So, Halloween was almost a month ago..... have I mentioned the whole slacker thing? I have good reason. That's the next post. Check back in a few days.
We went to the Smith's slamma-fabulous Halloween party, which has been discussed much and much better in the blog-world I exist in, so my only contribution is this photo, which isn't as good as some of the others posted. But for those that don't read all the blogs that have already discussed this, Aaron and I went as garden gnomes. I was pretty proud of how Aaron turned out, considering that I am hanging on to my non-crafty status... we tied for best couple and lost in the dance-off to a couple of mimes. My consolation is that the Anways were great mimes who can really bust a move!
For our ward Halloween party, I begged off on dressing up. We were ALL going to be an 80's rock band, but I had been running around trying to get costumes for the kids and didn't find anything adequate for Aaron and I. We didn't feel like getting all spray painted and face-whited so we went as the long-suffering parents of an 80's rock band. Here's Ira.... I was thinking Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi (of course) but he got more comments of "Alright, Ozzy!!" from the ward. Whatever. Both 80's.
Tommy would have been the PERFECT Billy Idol, but he wanted colored hair. He was VERY excited about this costume! It is amazing how HIGH I can get their hair to spike.
Okay, so Clayton.... poor dear, sweet Clayton. This is the 2nd year in a row that he has been super excited about dressing up and doing makeup..... until he sees himself in the mirror. Black eyeliner.... NOT for Clayton. He took one look in the mirror and started freaking out. The good thing for Mom who likes to torture her children for coolness' sake (or that we had like 30 seconds before we had to leave when he had this fit, you decide) , is that the more he smeared it and cried, the more he looked like a rock star. He went from a Billy Idol type to more of the Oingo-Boingo "Dead Man's Party" type. Don't worry, he was only unhappy until we got to the party and he got to walk around with a cupcake in each hand :-)
Then we have Joy. Originally she was gonna be my Cyndi Lauper--- BUT, Cyndi had purple and orange hair, shaved in a checkerboard on one side. I'd forgotten that. So Joy is an indeterminate 80's punk rocker lady-slash-Madonna-slash-Jem-conglomerate. She looked stylin with the pink hair, extreme eyes, bracelets galore, fingerless gloves, plaid shorts and skull tights, with tall rainbow lookin socks and Converse.
The kids' cousins, Ella, Bree, and Owen, (and Nathan and Tiff too) came with us to our ward party, and all the kids went trick-or-treating in Grandma and Grandpa Williamses 'hood on Saturday as well. Ella was a snow leopard, Bree was a Chihuahua, and Owen was a monkey. Tiffany can actually sew, so these costumes were first-rate and top-notch and more involved than eyeliner and ripping jeans :-) Anyway, we had a blast and I think we set ourselves up to have to top it next year. The kids are BEGGING not to have to be an entire family of garden gnomes :-)
Okay, so I LOVE this picture!!! A bunch of the little boys were attempting to play horseshoes. Brother Beals was over there helping them. I glanced over and saw him showing Clayton how to throw and all that, and I was just enthralled with the way he was interacting with my little Bug. Clayton really took to him and I had Aaron take this shot-- it seemed like we were capturing a special moment. Brother Beals is like the Kid Whisperer.....
Heh. THIS is "Marshall Lake"--- or "all Marsh Lake" or "it rained a little and flooded our field"--- yeah, you can't fish here. Seriously, a hole the size of our van. It's pretty funny that we packed our fishing gear for this. :-) Luckily, we were actually just up the road from Upper (and Lower!) Lake Mary. So, we packed back up and headed there.
Another picture that I love. Zona was not too keen on being in the van on the way up, because we gave her the whole back of the van, but she was by herself so she was saaaaaad. (and I had to physically Leannhandle her into the van) On the way back, we let her sit with the kids, and she jumped up there all by herself and posed for the BEST picture she has ever taken. Everyone is so durn happy in this shot, I just love it!!
As I said, we packed up and headed to Upper Lake Mary. We were gonna eat and then go down and let the kids fish for a while. While we were eating, all of the sudden there was this HUGE storm, complete with hail that grew in size from BB size to almost marble size!! Most of what I took was video, which of course won't upload GRRRRRR, but here's a picture of the rocks right outside the ramada where we (and every motorcycle and bicycle rider who scampered to the area when the storm hit) were sheltered. Totally looks like snow. It was crazy--but, it DOES always have to rain when we camp, so at least it was after we had broken camp this time instead of while we were setting up our tents. 
Here's the birthday boy, posing with his handiwork (he got to place all the animals). (PS the green stuff is bushes made from frosting, not snakes. Clayton was very clear on that). 
One of Clayton's presents was a lizard that Tommy gave him. Clayton LOVED his lizard, and I love this picture of him holding his lizard up for the camera.
Here's Tommy!! Kindergarten! Such a handsome guy!
Joy, looking beautiful and very excited to be starting 2nd grade
One of the things I saw on this channel (38-03 for those poor folk like us)-- was the video for "We Are The World"--- wow. It transported me back to when I was a kid, and I really BELIEVED that we could make the world a better place, just you and me.... I can still recognize just about everyone who sings on the song, by their voice, and I recognized everyone in the video. Even that cute guy with the sparkly jacket and the sparkly glove, who looked so, well.... normal compared to the freak show MJ of late. I mean, Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, one of my favorites Cyndi Lauper, Bette Midler for Pete's sake, Ray Charles, the guy from Journey, Huey Lewis, Stevie Wonder, Kenny Loggins there were like 50 people at least....... the song is ever so cheesy and they had to repeat the chorus about 70 times so everyone could get their little solo in, but it took me right back to singing at the top of my lungs and that idealism that I used to have about the world. So thanks, channel 38-03, for reminding me that yeah, we are STILL the world....
Our beautiful children posing in front of the beautiful Grand Canyon. I'm so glad we got to take this trip and that our kids got to see this wonder of Heavenly Father's creation! 
"Don't touch"-- yeah, right. 
Hey, I look almost thin in this photo! (Well, thin for me....) Anyway, again, our family and the Grand Canyon. The kids were so good on this trip!! A really nice elderly gentleman offered to take this picture for us. It took a few tries. First Dad had no head, then we were missing Clayton off the bottom--- but then we got this shot and it was great! Our kids were very popular--people love that blond hair and blue eyed thing. Of course, I can't blame them :-)
Here is our campsite. I have to say, I didn't do a single durn thing to help set it up. I was busy trying to regain my senses by laying down in the van after having a bit of an episode at the end of our walk around the Canyon. Not LITERALLY around the Canyon, that's a couple hundred miles... just around the little piece of the Grand Canyon that we traveled by foot. At any rate, the kids helped Dad set up camp. They were such troopers!!! Ira really cowboyed up on this trip, he was Dad's right hand guy and working really hard. I was grateful that the kids helped Aaron out, because I was out of commission. 
So there are just a few pictures. . . I'm glad we went, and I'm glad that we were able to at least do our camping and have our fire and marshmallows and all that good stuff. Our trip was cut short by me being sick, but the weather was wonderful, the Grand Canyon was beautiful, the campsite was nice, the kids were great, and we made some good memories. We took nothing but photographs, but I have to say that we left more than footprints-- I think I left a little stomach lining there by our campsite (sorry. That's gross. But ya'll know I'm totally inappropriate so I'm leaving it in.) :-) 
