battalion actually crossed a significant portion of some rather hostile desert terrain. Flat, but utterly dry for miles and miles. That can NOT have been a fun trip to make.

Anyway, they head out to the trail section, get to watch a pretty good presentation about the history of the Mormon Battalion and then hike about a 2 mile section of the trail. Having done this, when you get your Eagle, a representative of the Mormon Battalion society will come and present a special award to you. It's actually quite neat.

The camp-out was fun. Caleb and I made some tin-foil dinners and the boys played with fire.

 Then we went on the hike. You can see in this shot just how desolate the area is. I have a bunch of shots from every direction, and they all look basically like this. Home sweet home.

Caleb cannot wait till he turns 12 and can go on regular camp-outs. I have to admit - I'm kind of eager for that myself.

Horton Springs

We took a trip up to hike the Horton Springs trail this last August - it really is quite a beautiful hike.

 Our kids especially love climbing on rocks.

 This was the first time that Gavin has been old enough to do some real "rock hopping" along the stream-bed, and Caleb was only too happy to show him how to do it. Gavin wasn't as good at it (being smaller, younger and not quite as athletic yet) and got his feet wet more often, but he didn't care. He was having the time of his life. We had to constantly remind Caleb that Gavin and Sabrina aren't as fast as him yet, but he was reasonably patient and loved teaching his siblings how to jump around like a billy-goat.

 Sabrina had some struggles with jumping around on the rocks as well (for obvious reasons) but she really wanted to do it just like her brothers, so with a little help, she was able to follow along behind.

 We eventually stopped to eat lunch and splash around - Sabrina wasn't quite sure of this whole "wading in the water thing" - but eventually she took to it.

 There they are: the happy family eating lunch by the side of the stream. Notice how the big, ugly one is not in the photo. That is because he knows it is safest behind the camera where you cannot reveal his ugly mug to the internet.

 After lunch there was much splashing about in the stream. Sabrina was very enthusiastic and got quite wet. Fortunately, I was able to get this picture early so she still looks relatively dry.

 Sabrina was tired and wanted to head back but Caleb and Gavin wanted to keep going. So, knowing that Sabrina was going to move much slower, the boys and I went further on for a few hundred yards to "explore" while Sabrina and Marci made their way back to the car. The additional rock-hopping was greeted with enthusiasm.

 Gavin found an owl feather, and it became his prized possession for the day. Gavin was very eager for any opportunity to take the "lead" and kept insisting that Caleb follow him over the cool stuff.

 And, just as often, Caleb would insist he show Gavin how to do it. It was one of the few times in recent memory where they were actually cooperating and enjoying the game together.

Overall, a very good day.

Samantha...has it been 8 years?

We went to the cemetery to remember Samantha this year. It was kind of neat this year as my grandma Miller was able to join us. She's in her 90's now and as of writing this post she is in a hospice "end of life" watch. So, this is probably the last picture of Grandma visiting with our family when she was still (semi) lucid.

 Anyway, as is our tradition, we took some cupcakes and balloons with us. Each year at her birthday we all release a helium balloon in her remembrance. This year we not only had grandma, but also my mom and Marci's parents. It was pretty cool to have everyone there.