Jungle Jim's

Ryan's best buddy Curen turned 5 this month. We attended his birthday party at Jungle Jim's. They all had a really great time.
Happy Birthday Curen!

Trick or Treating

I wanted to take the boys around trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood. They were pretty excited to dress up and go get a bunch of candy. I was excited for it also. So Evan dressed up as Batman. He loves this costume. It is a little bit big on him but that almost makes it even cuter. I never put the mask down over his face because he likes the cape and doesn't mind the hat affect but doesn't like it over his eyes.

Ryan dressed up as Spider Man. The costume doesn't look great with clothes on underneath but even with the unseasonably warm weather, he needed more that that flimsy little cloth to keep him warm after dark. He didn't mind the bulges anyway and was stoked to go trick-or-treating with Evan and me.

Bat Man and Spider Man getting hyped to go trick-or-treating with Mommy.

My Clown costume. I wasn't totally in to dressing up this year but needed to for work and this was the costume that worked for that occasion. So, I wore it again on actual Halloween night. Ryan really wanted me to dress up so I didn't disappoint.

Getting ready to go out trick-or-treating. We left when it was still light out so that we could be back before it got too dark and cold. Unfortunately, those people who live in our neighborhood with small children did not do the same. Either they didn't go at all or they went out much later than we did. We were pretty much the only ones out trick-or-treating. We also found several doors unoccupied. This neighborhood can be so lame! I really wish that we had some friends go with us but we had fun all by ourselves.

All ready to go!

So we were out for about an hour and a half. I wasn't exactly sure of what route to take. I would have done it differently if I could do it again. Maybe gone a different direction. We live in the middle of suburbia and there are TONS of houses and lots of streets. I could pretty much go right, left, up, down, or straight and take a totally different route. Anyway, the kids were tired and cold so we came home.

We only had about 10 kids come to our door so between what we bought thinking that we'd have tons of trick-or-treaters, and what the boys got on our own adventure, there was enough candy to make us sick for the entire week!

The boys had a great time and enjoyed the candy, the dressing up, and the walking around very much. I'm glad they were able to enjoy their Holiday and I wonder if this will be the first one that Ryan really remembers well.

So much candy, so little time!

The costumes they didn't wear

This cute little costume/ flower shop near us was going out of business in the spring. She was selling all of her costumes for a really low price. So, I had some extra cash and I thought I'd go check out what they had. I was really looking for super-hero costumes for dress-up. They didn't have much but they did have a whole bunch of Scooby Doo costumes. So, I got one for each of us thinking that we'd all match. The only thing was, they didn't have one in Evan's size. As many of you may have experienced, shopping with children is less than easy sometimes. Ryan was throwing a fit and Evan wouldn't stay by my side. I was very frazzled and wanting to hurry up and get outta there. So, I quickly grabbed what I thought were some really great costumes. I got a Daphne for me, a Shaggy for Colin, and a Freddy for Ryan. I also got Ryan a Batman for play and I got Evan a cute little Frankenstein.

I get home that night and try on the Daphne. I discover that the 8-10 is actually a child's 8-10 and there is no way it is made for a woman my size. CRAP! And, the Shaggy I bought for Colin is a Medium. Not exactly going to fit his 6'3" 215 frame. CRAP! The Batman is just right for Ryan and he dresses up with it all the time. The Frankenstein is way too big for Evan but may fit come Halloween.

Fast forward several months to Halloween. The Frankenstein is still way too big for Evan. However, they did have a Scooby Doo at the "Only Store I'm allowed to Shop at" so I did pick it up for him. They also had a Spiderman for our Spidey obsessed four-year-old at said store.
And, although Colin and I can't go along with the Scooby theme, Ryan and Evan could if they wanted to. They did not. But they did love their Super-Hero costumes. We dressed up in these on Halloween day when I refused to let them get their costumes dirty one more time.
So here is Ryan as Freddy and Evan as Scooby Doo. Pretty darn cute if you ask me.

Another reason E didn't wear the Scooby was that he couldn't stand the hat for more than 5 minutes at a time .

Halloween at Colin's work

The kids and I really enjoy the annual trick-or-treating tradition up at Goldman Sachs. I look forward to marching the kids around the office while looking at all of the other kiddies and their cute little costumes. This year the employees were quite into it as well which made it all the more fun. Ryan, I mean Spider Man, heading into the building.

Batman follows closely behind.

Colin's teaching Batman how the whole trick-or-treating thing works. He's really excited about the candy but doesn't quite understand the reason for the bag.

The technology department turned their section of the office into the Chocolate Factory. They all dressed up like umpa-loompas and had a little "factory" assembly line going for chocolate covered marshmallows.

Amazing how much effort they went to in decorating their office.

Colin decided it was best to enjoy this treat while sitting down, and I took advantage of the photo-op.

Some dead guys at Goldman.

Ryan and Evan getting the hang of the trick-or-treating.

Evan enjoying a sucker.

Drool down to his belly button. Sticky- sticky mess

one shoe!

Love this shot of Ryan. He wore his mask the entire car ride from Riverton to SLC. (about 45 minutes). By the time we were half-way into the trick-or-treating, he'd had enough of it.

Looking for a good piece of candy.

Ah! This one will work! Kit Kat

my little super-heroes

I think they were a bit tired by the time we were done- no naps unfortunately!

Halloween at Work

This is my class on Halloween.

This is my class with me- on Halloween.

Two bugs, a rocker, and a blind referee

The view down the hallway

This is my class lined up to see the parade. They are so happy to be out of class!

Another view of my class- Dead bride "in character" in every photo

Mrs. McDonald and her class all lined up for the parade- she is so funny and has brought a whole new element of fun to school/ work

And here we have Dorothy. The living and the dead.

The sixth graders.

These two fifth graders dressed up like Slash and Axel Rose from Guns n' Roses. The kids all thought Slash was Michael Jackson. He was getting pretty annoyed about it. However, when we walked into the gym and all the parents went nuts, he was really stoked.

My little Rock Stars. (and a grumpy Prom Queen)

So the theme this year was the circus. The principal dressed up like a ring leader and the assistant principal dressed up like a strong man.

These are the secretaries and one grand baby.

Mr. Emett, Mrs. Wilbur and one of her grand babies. Cutest little frog ever.

This sixth grader is so funny. He saw a "subordinate" and started yelling orders at him. I just had to take his picture.

A third grader dressed up like a Christmas gift.

Mrs. Broderick

Fourth graders

Mrs. Stuart She had this hilarious costume on but I couldn't quite get a picture of the whole thing.

funniest shark costume ever

I love it when people dress up like objects. This mom dressed up like Pepper.

Second graders

Second grade teachers

cute kids and a little boy dressed up like Mario- there were a whole bunch of those and Luigi's.

I thought it was really cool how much makeup this first grader was wearing.

A little ninja turtle

The Christmas Halloween costumes are kinda funny- a cute little Christmas tree

A totally homemade costume. So cute and really creative.

And one of my absolute favorites; a Geiko caveman

Pumpkin Carving '09

Colin getting started

scooping out the guts

Evan saying "cheese"

Boys with the tops

My cute boys

boys helping put the tops back on

all done carving

his pumpkin

my pumpkin

KA

This is the last post from Vegas, I promise!

Our favorite thing was KA. We saw the Cirque du Sole show KA at the theater in the MGM grand. It was truly an amazing show that is almost beyond our description. There were so many times during the show that I was just staring in amazement at what I was watching afraid that my jaw had dropped and people were staring at me. I guarantee you none of them were though, because the sight was so amazing that everyone was watching.
I'll try to describe some of our favorite parts and the story as I go along, but just know that whatever I type isn't good enough to compare to the actual show. Truly. Amazing!

Here's Colin and I before the show started. You aren't' allowed to take pictures so I borrowed them from the website.

So the story goes that there are these twins, one boy and one girl. At the beginning of the story they're having a pageant and everything is really happy. Then there is an invasion of archers and a storm and they get separated. The rest of the show they learn that they can use the "Ka" to make good or evil. It's like an energy or something. Then they get reunited and the show ends as it begins. I'll just show some pictures from my favorite scenes and tell why I liked them.

This was our favorite scene. It starts out with the men seen in the picture "the archers" attacking the people and the stage is on a pretty large slant. Then the stage starts rotating, and when the archers shoot their arrows, these pegs come out and they all do these cool acrobatics with them like swinging around them with their legs and such. Every so often those involved in the battle fall off the stage into the great abyss. Then the pegs start coming out and some of the guys fall off. Then there is one guy left and he's hanging on one peg way at the top. You can guess what happens next but he does fall all the way down the stage (30 feet) and then off into the darkness. It was so cool!

This was my second-favorite scene. This is the wheel of death machine. The guys that you see standing on top of the two highest wheels are really amazing. They do all these crazy tricks while those wheels go around and around. They get inside of the wheels and crawl out. They jump around inside of them, they jump rope on top of them. It's crazy!

This is just a cool picture of the archers posing.

This was an awesome scene called the forest. There were all sorts of bugs and animals climbing up the pipes and there were lots of the forest people doing classic Cirque stuff like swinging and flying through the air doing acrobatics. This was a nice scene.

In this scene, the actors are at the top of the totally vertical stage. They are in a blizzard. It was cute.

This is a flying machine. It is made up of people. Each of the wings is a man using his body to go up and down and look like wings. It was really amazing to see them all flying around and working together to look like a giant bird. There were about 8 people on it total.

In this beach scene the stage is totally horizontal. There are these cute little crabs and other sand creatures that come out and play with the main characters. The sand is really cool and I looked it up later and found out that it is 350 cubic feet of cork!

Anyway, we loved you cirque and we can't wait to see another show some day!