HALLOWEEN

Quinnelly started out "kick-in it old school, go-in as a ghost" but she couldn't breath underneath it and Aunt Gini quickly helped her turn the ghost into a modest Toga. Zane was Captain Rex from Starwars. They didn't trick or treat much. The cousins came over and they had a great time. It is turning into a fun tradition that they trick or treat together. I will be sad when they grow out of it. Q said this might be her last year. We had Kenzie-k over and she was a cutie patootie pink flamingo. Well she was sort of pink. Shauna forgot half of her stuff. We missed little Dix this year. I heard that he got stuffed into the crawfish thing again. Helen what the hay...? So it's almost time for turkey day. My favorite. YUMMMMY ! Peace out home skillet mother fry pan. That one is for my bro.

Busy Busy Busy!!!!

So school started for the kids and myself. Zane is in third grade this year and Q is 6th. Sixth grade at her school is middle school and is considered junior high. She is feeling like hot stuff being able to switch classes. Zane is doing well, he really likes his new teacher.

I'm teaching all ASL level one classes this year. Five sections of the same thing gets boring but I am really enjoying my students. I think it's going to be a great year.

As if I don't have enough to do with young women's and all, I have started graduate school at ASU this year. I am taking twelve credit hours. That's four classes. I know, I'm crazy. I can see that now that the semester has started. I should have started with baby steps. Because one of the first assignments from one of my classes is literally a thirty page paper I am seriously rethinking if I can do this or not. I graduated from ASU almost 11 years ago. I'm no good at writing that kind of stuff anymore. I have some great friends who can tell that I am in way over my head and brought some real food in to my poor little family.

That's what's going on in our neck of the woods and why my blog has been neglected for a while.

Bowling and Lunch

Wednesday the kids and I were bored so we went to lunch at Streamers and then went bowling. We are way to competitive. I don't have any idea where that comes from. I won the first game and Zane won the second game and Quinnelly was mad for the rest of the day because she got beat twice. She usually beats us all at everything. We need the Harpers to get back into town so the kids have something to do and I have someone to talk to.

Bowling shoes are cute. Can you tell who belongs to which foot?

My perfect form... ya right.

Zane was bowling with a huge 9 pounder. That's 1 pound 2 oz lighter that what he weighed when he was born. We had a good laugh about that.

Q wouldn't smile for the camera after she lost. She's so much like her dad! (hahahahahah)

The Apples Don't Fall far From the Tree!

We have a late start for church, 12:00, so the kids like to play games in the morning. Jeff is really good with them because most Sunday mornings for me are filled with meetings. So this is what I came home to on Sunday. The kids and Jeff in a heated game of Monopoly-Here and Now version. The CPA was giving them pointers on how to trade properties, and why you would want to get Camelback Mountain for LAX (airport) to make a monopoly. Before I knew it they had houses on their properties and the money was a fly-en! When I played monopoly as a kid we bought the properties, held on to them and went around the board until we were dizzy. No body ever won. Watch out, my kids know that they don't have to pay flat rate 2,000,000 income tax, they can figure out what 10% of their income is.

Q Turns the BIG 11!

Quinnelly turned eleven on Saturday the 12th of July. She was born around ten at night. She weighed 8 pounds 2 oz and was 21 inches long. She was really due on the 4th of July. We were going to name her Liberty if she came out then, just kidding she was always going to be our Quinnelly Rose.

She has been at BYU basketball camp with her friend Tylere Twitty for the last week. She flew up solo and stayed at Tylere's grandma's house with her. She had a great time and we are eternally grateful for the Twitty's for taking such great care of her. She flew home solo from Salt Lake on birthday.



After we picked her up from the airport we raced over to Grandma Jo's for her birthday party. It seems like every birthday party of hers with the exception of the two have been in her back yard. Here are some of the highlights:




It's hard to see but this is Q at the Sky Harbor Airport. We are picking her up and she is holding a Happy Birthday banner.




This is her pinata. It was really heavy. Grandma Jo always gets the perfect pinata. This one was really heavy. We couldn't hang it up without it breaking so we had another plan...




Pinata toss... youngest to oldest.




They all had to toss it back to Q.



BUSTED!!!!

Almost all the Cousins... missing, little Dix, Big Mac, Tate, Cort, and Danica.

My Favorite Book!!!!

The Twilight series of Books is my favorite!!! I have a mommy crush on Edward, the vampire,...no worries Jeff knows. But today is a happy day, the quote of the day for Breaking Dawn started. Go to www.stepheniemeyer.com and you can read the new one everyday until August 2nd when the new book comes out. This is today's ...

Breaking Dawn Quote of the Day:

Alice: "I'll play you for it. Rock, paper, scissors."
Edward: "Why you don't you just tell me who wins?"
Alice: "I do. Excellent."

I'm so excited... I wonder what it means..hmmmmm...

Take Me Out to the Ball Game...

Jeff and I went the Dbacks vs Padres game on Saturday with his boss Ken and his wife Liz. They are really fun but bad luck for the Dbacks. For some reason they said that every game that they go to they lose. Hmmm... That was the first game that we had been to since they went black and red. I like the colors. P.S. Liz and I found the BEST kettle corn at the game. I tried to take this picture of Jeff and I but it didn't work so well.

I asked a stranger danger to take this one. It looks better but she couldn't turn her body and get home plate in it, what a ding dong.


Liz and Ken suggested we try this little pizza place that they like called CIBO (chee-boe). He said it would be the best pizza we would ever have. Jeff is pretty good a his pizza tasting skills and after dinner he agreed with Ken that it was the best pizza he had ever had. I thought it was delicious. We had a pear and almond salad with honey that all four of us shared and two pizzas for dinner. For dessert they had crepes! My favorite! It was seriously like being back in France, they were that good. It was on the northeast corner of Filmore and 5th ave. in downtown Phoenix, so if you are there for a game try it out. We only waited about 20 minutes to get in. It was worth it. We had a great time.

Zane parked it at Rachel and Nathaniel's house. He got to play with Piper at the dog park. Then the cousins came over to watch a movie. Rachel made gourmet soup and for dessert, banana sorbet between coconut cookies. What a treat!

Your a Grand Old Flag...

After swimming at Rachel and Nathaniel's community pool we went to Grandma Sherry's and Grandpa Sterling's for a BBQ. We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. Grandma made her famous vanilla ice cream with a famous amos cookie on top. Even Papa liked the cookie. After dinner we had to get a picture of the kids. This was as still as we could get them to stand for twenty seconds. The only two that are missing are Makenzie, in Idaho visiting Grandma and Grandpa Evanson, and Little Dixon, aka peanut, who lives in Texas now. We always miss our cousins and family when they aren't with us on fun holidays.

This is Q posing in her Yankees hat that she ordered on ebay and got shipped here from South Korea. When she became a Yankees fan, I don't know, but I think she's a pretty cute gangsta.

Two of the five sista's being silly for the camera. Gini was the only one with make-up on, Rachel and I were fresh out of the pool.

It was a great day. We rode over to Rachel and Nathaniel's in the morning and met them at Joe's Farm House for Breakfast. Then spent some time seeing their new house. We had our little doggie with us. She rode in my basket. I looked like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, without the dress and tornado. Then we rode home and cleaned our house and got ready for the festivities at Grandma's.

Back From the Beach

We just got back on Saturday from a family vacation in California. It's a family tradition that we have with the Singleton's to go to Oceanside, California. We spend just about every day out on the beach. The kids get better and better at the boogie boards. This year was the best ever for waves and water. The ocean wasn't freezing like it usually is. One day we took the kids to Sea World with their cousins. They had a great time. Zane liked the sharks and Shamu. Quinnelly liked the Dolphins and the shows. We all liked sitting in the splash zones and getting drenched by fishy poo water. The week ended with a new tradition that started two years ago by Jeff's mom. The Amazing Singleton Race Part 2. Jeff and I and the kids won it two years ago(ya Spencer and Jenny we did) so we planned it this year. Friday we packed up the condos and everyone started out the race at our favorite Danish Bakery, at least we thought it was every one's favorite bakery. Lisa, Jeff's older sister, felt jipped because we didn't give her directions. Sorry Lisa, you get to go every, morning next summer to the bakery and pick up the cinnamon crispa's. We took them on a wild goose chase around San Diego. They went everywhere from La Jolla Cove, to Point Loma, to a Japanese Friendship Bell. It was a blast. The winners ended up being Spencer, Jenny and Annelise. But Nancy gets the effort prize for taking her five kids without any husband! We ate dinner that night at the Hard Rock in La Jolla gave some silly prizes. We love our family vacations. We really missed not having Rob, Amy, Court, Tate and Danica there. Hopefully they will be able to come next year. Thanks for the memories guys. We had the best time and we think we have the best family around!

Cami You're AMAZING!!!!!

Seriously CAM!!! I haven't checked my own blog for a week and I come back and it looks spectacular! I love your guts girl! Thanks for making us look so good. I couldn't figure out how to send a family pic via email. I have one on a dvd. You are going to have to mosey on over and help me. I'm a royal ding dong when it comes to this computer stuff. Thanks a million. You're the bomb!!!

Back from Europe!

Jeff and I just got back from a fourteen day trip to Europe. We started in London, England, then went under the English Channel to Paris, France after which we saw some of the French countryside, we ended up in Barcelona, Spain. The kids had some grandma and grandpa time. We are totally grateful for their help. We wouldn't have been able to go without knowing our kids would be taken care of. Thanks to Spencer, Jenny and Annelise for watching our puppy! You guys are the best.

Computer Challenged

It doesn't look like the pictures are going to happen for now. I can't figure out how to set up the "new" computer. It would have to go in our bedroom and we don't have a computer hook in there. We have a wireless router but I don't think it will work with out the antenna. I wish I were more technologically able to take care of myself. I am going to find some old pictures on a disk and try to up load them from that and see if that works.

Q hung out with her friends today. Yesterday she went to the lake with her cousins. They went fishing and she caught a blue gill.

Z came with Jeff and I to the movies. We went and saw Iron Man. We give it an A-. The minus is for some stuff at the beginning. Other than that it was really good.

We had a great Memorial Day. We did the traditional cemetery cleaning of the headstones of our relatives. All of the kids came. This is a great tradition of service that the kids are learning. Uncle Boe and Grandma got eaten by some black ants but other than that we had a great time.

Inadequate...

So... I have been browsing other blogs and I feel inadequate. The computer I have is the one that Jeff and I both used when we were working on our undergraduate degrees from ASU thirteen years ago. It won't upload pictures from Quinnelly's (ya that's right, our daughter has a digital camera and we don't) camera. We are living in the stone ages of technology at our house. My friend Kim gave us her old Mac computer but Jeff thinks this one is fine, but Quinnelly and I are going to secretly put the other one up next week when Jeff is out of town. If it works we might have a picture next week. If not you will know our mission was foiled.

School's out for the summer!!!! I always loved that song and it has special meaning if you're a teacher. The kids and are jumping for joy because school is out. I finished packing up my classroom today and Q watched her niece Annelise while Jenny and Spencer finished up their school stuff too. Zane is already running around in his swim suit. That's what he'll be wearing for the next ten weeks.

Gilbert High School graduation was insane yesterday. They had told us that if it was raining that it was going to be inside. At the last minute our principal decided to go ahead with graduation outside because the graduates and the parents wanted it in Tiger Stadium. It was FREEZING! We were all soaked but the graduates were happy. So GHS graduation commencement number 91 was a success even though for the first time in 48 years it rained.

This is the first official blog. I felt it would be appropriate on the first day of summer vacation to start being a bloggin mama. I guess I'm in the club now.