Emma was so excited about her birthday this year. She had a countdown chain for the whole month and faithfully cut a link off each day. Neil thought it was really cool that she was turning 10 on 10-20-2010. That doesn't happen every year. She picked a butterfly cake. I think it turned out pretty good, at least for my cake decorating skills. She was happy with it anyway. She wanted lasagna and rolls for dinner. We had Martha out to our house for dinner and cake. It was a fun evening. Neil and the girls had Young Women's activities so we had Emma, Romney and Linda over for cake in the evening. Emma was so excited to get some more Let Pet Shop things. She sure enjoys playing with those right now.
Emma, you are such a special young lady. Thank you for sharing your bright smile and fun personality with us. You keep us hopping with your enthusiasm and spirit. We love you and are grateful for your presence in our family. Hope you have a wonderful year. Love, Mom and Dad
Lest you think that our whole life is Joshua oriented we decided to make a post strictly about Matthew playing flag football. He would have liked to play tackle, but he was a peacemaker and listened to Mom's wishes. I really wanted him to play flag one more year. Tackle involved more money, and travel. Flag was right here in Powell and didn't last as long. Last year, Matthew's team didn't win a single game. This year his team went undefeated. He played on the Colts team this year. It took a few games for either offense to get a score, but the defenses did well at scoring off of interceptions for both teams. He got some really good blocks in. We had nice weather for every game. It was fun to watch him play. Good job, Matthew!!!
Joshua absolutely loves to play ball. He has a pretty good arm. He definitely doesn't throw like a girl. He will throw anything and everything. He will keep throwing over and over and never seems to tire of it. Someone forgot to tell him that he isn't supposed to be an athlete. Tonight at Matthew's football game he kept throwing a rock over and over. The other night he was throwing the balls so cute that we decided to record him. We hope you enjoy watching him.
We really enjoyed going to Dubuque, Iowa to see Aunt Janet and Uncle Paul. They were very good to us. Our children like to talk about how they let them eat ice cream at 11:00 pm after watching the fireworks. We went to church with them on Sunday. We thought about not going to their house since Aunt Janet was just getting out of the hospital. She called and talked us into coming. We were glad we did because we really enjoyed seeing them.
After Iowa, we drove across part of Wisconsin and into Minnesota. We went to see the St. Paul, Minnesota temple on Sunday afternoon. It was such a beautiful temple. We camped out at Lake Elmo State Park. It had an amazing pond that we loved playing in. It was 2 acres, it had a nice sandy beach and was not too deep. It was like a swimming pool, but sandy. I think the children would have spent the whole day there, but we went on to the Mall of America. When Rebecca was in 6th grade she really wanted to go to the Mall of America, but we didn't make it then. Now it wasn't so much of a big deal to her, but we were close that we decided to go. It was amazing everything they had in the Mall. Matthew, Emma and David rode the log chute in the Amusement park. It was neat to see all the things built from Legos in LegoLand.
We spent a second night in Minnesota. We camped at Alexandria. The campground had a shooting range. The mosquitoes were really bad that night. I was glad we had a trailer to sleep in so we didn't get eaten.
The next day we drove to North Dakota. We stopped and saw the Bismarck temple. It was a beautiful temple. While we were there we told our children the news that we were going to have another baby. It was a neat place to share that with them.
We stopped and camped our last night in Montana. The children and Neil went swimming. It was kind of cool so Joshua and I didn't get in.
While driving home we saw the Teddy Roosevelt State Park in Montana. I didn't even know there was such a place. It had some pretty landscapes, but we didn't stop to see it.
We were glad to finally get home after 13 days and 3400 miles. It was a bigger and longer vacation than we had ever tried before. We had a great time together and shared many good memories.
We loved our time in Nauvoo!! We enjoyed all the shows, the carriage and wagon rides, the ox cart ride, and the visitors center. The weather was perfect the whole time we were there. About 80 degrees each day. We loved walking the Trail of Hope. President Hinckley encouraged the members to do this when they went to Nauvoo. Reading the plaques was very inspiring. Putting our feet in the Mississippi River was fun. We watched Vocal Point each night. Matthew loved them, especially the song "Thriller". Going to the temple was a spiritual experience for the girls and us. It was amazing to hear the stories of what the Saints left behind. The view of the Temple on the hill as the Saints crossed the Mississippi was inspiring. Nauvoo was an amazing experience for out family.
Life has been so busy lately!! We have been switching computers and I can't get to my pictures to update my blog. Soon I hope to update with pictures.
Matthew is working on his reptile study merit badge. He started out with a lizard that made it as far as Nauvoo on our trip. The lizard got left outside one night and a visitor in the night either had him for dinner or set him free. Now he has two snakes that he has to keep for a month. Last week one of the snakes unexpectedly (at least for us) had 11 babies. You should have seen the aquarium we are keeping them in just crawling with snakes!! It was pretty interesting. I was going to post a picture, but Matthew let the babies go out in the garden while I was gone to Nebraska. I only hope the garden is far enough from the house that they won't try and make their way back inside.
We went to church in Nebraska City and then started our drive to Missouri. We sat in the back in our own row since we didn't have water to shower that morning and we probably didn't smell the best. We loved seeing the church history sites in Missouri. We went to Adam-Ondi-Ahman first. It was beautiful!! It was very peaceful. We also went to the temple site at Far West, Liberty Jail, and the Visitors Center at Independance. They were each a neat experience. The children loved the Visitors Center and all the activities there were to do there. We enjoyed listening to the sister missionaries sing at the Christus statue. We camped not too far from Independance. We made a quick stop in Kansas just to say that Neil had been there.
Monday morning we started the drive to St. Louis. We had to get there on time because the girls had tickets to see Wicked that night. They were so excited!! We had an unexpected stop in Boonville when one of the tires on our trailer blew out. We changed it on the freeway shoulder and then stopped in Boonville to buy new tires. We played at a park for and hour or so. Four tires later we hit the road again. We made it to St. Louis in plenty of time for the show. We drove around for awhile to see the sites. We saw the Arch, the Cardinals stadium, the Ram's stadium, and lots of neat things. David kept asking us why they had peeled bananas on their street signs. It was funny to hear how he perceived it. The girls loved St. Louis!! I think they are planning to live there when they grow up. I am not sure that is a good thing. The girls loved Wicked. It was an amazing experience for them. We took the other children swimming at the RV park while they were gone to Wicked. It was interesting to camp in downtown St. Louis. The RV park was a huge parking lot. There wasn't any grass, but there was a swimming pool and nice showers.
Tuesday we spent site seeing in St. Louis. We really enjoyed Grant's Farm. It is the farm that Ulysses S. Grant and his wife farmed. It had a neat train that took you around to see the sites. It also had animal shows. Everything except parking was free so that was really nice for us. We also went to Forest Park. There is so much to do there. It was built for the World Fair in 1904. There are museums, a zoo, and a theater just to mention a few things. We went to the History Museum in the morning. There was so much to see and do there. We enjoyed learning about Charles Linbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis. Later on the older girls went to the Art Museum and we took the younger children to the St. Louis Science Center. It was a wonderful experience. That night we tried to get free tickets to Beauty and the Beast. Only some of us got in so we let Rebecca, Bethany, Julia and Emma stay. The rest of us went and fed the fish in the ponds. It was neat because there were turtles also. We saw a huge one that was probably as big as Matthew. We named him Goliath. We also took the children swimming again for a little while. The children couldn't get enough of swimming or eating at Hardee's. The boys looked for Hardee's every where we went. We also went to see the St. Louis temple. It is absolutely beautiful!! It was an amazing experience.
One of the things the children loved most about Missouri was the fireflies. It was the first time any of us had seen them. They were fascinating!! It was fun to watch them and to try and catch them. We had a wonderful time in Missouri, but I am not sure I want my children to live there when they grow up!!!
