How could I forget?

So, looking through my camera yesterday, I noticed this video that I forgot to post. Even though it's from a little while ago, it's too good not to have it on my blog!

This was at Wendy's birthday party. Julie had the GREAT idea to inhale some Helium and sing her favorite song. How could I not post this?

Jared just tagged this photo of me on Facebook so I didn't have it before. This is on the ferry as we were leaving that Galveston camping trip. I liked it, but didn't want to put it with those pictures, because I figured it wouldn't get seen.

This one also fits in that category. This is from Katherine's camera. I got this one well after I finished the post from her birthday party. I like this one better of me in my costume than the one I had originally posted, but posting this picture was a must because it has a fully body shot of Katherine as Tina Turner. She was hilarious!

Home for Thanksgiving

I had a great Thanksgiving break. I went to San Angelo to visit my parents. It was really different being the only kid at home. Adam stayed in UT and Susannah and her Adam went to Boise to be with the Warrs. I told my parents it reminded me of my first 4 years of life. :)

We had our actual Thanksgiving dinner at the Institute where my dad teaches. Since there were only 3 of us, we decided to celebrate with the Shlags, a missionary couple and several people from Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo. Here is some delicious cranberry sauce Sister Shlag made.

My mom made some great pies! ;) She stamped Texas into the apple pies she made. How festive!

No visit home is complete without games. We played what we call "Mormon Bridge." There were only 3 of us and we played up until all the cards were dealt so we each ended up with 19 cards in our hand. It was super hard to bid on!

We also played this Sudoku game that Susannah and I got my dad last Father's Day. It was actually really fun . . . if you like Sudoku!

My parents also took me to a cool place called the Chicken Farm Art Center. They kept calling it just the chicken farm when they were listing things we should do. Up until we got there, I thought we were really going to a chicken farm and I couldn't imagine why they'd be interested in going since we raised chickens for many years as I was growing up! It turned out to be more like a flea market or famers market with more artsy stuff. I bought some very good homemade jams!

They had a live band that played there. It was a really fun environment.

On the way home from San Angelo, I go through Austin. Some of my friends were there on a day trip so I met up with them for about an hour. We went to this cool look out to watch the sun set.

It was these 3. They had been looking around Austin all day. What great people they are!

Here are all 4 of us just as the sun was going down.

Here's one last shot. I took a whole lot more, but we'll stick with these!

Thanksgiving Program

Just before Thanksgiving break, our first grade team put on our annual Thanksgiving Program/fund raiser.

Here are the first graders at one of our last practices. They did really well.

Here's my class minus one who was out sick. Thanks to one of my co-worker's dads for building us that tepee out of PVC pipe and rebar. This is our 3rd year to use it. The kids put their handprints on brown butcher paper to dress it up.

Here are the little cuties in their orange shirts and Native American headbands at the performance.

We had a bake sale with water and soda also on sale. We had a bunch of water and cans of soda in big old ice chests so it would be cold. Only later did we discover that one of the outlet holes didn't have a plug so we had a nasty leak all over the floor. The only thing my co-worker could find to plug it was some of her son's underwear that was out in her car. It cracked me up.

Yet again, my awesome friends came to help out at this event so all the first grade parents could enjoy the program. Here's Nate, Collette, and Julie. They look very entertained.

This one's a little happier with Stacie, Nate, and Collette. They had some fun with my camera that night. I won't be posting some of the pictures they took. Be glad.

Julie snuck this picture of me talking to a parent of one of my students last year. I was decked out in my orange shirt and headband as well.

Marshmallow Guns

We had planned on doing another camping trip this weekend, but it was pretty rainy, so we decided to come up with some other plans.

We had a pretty good alternative. Friday night, a bunch of us went over to Katherine's. We had some dinner and then pulled out the marshmallow guns for a major war. This shows some of the damage. Stacie took it easy. I wonder how many times she got hit!

Julie came from down the hall and slid on her knees. It was a pretty cool move.

Katie rolled across the floor and got some pretty good shots. She also got hit a few times! :)

Candice was more of a stealth player. She'd find good hiding spots then nail us out of nowhere.

Julie and Katherine both had these baggies taped on them or their guns to keep their ammo close at hand.

Posers!

I'd forgotten how much fun that is. We'll have to use those guns a lot more than they've been used in the past!

Jessica's Reception

Jessica and Jason got married in Hawaii a few weeks ago.

They had a reception here in the afternoon on Halloween. This is one of their engagement photos that I really liked. She hasn't put any pictures up on Facebook yet of the actual wedding.

Jessica's mom made these cute little boxes out of card stock. They were so awesome. They each had a homemade chocolate filled with this coconut filling and some peanut and coconut M&Ms. I was a big fan . . . of everything.

We had luau style food. Here's a picture of my favorite - Kalua pig!!!! Yum!!!!

Here's the cute couple stealing a quick bite before everyone showed up. Katherine, Stacie, and I got to help out most of the morning so we got to visit with them before people started showing up.

It was at the Cook's home. They're so awesome!

It was great to see some of my old friends as well. I found out that Matt and Carrie and their family will be moving to Seattle sometime soon.

I had to get a quick shot with Jess as well.

We all did!

Here are some more old friends I hadn't seen for awhile! Good times!

Camping at the beach

Last weekend a few of us went camping down at the beach near Galveston. It was my first beach camping experience and I quite enjoyed it minus the mosquitos. I didn't take any pictures the night we got there, but there are quite a few from the next day. I wish I had taken some of the night before when Katherine had decided to take her truck on a little off-roading adventure, completely forgetting that her tailgate was down and that most of our stuff was still in the back of the truck. That was quite hilarious.

On the beach in the morning there were lots of these mushroom jellyfish. They were huge! This one was dead. It had a big crack all along one side of it.

Julie put her foot by it for some scale.

Jared wanted to see how far he could kick it and see how it would hold up. For you animal lovers, just let me remind you that it's already dead.

Try #2 didn't work out as well. The poor thing didn't stay together very well.

Jared did bring out his fishing gear. He caught one little fish that he released. It was pretty exciting.

We were sitting by the fire that morning and Julie asked if she could bury me. I said sure. Nate jumped right in for that activity. Julie started digging. I was telling them about how my dad and the boys in Hawaii used to bury people vertically. Nate decided to try it out. He didn't get much deeper than this before he hit the water table.

I just got in and kind of squatted down and they buried me. I got a little nervous with Gus walking around. Luckily, they tied him up right after this shot.

They packed me in really good. It was a little bit hard to breathe.

After I was all buried, they made a body for me out of sand. To protect everyone's innocence, I will not be posting those pictures. They made a man's body and found various items on the beach that made it a little too realistic.

Here I am covered with sand after I got out. I was pretty wet as well. I didn't realize how wet the sand was until after that!

I was trying out the zoom on my camera on this shot. I was pretty far away from them. L-R its Aaron, Jared, Katherine, and Julie. That was a fun little group.

I couldn't resist getting this shot of Gus on his throne as we were leaving.

More birthdays

We had a couple of birthdays recently.

This one was at Julie's birthday. Hers was a couple of days before Katherine's. There were quite a few people there, but our fun little group stayed later than everyone for some fun chatting and pictures.

We had to give Julie her birthday spankings too!

We got together again not too long ago for Wendy's birthday. We played some pool and shuffleboard then went back to her and Candice's apartment to look at Wendy's pictures of her recent trip to Russia. We decided to pose for her webcam on her computer. There are a LOT! Sorry, but they cracked me up.

We also celebrated Collette's birthday the other day, but I must have had an off day because I didn't take any pictures. We went out to eat at this cool little BBQ place and then played some tennis. Fun times!