Pumpkinmania!!

Ok, so I just decreased the actual cost of my garden boxes by about $30.00 or so due to the growth of 6 beautiful medium sized pumpkins!! I know, I know, Sean is proud of me!!! So here we are carving the beautiful things. Deanna and Weston came over and helped the kids create designs on each of their pumpkins. They even gave them the knives and let them do some of the carving.....which is a step that's been very hard for dear old mom to turn over to them.....but they each did a great job and we didn't even make one trip to the emergency room!! Yeah!!! My job was to roast pumpkin seeds...Yummy! The kids were so excited to do this...thanks for your help, Aunt Deanna and Uncle Weston!

Sean and Michelle in Hawaii, October 8-14th

Here we are back on the Island of Oahu. To the left Sean and I are on a boat headed out to snorkel with the Manta Rays (they are just like Sting rays but without the deadly stinger). It was a night dive/snorkel experience. The divers put a light on the bottom of the ocean floor to attract plankton. Then we all came out of the water to wait for an hour or so until the sun went down. Once it was nightfall we all suited up, divers with flashlights sitting on the bottom shining thier lights up and snorkelers on the top shining thier lights down. Then they came, several huge manta rays, mouths wide open doing back flips and coming within inches of Sean and I. They just kept flipping around in the beams of light to catch as much plankton as they could. It was beautiful!! On a side note, it was a bit wavy out and towards the end of the whole adventure, we were all getting a little Sea Sick. On the way back to the boat, Sean decided to give a little of his own "chum" to the fish, if you know what I mean! All in all, it was a great time!! Above middle, we are on the North Shore in Hawaii. Above right, we are near an active volcano near Kona. Thanks a million to my little sis, Deanna and her husband Weston, who took such good care of our children while we were gone!!!

Sean and Michelle in Hawaii, October 8-14th

Here we are in Hawaii, just loving it, so beautiful!! This is the island of Oahu, near Waikiki Beach. We also went to The Big Island of Hawaii and visited Kona, where every year they have the best of the best come to compete in Ironman Kona. Above is a picture of me with the first two Ironman ever!! The one on the right came up with the idea with a couple of thier buddies to have this race to see which one was the best!! And one Saturday afternoon they set out to do it!! Pretty cool stuff. That's where Ironman got its start! Above right is a picture of Chrissie Wellington, the winner in the Women's Pro group. She beat the old record by 30 seconds. At any point in the race, she can always be seen with a smile on her face! It was amazing to be there just 6 feet from the finish line. The crowds were going crazy for her!

October General Conference

My wonderful friend from Canada came down to see us and go to conference. It was so nice to see her again. I haven't seen her since my wedding!! We served together for 5 months in Argentina. That is practically unheard of!! We got to be the best of friends and it doesn't matter how much time passes, we still feel just as close. She has a daughter, Emily, that is close to Savannah's age and an older son, Austin, who Zach enjoyed playing with. We took some time out to go see President and Sister Lunt. It was so nice to visit again. Lynette is great! I just love her!!

Fall practices and games

Our fall season has been filled with football games and soccer games. Literally every Saturday either Danielle has a soccer game or Zach has a football game or both. Zach has made a total of 3 touchdowns so far! He is so excited when he makes one! It is fun to see the sweet little grin on his face as his teammates congratulate him. Danielle keeps getting better and better at soccer. She is a defender and helps prevent the opposing team from making many goals. This is her second year playing soccer and she loves it. Gabby and Savannah are thinking about playing basketball in a month.

9-25-09, Savannah's Birthday

Yeah!! It's the day that Savannah has been looking forward to all year. As soon as one birthday goes by, she seems to start planning for the next one. This year she had several friends over. We made our own pizzas, made our own tie dye tee shirts (with permanent markers, that's the easy way to do it) and played many games. The girls even made up some dance routines and commercials, yes, commercials!! They all had so much fun!

Weston's Birthday

We had Deanna and Weston over for Weston's Birthday. We made him his favorite dinner, according to Deanna, philly cheesesteak sandwiches. We sure do love living close enough to them to see them quite often.

Back in the Saddle!!

After our last race in June, I took the summer off from training and that was a nice break, but it feels so good to start working out again. I biked 35 miles today up to the reservoir in Heber where I met Sean and a bunch of our Triathlon friend to swim in the reservoir. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out and the water was warm, but we still needed to use our wet suits. We had a great time with friends and got a good workout in, all while the kids were in school!!

Yes, yes, I still take first day of school pictures! Danielle left, however, before I could get her picture. I think the kids are happy that I don't follow them out to the bus stop anymore and take their picture as they are boarding the bus!! They are excited to go back and be with their friends again! I can still remember the days of feeling anxious and being excited to wear my funnest new outfit to school. It's lovely seeing our kids go through the same feelings of excitement!!

Our last big bash before Summer, Jake, and Aunt Shannie left. We went to Seven Peaks in Provo and spent the entire day there. We all had fun! It was great to be there with our cousins!! The day actually ended with Savannah and Jake getting very sick and throwing up. They laid in the shade on beach towels and took naps. I think Danielle and Summer actually got sick on the way home. At least the first part of the day everyone was healthy and played non stop. Despite that the kids still said it was one of their funnest days all summer long!!

This year Zach turned 8 and he wanted to have a football themed party. He invited a bunch of his football buddies and we had an afternoon of water fun!! We had a water slide, played duck duck dump, did water relay races, did an obstacle course that the girls all planned out, played steal the wet sponge. We had his party the day before school started. It was also Summer and Jake's last day here so it was fun to celebrate with them!