Halloween

Our carving of the pumpkins...all pumpkins were from our own garden this year!!
































Our family has a vampire...
Our very own pirate...





















This is princess Jasmine








Natalie as a fairy princess (but if you ask her you might get the answer that she is Ariel and Dora)





The family. We love to dress up

















The s haul

Before we leave this area we are trying to enjoy some different activities around here. Darren and the s, surprised me with a night for the family at a treehouse hotel and this was our wonderful room(or should I say rooms since it was more than 1 level)
He did not get the rooms that were up about 40 feet Thank goodness!
We had a great time and enjoyed doing something different.


Do you see how high we are? That's a two story cabin below the walkway. I understand why Darren wanted to surprise me with this trip--I'm afraid of heights.

On a tree house bridge. No one had problems with this except me!




















Katelyn enjoying the small zip line














Ok so one of the activities you could do were big zip lines. So... Darren bought the cheapest ride called the Tarzan swing. Taylor had begged me to go first. I said no problem, you and Hannah can go and Then it would be my turn. This folks turned out to be NO zip line. It is a swing. Not just any swing! Darren was going to save money and not go but I made Darren go on this (after my own ride) just so he would have the same experience!!
This is how they haul you up there...
You are hooked up to the bottom of a rope with zip line gear(the rope hangs between two trees from a wire) hanging onto a separte rope (which turns out to be a water ski rope), they have it rigged to the golf cart (lower right corner) and he drives forward till you reach the designated top. This happens to be higher than the rope you are on(I didn't get this until I was dropping 20 feet!!!) You let go of the water ski rope and drop until you get swung forward and drop and swing until you just swing. It wasn't until I had my ride that I understand why you hear no yell until a person has come down half way--it takes your breath away. I found out that it is 55 ft. up. It was so scary coming down and it doesn't look so scary just watching! I freaked out later that night as I cried and laughed with Darren as to how I could let my children do this--Lets just say that they wouldn't have experienced it had I gone first!!!
There is a spec of blue in the middle tree--that's Taylor






Taylor's first swing





















can you see Hannah?




Hannah's second swing--I was so proud of her and Taylor, especially after doing it myself.





I let my babies do this!!! This is Darren(I was the photographer and the photos they got of me were not worth printing) Although video is available :)

























My favorite shot of Darren on the Tarzan swing
























The s saying good-bye in their groovy hats

Happy Birthday Nama!

Hi Mom! This is our Happy Birthday card to you & we hope you like it! We wanted to send you something that you'd like that was hand crafted from the girls. These first two videos are from Natalie & Katelyn.

Now, you'll need to visit this blog in order to view the videos b/c we can't send them to you. (We plan to keep each video posted for about 1 week.)

Any questions?? just let us know.

Also - did you know you can post comments onto the blog? Tricia can explain & teach you how.
Again, Happy Birthday! We are looking forward to seeing you at Thanksgiving here in OR!

Love, Darren Tricia & the girls

wedding=Party!

This is confusing--do I write or post photos first? I can't get the writing to match up with the photos. however, I am determined to get some photos of my sister JJ's wedding to Zach(and Alex his son) It was a great weekend party at the Newell's! It was wonderful to meet Zach's family and to see so many friends and of course our awesome family that always supports us!!! Even aunt Dixie who has been very sick suprised us by showing up!(well it was supposed to be a suprise-way to go steve :) I must admit that it was a bit stressful as I made the wedding cake for them and it was a first. It wasn't perfect but it was gone so I was glad people enjoyed it. Now I will post more photos and I don't know where they will turn up.

Summer

This Labor Day it was PERFECT at the coast! Here we are enjoying the coast.

Next some friends helping Taylor look like a mermaid--Ben and Natalie were all covered up at one time.

In preparation for our aunt jj's wedding, the s dressedup and played wedding when some friends came over.

Natalie was up to her regular activity--getting into things.

Darren's new employer had a great employee picnic. They had booths that the s won these wonderful hats at(of course you can't have just one but each child must keep their own!)

camping

Although we didn't spend all of our time in the sand, we spent a lot of our time there and here are some shots of hiking up dinasaur. We had quite the group of kids and they were just great. I think that is one of the best things about camping--freedom!!! I remember it as a kid and I watch my kids as they relish their freedom and move around in packs or in twos as they play.

This is one of my favorite shots as Taylor carries Ben after the long hike .
The group at the top. What a view--that is the ocean.
Hannah and Emily showing off their splits in the sand
first hill to the top
Natalie, Tyler(screaming) and Aunt Jen at the fireside
playing in the road is so much fun