Surprise Snow!

We were definitely surprised by the accumulation of snow today!

December with the Howells 2009

We enjoyed a visit from Rachael, Lydia, Ellie, Carver & Grace this month.

Christmas Cookie decorating was one of the fun activities that were enjoyed.

Grandma also helped Lydia and Ellie make quilts

The kids got a chance to visit Santa

We also enjoyed a tour of the Christmas displays at Portland International Raceway

Next week ... Pullman!

Thanksgiving

We have had a mild and wet fall, and while the leaf season was mediocre we did have some nice color.

Ruthann demonstrated her jungle decorating skills for the pack meeting in October

Alyssa enjoyed her 24th birthday!

We had an enjoyable Turkey Day in Dallas with the Bowmans

And we completed our traditional decorating tasks on Black Friday!

Fall has come!

So while it has been some time since the last posting, much has been happening in our lives.

Leah and Ben came to visit in September for a few days.  Of course aside from the Cozy Coupe we enjoyed the Zoo ...

And as always, the highlight had to be the ride on the zoo train ...

We really enjoyed having the time with Leah and Ben while the summer lingered and look forward to Ruthann and Alyssa's visit to Pulman for Ben's birthday.

Speaking of birthdays we had a good time with the Howells for Carver's 4th Birthday ...

Carver had a group of friends join in birthday party fun including painting little cars, duck-duck-goose, london bridges, and of course enjoying birthday cupcakes!

Clearly Carver's favorite gift was his power tool set.  He was very safety conscious.  He wore the goggles regularly and loved playing with the various toy power tools - just like daddy!

We also had a chance to watch Lydia's soccer match in the beautiful autumn sunshine ...

We have been enjoying the color of the season!

And hope you have too!

Grandma Camp - Day 4

The morning began with German pancakes for Lydia and Grandpa while Ellie scarfed down some Reeses Puffs and went off to draw.

After breakfast it was Lydia and Grandma's turn to draw some too ...

Then it was sewing time!

The girls had requested capes, and so while Grandma worked on Lydia's black cape, the little monkeys were a bit restless swinging from the posts ...

So Grandpa loaded Kit Kitridge: An American Girl to tame the restless wildlife ...

As soon as the first cape was done it was worn and the drawing boards came back out for the duration of the movie, while Grandma sewed ...

And sewed ....

While the girls watched and drew ...

Until Auntie came home and then it was time for divide and conquer!

Ellie and Grandma enjoyed a tea party ...

While Lydia and Auntie worked on Origami ...

After dinner we had a visit with our home teachers and the girls showed their magical talent, then we ran off to $1 scoop night at B&R.

After warm baths we settled in with story reading by Grandma ...

While coloring with the special Auntie drawings continued ...

Thus ending another full day at Grandma Camp ...

Grandma Camp - Day 3

Monday morning began with gradual waking up of Ellie followed shortly by Lydia and then Grandma.  The first activity of the day was to decorate the drawing boards.

The results:

It was then time to pick a movie for the lunch time theatre ...

After some debate it was "Molly - An American Girl on the Home Front" that was selected and the girls enjoyed lunch and a movie before we headed off to Pirate Park!

After some preliminaries ...

The focus then became the sand holes and Grandma helped to create a tunnel ...

that when water was poured into the the channel it emptied into the hole via a waterfall!

The day was so nice and warm that we then changed into swimming suits and enjoyed some time in the fountains at Bethany Village ...

After cooling off at the fountain we returned to Grandma's for some drawing time and then it was off to find the dinner movie - "The Wizard of Oz"  After some search we found a copy in Beaverton and then order our Papa John's Pizza and sat down to our Pizza and a Movie party ...

After the movie we spent some more time drawing ...

before going to bed and ending another fun filled day at Grandma Camp '09!