Halloweens Past

Here are a few pictures from past Halloweens.

Maya as a lady bug

Maya's first Halloween

Shayne as a bee

Shayne's first Halloween

Happy Birthday Alison!

Today is my sister's birthday. Well, yesterday was, but I wrote most of this yesterday. As many of you know, she is less than 2 years younger than me. Here is one of my favorite pictures of her, 2 summers ago, showing Maya how to fly a kite. The other is a cute baby picture of her (I was waiting to get that scanned...) Anyway, happy birthday Alison!

Baseball

Shayne has been playing baseball for about a month now. It has been a lot of fun watching him and his teammates learn the basics of baseball...and I really mean "basics". Last Saturday it was a little hot out during their game and he walked out to the plate like a sloth. We talked to him a little about "hustle" and he seemed to have a little bit better sense of urgency at his practice Wednesday night. He does pretty well hitting the ball. It's coach pitch, so that helps. Anyway, here are a few pictures.

One of My Favorite Republicans

Many of you probably already know this, but one of my favorite Republicans, Colin Powell, endorsed Obama this morning on Meet the Press. I have always appreciated Powell's intelligent, common-sense approach to things. During the pre-war years, I thought that we would certainly see him make his own run for the White House. I think he would have made a good President. I don't have video of the endorsement itself, but here is the press conference that took place this morning. He has some interesting things to say, most of which I agree with.

The Lighter Side of the Election Season

If you have been following the race much, these clips of McCain and Obama at a charity dinner are light-hearted and funny, a breath of fresh air from what we have been seeing the past few weeks. I think they are each about 10 minutes long, but if you have a few minutes to spare, it is nice to see their lighter sides.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6054516

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6054486

Back at Work

We had a wonderful two weeks off and Shayne and I are now back to the grindstone. Maya had a few days off from preschool, although it isn't too taxing to go 3 afternoons a week. Rick didn't really have much of a break. So we're back to "normal" if there is such a thing.

Camping in Payson

Yesterday we decided to go up to Payson to camp for the night. We like to go to a small, quiet campground about 10 miles past Payson, which takes about an hour and 20 minutes or so for us to get to. The drive up is beautiful with tons of saguaros and mesquite trees decorating the landscape. The scenery soon changes to mountains thickly forested with tall pine trees. It was a little chilly at night, but we had a great time!

Shayne making a "torch"

Maya was very excited to use the marshmallow roasting stick that she found.

She roasted a lot of marshmallows...

Enjoying the fire

Keeping warm with Dad

On the way back home we found a fun park to play at.

I think this was her first time on a tire swing.

They also had a really tall slide.

October at the Zoo

It has finally cooled off a bit (at least in the mornings), so we went to the zoo yesterday. We had a great time. We saw a bunch of the animals and many of them were active. Shayne rode a camel, which was his first experience riding an animal of any kind. Maya was going to get on also, but changed her mind right when she was supposed to get on. Shayne loved it.
No fits or meltdowns and everyone walked by themselves, almost the whole time. Maya took a short break on Rick's shoulders. She was a trooper though! We had a lot of fun.

Box

Still the best toy...