Half-naked girl plays in rain

For some reason, my pictures weren't showing, so I'll re-post those and here's the commentary...


We haven't been up to anything exciting since we got back from Branson, so I decided to look through some older pictures and see if there was anything interesting. I came up with these from October. It was around 80 degrees and we got a little rain shower right after I got home from work. Kaleaha came running out of the house (half-naked) to see me and saw that it was raining. She ran outside the garage to "touch" a raindrop and proceede to play in the driveway for about 20 minutes. I talked Ron into bringing me the camera and we let her perform before I finally made her come inside. In one of the pictures she is squatting down at the end of the driveway. She had taken some beans and was using them as floats. She would put them in on one side of the driveway and let them flow down the street to the other side of the driveway. She thought that her beans were the coolest boats ever!

Good idea

This one made us think of some people we know...

Branson Landing visit

Before we left Branson we had to go see the Landing. It's one of our favorite places to go. It's such a neat place any time of the year. The giant Christmas tree sits on top of Santa's house and is right across from the water fountain. First we visited the racoons at Bass Pro Shop and then on to see Santa. Kaleaha enjoyed seeing Santa and she told him that for Christmas this year she only wanted an airplane...???? Who knows where that came from...

Silver Dollar City Day

This was our weekend trip to Branson to see the Christmas lights at Silver Dollar City. We got up there late and basically just crashed at the motel. We got up the next morning and ate breakfast and decided to hit the outlet mall first. Silver Dollar City doesn't open until 1:00 and we wanted to go later and see the lights. We did a little shopping (Kaleaha lost her gloves almost as soon as we got there) and went back to the motel to get naps out of the way (Ron and Kaleaha both needed one). Then we bundled up in 2-3 layers of clothing and piled in the car to cruise SDC. We pull in to the parking lot after giving the very nice and COLD (did I mention that the high was 32 for the day and it was snowing hard-think sleet) attendant our $10 to park in a reasonably close parking lot. After our hike up the hill all bundled up like snow people we get just inside the front gate and the man greeting us says, "Hi, welcome to Silver Dollar City, the park will be closing at 7:15 tonight due to the weather." I think I forgot to preface this by saying it was almost 6:00 when we got there. GRRRRRR!! Needless to say I was NOT a happy camper. We walked inside and looked around at the main square lights and Kaleaha heard the train whistle. She wanted to go ride on the train, so we headed that way. It's a very short distance from the front entrance to the train depot. We go on our 20 minute train ride and as we get back to the depot the conductor tells us that this is the last ride of the evening because the park is closing NOW. Anybody want to guess what my thoughts were when I heard that news? (You guessed it-NOT NICE) So we headed out of the park and I realize that the whole reason that we've come (other than to see the lights) is to get ONE picture of all three of us for our Christmas cards which we have not done at this point, so as we're leaving the park we see this little area set up with two chairs and we decide to wait until we can prey on someone to take our picture. We finally got this really nice guy to take a picture of us, but unfortunately, we look like Pillsbury doughboy (and girl) rejects. We will NOT be using this picture for our cards!! Other than that we had a great time and we will try to plan our next trip a little bit better.

New signature

I'm trying out a new sig, what do you think?

Anybody home ??

A few days ago I found this really cute counter (see very bottom of the page) and so I decided to put it on my blog to see if anyone really pays attention to what we're up to. In the last two weeks I've received a TOTAL of ONE comment for all my hard work...c'mon friends, help me out here. I said I needed suggestions, surely one of you has an opinion that you can share with me!!! The whole idea of this blog is to keep in touch...I'm dyin' here! Please leave comments. Preferably nice ones!! :o)

Halloween Cutie

This is Kaleaha at her school's Halloween carnival. They had an area set up to take pictures and we finally got a pretty pose. Most of the time during the carnival she was much too busy to stop and take a picture. I'll try to post some of the other pictures later.

Thanksgiving Celebration

I'm pretty sure that this is a never before attempted picture. We had our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday at Mom and Dad's and I realized that we do not own a single picture with all 10 of us in it. (11 counting Slinky) Usually one of us is missing taking the picture and we're not organized enough to remember to bring the tripod and use the timer on the camera. One of the missionaries, Elder Mele, very kindly agreed to take a family picture for us and I'm truly grateful. Good food and a great time! We have so much to be thankful for.

Kaleaha and Michelle

I attempted to distract Kaleaha from helping Ron with the lights, so we were taking funny face pictures while Dad did all the hard work.

The Process of Hanging Lights

As usual when we attempt to tackle a project on our house it turns out to be more than we bargained for. Ron fashioned a Christmas Light Hanging Tool and he was doing an awesome job getting the lights on the house, BUT Kaleaha thought that Dad might need her help, so she climbed up into the truck to offer her support. I was too busy laughing and taking pictures to be much help.

Kaleaha had a Thanksgiving Pow-Wow at her school where I got to go and eat lunch with her and her friends. Half of the classes were pilgrims and half were indians. Kaleaha's class was a group of indians and her teachers worked so hard on their costumes. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a great time eating with the grown ups. After lunch with the families the kids recited the scriptures that they had memorized and sang three songs about being thankful. Kaleaha's class scripture was : "Always be thankful" Col 3:15. It was very sweet to see these kids singing songs and quoting scriptures. They have a wonderful program at her school. Great teachers and great leadership.

Xylophone Girl

We took a family vacation last fall to see Papa Sam and Vicki. We stayed for a few days and when we came home Papa Sam sent a xylophone home with Kaleaha. Ron and I "put it up" for her, but she remembers it every time that she sees a similar box. While we were outside the other night we got the xylophone down for her and she serenaded all of our neighbors. Thanks, Papa Sam, we'll call you when we're ready for a drum set...

Slug on the Glove

This was the highlight of Kaleaha's night. Ron laid his gloves down for a few minutes and a slug found a new home. She laughed and laughed like she had never seen anything this funny.

Fall Decorations

Kaleaha loves to help me decorate the porch for each season. She's hanging out with the pilgrim girls and the craziest turkey that we've ever had. We were at church on Sunday and one of the families had a truckload of pumpkins and gourds that they were giving away. Ron and Kaleaha picked out some small pumpkins and gourds and then they got this crazy one that was yellow and bigger than the pumpkins. We made him into a turkey and he's the cutest one we've ever made. It's almost sad that we're gettin ready to put him up and get Santa out!

Tree Monkey

On Wednesday night we decided to start the process of hanging Christmas lights on our house. While Mom and Dad were busy, Kaleaha decided to climb the tree. I thought that she might sit up there and pose for a picture, but of course that was asking too much. So I have tree monkey faces instead. Luckily we kept her occupied almost the whole time that we were outside.

No, I haven't given up, I've just been really busy. Have you ever noticed that when you're really excited about something and you really want to devote some time to it that all these things come up that normally wouldn't happen. Maybe tonight. I've got some great pictures from last night to post. Wish me luck!

Hey everyone!
This is my first attempt at blogging. It should be an interesting journey. Be patient while I set this crazy thing up and leave me any suggestions!
Take Care!
Michelle