At the movies

At the movies

Sparring Sweetie

spix101124_25073, originally uploaded by eouio.

My cute little Avyrlie gets to test for her orange belt next Saturday. If/when she passes, she gets to start gearing up a couple times a week for sparring. I'm hoping she has more fighting instinct than her brother did at 6...

From Avyrlie

Avyrlie asked me to snap a couple pictures of her tonight. This is what she wanted to share with you:

(Click the pic for the rest of the gallery)

Ants in his pants

Ian is getting a bit restless with the lack of back to back physical activities he normally has lined up this time of year with football alone. Now with snow on the ground, he is just chomping at the bit to hit the slopes and is getting by with skateboarding in the cold until Snowbird opens their doors in a couple weeks.

Epic Halloween

This year the tide of Halloween seemed to ebb and flow during a week long battering from saves of candy.

Avyrlie had an event per day -

• Thursday: Church lot trunk-or-treat
• Friday: Spooky Cubicles at Aimee's work
• Saturday: Trick or Treating at Grandma's neighborhood party
• Sunday: Sunday-School sweets

By Monday she was bit burned out on the whole candy thing and would probably have loved to get a couple toothbrushes and just hang out with friends rather than gather selections of sweets from the neighborhood.

She is way more into Halloween as a social event than as a crazed cavity convention, and her Bah-Humbug brother didn't manage to leave the X-Box to answer a single trick-or-treater! Truth be told, we only answered 8 candy requests at our place. Avyrlie's angry pumpkin must have scared them away ;)

(Click the pic to view the rest of the Halloween gallery)

Fall Hike

Aimee and I did a quick hike up to the mouth of Bell's Canyon just up the road from our house and discovered there is a small, and very pretty little lake up there. Definitely a hike we will do again with the kids.

Smith Scera Summer Slam - 4XS

Had a ton of fun with a lot of Smiths for the 2nd annual Summer Slam. We kicked it up a notch with homemade rootbeer, GrillMeister K, and an endless number of cousins!

(Click the pic for the rest of the gallery)

I Don't Want to Die!

I picked up Avyrlie this afternoon and this was our conversation on the way home.

Avyrlie - "Does anyone in the world die?"

Me - "Yes, everyone dies someday."

Avyrlie after bursting into tears - "But I don't want to ever die!"

Me - "Why not?"

Avyrlie between sobs - "Because I just like this world sooo much!"

Me - "It will be a long time before you will ever die."

Avyrlie now smiling again - "Yeah, and you will die way before me too."

The Proof is in the Strawberry

Avyrlie has been gathering evidence to make her case that summer will indeed arrive this year at some point. I'm not much of a summer fan and tease her quite a bit that summer is not happening this year, but maybe when she's 12.

One of the proof's she has been looking for is the first strawberry. Her and Aimee both make a very strong association between strawberries and summertime. Every time we arrive home the first thing she has done is check the strawberry patch for signs of summer's arrival, and the other day she finally found her proof: the very first strawberry starting to grow :)

Bird Murder aka Liza's Absolution

We have arrived home on several occasions to find the above pictured 'bird murder' scene in our front yard. For whatever reason, Aimee decided that Liza had acquired a taste for quail and was sneaking out of the back yard to pounce on unsuspecting quail.
A couple problems with this theory are that quail are very suspicious little birds and Liza's stalking skills are something like a giraffe practicing yoga. Just not likely, but still the accusation stood. Until recently.

Avyrlie and I came home the other day just in time to see a hawk swoop into the front yard atop a herd of quail, land on its chosen victim, and squeeze it until it quit moving. Ian arrived home shortly after and saw the hawk take off with its meal to find a quiet place for dinner.
Sadly for Liza, Aimee witnessed none of this and still harbors some suspicions ;)