Halloween Fun!

I LOVE Halloween! Dressing up, scary movies, haunted houses, carnivals, candy, trick or treating, the decorations...I love it all! We have fun all month long celebrating Halloween!

We kicked it off by taking a group of Sawyer's friends through Dr. Slaughters Haunted House. It's so much fun going through with a group of scared teenagers and a VERY scared husband. Pretty funny that me and Baily have to lead the way each year.

I love these kids! Ethan, Matt, Carston, Mason, Andrew, Zac, Bailey, Sawyer, Emily, Rae, and Christie.

I told them to act scared. I seriously LOVE Sawyer's face in this picture!

So fun!


We also had a Halloween party with a group of friends. The Becks were wonderful hosts. We ate all kinds of yummy treats, and played bunko. The highlight of the night was seeing what everyone came dressed up as.

Mark and Tricia

Brian and Lesa
She goes ALL OUT on their Halloween costumes each year. They are always AWESOME! Brian is such a good sport about it too!

Brian and Misty

Lisa and Justin


Alisha and Andy

Doug and SueAnn
SueAnn NEVER dresses up, and when she showed up stuffed with rolls everywhere and hilarious makeup, with a banner that said Happy 50th Birthday Barbie, I laughed my head off!

Byron and Becky

Jason and Michelle

Shawn and Kinie

We spent an evening at the Falls Valley Carnival. Mark, Sawyer, and Grammy were wonderful, and worked the entire evening at the 'fishing pond' booth. I supervised the games, took pictures for the yearbook, and took Bailey around to play games. Falls Valley puts on a GREAT carnival!

Mr. Rapp's Fortune telling was a favorite of the night. Bailey found out that she has to ride a goat to school all the way through high school...even to her prom. She was also naughty at recess, so she has to clean all of the toilets in the house for 5 years, with a toothbrush.

Bailey picking her prize behind the castle door.

Taking a break for dinner.

Trying to knock down bottles with a Nerf gun.

Mark working the fishing pond. Grammy and Sawyer were on the other side, attaching the prizes to the poles. What good sports they are.

Our ward had the annual chili cook off and truck or treat on Friday night. We had so much fun. Mark won the chili cook off! We entered at the last minute because they didn't think they would have enough chili for everyone. We made our yummy 'Body for Life' recipe. It ended up winning us a gift certificate to Red Robin! The kids got to go around to all the rooms and play fun games. Then it was outside in the cold for the trunk or treat.

Bailey brought her friend Sydnie to the trunk or treat.

Sawyer and Ethan.

Emily, Bailey, Sydnie, and Marlee with their prizes. Bailey thinks that since she is a prisoner, she has to look mad in all the pictures.

Sawyer helped with one of the games. If the kids won, he would do this obnoxious celebration ritual. It was so annoying, but the little kids sure thought he was funny ;)!

Bailey took Carson around to the carnival games. She loves this little guy so much!

AND FINALLY....HALLOWEEN!!!

The Chain Gang

Sawyer, Andrew, Carston, Emily, Dani

Sawyer had some friends over, and they hung out and handed out candy, while we took Bailey trick or treating around the neighborhood.

Reeses loves Halloween.

Oreo loves it too.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A Little Snow is all She Needs!

Bailey kept tradition alive yesterday. We had some snow flurries, but barley anything stuck to the ground. I thought she was downstairs cleaning the toy room, but she was really outside scraping every little bit of snow off of the trampoline, so she could make herself a friend. Every year, without fail, she makes a snowman with the first snow that sticks to the ground...no matter how much or little there is. I must say....this one is pretty darn cute :)!

As you can see from the grass in the picture, she really didn't have much to work with.

Croptoberfest '09

I spent a wonderful weekend scrap booking with friends. I've been a little bit stressed out lately, so it was a perfect relaxing get-away for me. We started scrap booking at 3:30 on Friday, and we didn't stop until 1:00 in the morning....and that's only because they kicked us out of the conference hall. The 5 of us (Me, Jenni, Shannon, Hayley, and Brenda) didn't get to bed until 3:30 in the morning. Then it was back to scrap booking by 9:30 on Saturday. I left the hotel at 10:00 on Saturday night. It was soooooo much fun. I got 21 pages done!

They were doing a Make a Wish fundraiser while we were there. You could pay a dollar and write your name on a star that they put on the wall. At the end, they would take all the stars down and draw a name for a prize. There were not very many stars on the wall. Jenni had just got back from her Make a Wish trip with her daughter Emmerson 2 weeks earlier. She wrote down some of their story, and Brenda read it to the people who were there scrap booking. The next thing we know, there were TONS of stars filling the wall, and even going to the next wall. It was so AWESOME!

I can't wait to go again in 2 weeks with Grammy and Bailey!

Shannon, Jenni, Hayley, Tricia, Brenda

My 21pages!

Zion National Park

The kids didn't have school Thursday or Friday, so we took off on another hiking adventure. This time we went to Zion National Park. It was beautiful! We had tons of fun, and the second day we had some BIG adventures!

The Watchman Trail

We started the day off hiking the Watchman trail. It was a fun 3 mile hike that led us up to a lookout point of the Watchman Mountain, and the Natural Bridge Mountain.

The Watchman Mountain

Mile Long Tunnel/Canyon Overlook
From here we drove to the east side of the park and went through the mile long tunnel. The tunnel was carved right through a big mountain, and it had lookout windows along the way. It was pretty cool. In this area of the park we saw the Great Arch, Checkerboard Mesa, and did the Canyon Overlook hike.

Mark at the top of the Canyon Overlook.


Sawyer and Bailey at the top of the Canyon Overlook. Behind them is West Temple, The Altar of Sacrifice, The Beehive, and The East Temple.

The Emerald Pools

Next we hiked to the lower, middle, and upper Emerald Pools. It was a really cool hike, but the pools were a little bit disappointing. I guess they are a lot better in the spring. We did see a big, ugly tarantula along the way though.

The Lower Pools, with the water coming down behind them.

The Upper Pools

Weeping Rock/Hidden Canyon

We did a short walk up to Weeping Rock. It is a huge rock in the side of a mountain that constantly rains water down.

Weeping Rock

Bailey standing under the water coming down from Weeping Rock.

From this same trail head, we did the Hidden Canyon Hike. This is a steep hike, and at the end you have to hold on to chains because there are drop offs on one side of you. We thought this would be a good test to see if Bailey would be able to handle Angels Landing the next day. This hike was the best of the day. We loved it!

Holding onto the first set of chains on the Hidden Canyon hike.

Horses!!!

We started off day 2 with a 3 hour horse/mule ride around the Sand Bench Loop of the park. The kids were so excited about this. Me and Mark rode horses, and Sawyer and Bailey got mules. It was so much fun! Bailey LOVED every second of it, and so naturally, she wants a mule now. Sawyer had the funniest mule. His name was Maynard, and all he wanted to do was eat. He rode Sawyer into several trees and bushes, just so he could get a snack. He had us laughing the whole way.

Sawyer on Maynard, and Mark on Ubee.

Bailey with her new best friend, Tex.

We also rode past the Court of the Patriarchs.

Angels Landing

Angels Landing was by far the most exciting and scariest part of the weekend! We were excited and nervous about doing it. Bailey was not sure that she was going to go. She heard about the 2 people falling off it this summer, and that had her pretty freaked out. We were going to hike as far as Scouts lookout, and then decide who would go on. The hike to Scout Lookout was VERY steep, but the view once you got there was definitely worth it. We all decided to go a little ways past Scout Lookout to see how it was. I had Bailey go in front of me. She held on to the chains and I had my arm around her. I'm not afraid of heights, so I was doing fine. I felt good about Bailey too, because I was holding onto her. Sawyer was behind me, and it made me really nervous to not be able to see him. We got to a certain point, and Mark saw what was ahead of us. He decided he wasn't going to go on. He doesn't like heights AT ALL, and he was really shaky and freaked out. Then a lady came along and told us it didn't get any worse than what we had just done, so Mark decided to finish it. The lady lied! There were a couple spots that were only 30 inches wide, with a chain to hold onto, and HUGE drop offs on both sides. We took it nice and slow and we all made it to the top! Poor Mark...I thought he was going to have a heart attack! Once we got to the top, he couldn't even stand up. It was quite an accomplishment, and we were all proud we made it.

This is Angels Landing. The hike took us to the very top edge of this.

Just past Scout Lookout.
If you look at this picture, you can see the scary half mile narrow part we had to go across to get to the top.

Sawyer and Bailey at the very top of Angels Landing!

This is Mark at the top. He was so freaked out, he couldn't even stand up!



The gorgeous view up the canyon from the top. This picture doesn't even do it justice!



The Temple of Sinawava

We ended our weekend by going to the end of the canyon. This area is called the Temple of Sinawava. It is gorgeous. You are completely surrounded by huge red cliffs. We took at short hike along the Virgin River that led to the Narrows. It was a perfect, relaxing way to end our trip.


Standing at the gateway to the Narrow.

We loved Zion, and we will definitely be going back someday!