Penelope's Birthday

We went to Penelope's birthday party. She is so cute. She just turned one year old. It was a lot of fun. Of course Doranda, Bob and Tucker were there. Talitha and John and Malachi and Layne were also there.

It was a great time. We also got to go to Sacrament and Sunday School with Malachi and Layne in Parkland and to Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society with Doranda and Bob in Bremerton. Doranda and Bob did a great job with the party for Penelope. She is a special little girl.

Eagle Scout Project

Caleb started work on his Eagle Project. It's the highest award of the Boy Scouts.

You have to plan, organize, get approval for, and then supervise some big project involving lots of other people. The object is to show leadership. Here's Caleb getting things organized.

His project was to do some renovations for the pre-school class at Sunrise Elementary School for special needs (handicapped) children.

One of the tasks was to sand, refinish and paint some of the furniture.

Another part of the project was to -repaint one of the walls that had some old artwork on it that they didn't want any more.

The next part of the project was to build some privacy screens so the kids could have one-on-one time with teachers and time-outs in privacy.

The last task was to build a science table from scratch.

He finished it up and showed lots of real leadership. And he had lots of help. Good job Caleb.

Now all he has to do is turn in the paperwork and have a Board of Review. Then we'll have an Eagle Scout.

More Grandchildren Pictures

Here's some more pictures of the grandchildren that were all up for a visit at the same time. We had all eleven. We would of put them up sooner but the cord for the camera was lost and our computer wasn't reading the camera SD disks.



It was Jarom's birthday and Tianna went all out to make this crazy but beautiful cake. That's Evan in the background.




Talitha brought over a pinata and they had a lot of fun trying to break it. This is Dallen taking a swing.

Malachi was holding the string to pull the pinata up and down and he was making it hard. They only got three tries and then someone else got a turn. This is Tucker taking a swing.

The older ones were blindfolded and were spun around first but the younger ones got to try with no blindfold. This is Ethan taking a swing.

We started with the youngest and all of them got to try. This is James taking a swing and you can see the candy starting to fall.

We did lots of other fun activities too. Julia made cupcakes for everyone and they were delicious. Aston and James are watching with great interest as she puts on the finishing touch, some candy sprinkles on pink frosting.

Of course Evan knows how to kick back and relax.

We did some scooter riding too. Ethan loved riding but needed a little help.

Tucker loves playing with bats and balls.

Here's a cute picture of the youngest grandchild of them all, Christian.

Evan was a real daredevil on the wagon. He would ride it down hills just like Calvin and Hobbes in the comic strip.

A lot of the middle grandchildren were really good with the scooter. We could of used a few more. Here's Julia and James having a friendly discussion about who's turn it was now.

Here's a picture of our other little one, Penelope talking to her grandma.

This is a group just chilling out on the park bench in the back yard - Ashton, Evan, Tucker, Julia and Dallen.

A closeup of Ethan, James, Tucker and Julia.

We have two teenage grandchildren - Amery and Jarom.

The last picture, a real cute one of James, Ethan and Tucker.

Eleven Grandchildren

Back row-- Evan, Amery, holding Christian, Jarom, holding Penelope, and Dallen
Front row-- Ashton, Ethan, James, Tucker, and Julia.


We had all of our 11 grandchildren at the house at the same time. A couple refused to smile (actually they wouldn't stop crying during the picture). There were 23 of us for dinner. Jarom leaves for college on Wednesday, so we probably won't have all of them together again for a while, if ever.

Abel Visit

Tianna and Jim came up with most of the kids - Amery, Dallen, Evan, Ashton and James. They had a business meeting to attend on Jim's "Ketch-It" business and so came and stayed at our house for a few days. We had a lot of fun. We went to the dollar store, ate dinner out at the Hungry Goose, went for walks at Bradley Lake and around the block, and played lots of card games.

First picture serious - second picture relased. Hopefully they had a fun visit at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We really enjoyed having them.

Costa Rica Trip

After leaving Arizona we continued on down to Costa Rica. First we flew to Dallas/Ft. Worth airport and spent the night sleeping in the airport in some chairs. Next we flew to Miami early the next morning and then to Liberia in Costa Rica.

Finally we got to Costa Rica. It was absolutely beautiful. A real jungle environment.

This is our hotel. The Hilton at Paya del Papagoya. It was right on the beach and right in the middle of the jungle. It had several pools and restaurants. We were doing a free stay and it was all inclusive so all the meals were included. We used points from our Hilton Credit Card to get the free visit to this resort.

We really liked it there. The rooms were scattered all around and this is a view off our little balcony.

It was very hot there. Costa Rica is right on the equator. They have two seasons, both hot, called the dry season and the wet season. We were in the wet season so it rained a lot but that kept the temperature down so that it was actually quite pleasant. We spent a lot of time lounging around between sight seeing and snorkling. That is my foot.

We made a day trip to Nicaragua. It was fun except for the long wait at the border crossing. This is one of their buildings in Grenada that we got to see. They're not as built up for tourism as Costa Rica because of all the past political turmoil.

Some artwork on the walls inside.

Some statues by the ancient Mayans.



We got to see a huge volcano that is still active and got to look right down inside. The sulfur smell was almost overpowering.

We went Zip lining in the jungle. This was the best part of the trip. We also saw some Howler monkeys while zip lining.

This is a giant iguana that would hang out by one the restaurants and pool at the resort during the day.