Halloween 10

                                                         Our little Candy Corn Witch

                                                        with her Candy Corn fingernails

                                              

Butterfly turned Fairy

(the costume was the same)

He didn't dress up, but he did carve a pumpkin with heart eyes!

Goodbye for Now

My sweet Grandma passed away yesterday.  When I got the news I had a good long cry, talked with my husband and my sister, and spent the rest of the evening thinking about all the good times I shared with her.
She was such a good woman and I learned so many things from her simply by observing how she lived her life. 
She had been deteriorating slowly over the past few years and it was sad to see her lose her memories and her independence.  But I will never forget the last time I saw her.  In July we were on our way to Utah.  We stopped in Ontario to visit with Grandma at her nursing home.  When we walked in, she got the biggest smile on her face and she didn't stop smiling the whole time we were there.  Sure, she asked the the same questions over and over, and she didn't call us by name.  But she knew we were family and that we loved her.  And we felt her love for us.  It was a very sweet visit and I'm so grateful that is my last memory of her.  Goodbye for now Grandma.  I love you so much and can't wait to see you again.

Kentucky Falls

These are some pictures of our day hike to Kentucky Falls with the Schultz cousins

We started out with a little lunch in the parking lot

Posing for a picture before hitting the trail

Cousins

Amanda taking a rest on the mossy rock

Cute Emma

JJ and Montana exploring the bottom of the waterfall

Sisters

Grandma and Grandpa

Montana took this picture of the tall trees

Picture of the Falls from the trail

Random

Just a few snapshots of what we've been up to lately...

Celebrating birthdays...

Shelter Care--We had this little cutie for a month

We actually had a sunny weekend in May! 

Hank took Reed to a football combine and the girls and I headed to the coast.

SB 2010: Puerto Vallarta

I think it's about time I finished up the recap of Spring Break 2010, since it's now almost Summer Break 2010...

Our last port was Puerto Vallarta. We took the city bus to a beach where we knew there would be parasailing, since some of the braver members of our family wanted to try it.

Reed was the first to go. Here he is receiving his pre-flight instructions.

JJ really wanted to do it, but when she got all hooked up, she looked a little unsure about the whole thing. But she insisted on going ahead with it.

And she loved it!

Here she is pulling on the strings in order to make the parasail go in the right direction

Here is Reed enjoying his ride

Hank got a little carried away with swinging his legs around

and he kind of fell out of his seat.

He ended up "hanging" instead of sitting for his ride.

Then we were off on our next adventure.

We took the bus to Playa Mismaloya

for some swimming and snorkeling.

We got off the bus and then walked down

this little alley all the way down to the beach

We met this little boy "Lafa"

He was 4 years old and was hanging out at the beach

while his dad was off selling things.

He hung out with us for quite a while.

He didn't speak any English,

but Hank was able

to communicate with him in Spanish.

He was a friendly little guy.

We never did meet his Dad and thought it was

kind of strange for him to be on the beach

without any supervision...

The girls sharing a limeade

This little girl LOVES being in the water and hardly ever came out!

Here we are waiting for the bus to pick us up

and take us back to the pier.

Reed on the bus

SB 2010: Mazatlan

Our second day in Port was Mazatlan.

We took a water taxi to Isla de Piedra (Stone Island)

It was just our family and a bunch of locals on the water taxi.

Most of the tourists get to Stone Island by the

excursion boats. They bring loads of people there to snorkel

and then take them back to the marina.

JJ was brave enough to pose with these iguanas.

You couldn't have paid me to do this.

Gives me the willies just looking at them.

Montana got her hair braided by a nice Mexican lady on the beach

The beaches in Mazatlan were our favorite

sandy not rocky

We swam, body surfed, and snorkeled

By mid afternoon Reed had enough sun and

wanted to head back to the ship before the rest of us.

He took the water taxi back from Stone Island.

I think he was pretty pleased that he found the way by himself.

He missed out on the cab ride to the marina/plaza though.

He had to walk through town

because he didn't have any money with him.

The Salvation Army was outside singing to the passengers

as we boarded the ship after our day in Mazatlan.

The children hold buckets out to gather donations.

SB 2010--Cabo San Lucas

The kids waiting for Dad to exchange our American dollars for Pesos. 

We had fun swimming and snorkeling in Cabo.  Rather than taking the expensive excursions the cruiseline offers, we like to venture out on our own.  We took the public transportation (subercabo) to a more remote beach called Chileno Beach.  It wasn't crowded with tourists and there were no vendors coming by every few minutes to sell you their varied necklaces, baskets, dresses, purses, tatoos, bracelets, chimes, sculptures, etc.

We had an interesting experience after our day at Chileno beach.  We sat out by the highway waiting and waiting for the bus to take us back into town. The subercabo was supposed to come by every 20 minutes throughout the day.  It goes back and forth on the highway all day between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo.  According to everything we read, we were supposed to sit out by the highway and just flag the bus down when it came by.  But it never came.  We waited and waited.  We started getting a little nervous about getting back to the pier in time to get back on the ship. After sitting there for about 45 minutes, we decided to have a prayer.  Shortly afterwards, a car stopped.  Hank went and talked to the nice young couple who had just arrived at Chileno beach to spend the rest of the afternoon. They asked what we were doing and then offered to give us a ride back into town, which was about a 20 minute drive.  They had a little car, but said we could all fit in.  Hank and Reed each held one of the girls on their lap and I sat in the middle.  They dropped us off a few blocks from the harbor and we made it back just in time.  Hank tried to pay them for their trouble, but they absolutely refused to accept any money.  They just wanted to help us out.  We were so thankful and couldn't belive they would go so far out of their way to help strangers.

Off

Hooray

Birthday Girl

Wearing the birthday girl badge

Sisters

Getting her ears pierced

The requested "Peace Sign" cake

Eating pizza and cake/ice cream before SPLASH

Opening presents

(pardon the posers)

Valentines 2010

Thanks, Margaret, for sharing this idea on your blog.

Valentines done.

Phew.