"Happy (belated) Halloween!"

Halloween started out with Benjamin and Nathaniel off to school with Daniel and Matthew Whatcott from our morning carpool. I wasn't able to get their school-wide parade pictures as my camera's battery died and it needed to be recharging for a few hours. Class parties added to their sugar levels as well as to their Halloween joys! Nathaniel was a Grim Reaper. Benjamin was a menacing Pirate who had a sword wound across his cheek, and Connor was a Zombie. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof ", Right? >:-P

It is regrettable that I am slow to call or write. By the time I did try to set up a get-together with the extended Brooks family there were plans already set, so we ended up going to Susan Hayes' Halloween party and went trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood. Jessica was out on a date with Tyler and Bill and Kaitlin watching The Dark Knight, and so Ken and I left no one at home to dole out candy and took our sons out and about. Connor went off to a haunted house down the street from our neighborhood and then scored candy and soda cans etc. along his way back home. Ken and I realize our years of taking our boys trick-or-treating are numbered. Time really does fly when your having fun! I think it made us enjoy this year's Halloween walk-about all the more. We hope you all enjoyed spooking your neighborhoods as well!

. . . . AND REST!

It was all down hill to the finish line and Shelly and I were stuck in traffic with more than five police cars to be spotted, so we missed the finish line photo op. Both Ken and Jeff managed to walk over to the truck, but once inside they had to pay the sandman his dues. Sleep, glorious sleep!

The "Viva Bike Vegas" Century Ride

Again, Ken will need to fill in all of the details later. He and his brother, Jeff, had a great time riding in this race together. They completed the 118 mile bike ride in barely just over 6 hours and had climbed a total of 9,000 feet. Out of all the group there were only 4-5 cyclists who would lead. Most of the group just drafted the entire time. Ken's training sessions on the mountains of Utah paid off as he was able to power up the Nevada "mountains" without a problem - except having to hold back so he didn't lose the group he was leading (Hey, they couldn't draft him while he pulled ahead! What was he thinking?! He was super human or something?) I found myself inspired: Seeing my husband pumping up a steep road and watching as his muscles strained under the effort, and still he propelled himself up and over the next peak . . . words cannot express it! I am so completely in awe of him! I have now vowed to do a non-competitive lengthy bike ride with him within the next five years ( I need to lose more weight so my knees can take it and live to walk me to the truck. :-) I love you Ken! You ARE Awesome!

Connor attends his first Beehive/Deacon Dance

Trevor's Stake was hosting a "learn everything about social dances" Beehive / Deacon Halloween-themed dance. (They even had LasVegas wards attending.) So, Shelly and I took our hopefuls to a costume store in town and tried to get them both to dress up like Romans. Connor fell in love with the zombie costume pretty much on sight, and he couldn't be persuaded out of getting it. [Connor, you looked so handsome in that Roman outfit!!!!] Alas, I bend to his choice. The skin pealing face make-up was skipped because he did not want to wear it to a dance and have it wipe off or anything while dancing.

From what I could gather, he had an absolute fantastic time and now looks forward to his first stake dances next year. (The adult leaders all had paperclips to hand out: One for getting enough nerve up to ask a new girl to dance. One for carrying on a conversation with her while out on the dance floor. Another one was given for offering to get her refreshments or thanking her for the dance, etc. Paperclips were also handed out to the girls for similar courtesies. Paperclips were chain-linked together and traded five at a time for Halloween goodies. I thought this was a great idea.

Pumpkin Mummies!

After a Family Home Evening lesson about the 3rd Article of Faith, we all made our own version of Pumpkin Mummies and had the Dads all judge for Halloween prizes. Shelly and I got the idea from a magazine at the grocery store. Two households contributed their assorted arts and crafts supplies and creativity flew! These are the resulting pumpkins and they are as individual as the cousins that made them! (It was a lot of fun and really made only a little mess.)

Home Schooling for the Week

I'm not sure if my boys will ever beg me to home school them, as I saw to it that each of their assignments were completed to the best of their ability despite four-year-old cousin's requests. We held school from 9a.m. to 1 / 2 /?p.m. (Nathaniel / Benjamin / Connor) with "recess" while I made lunch and independent study time while I was helping a brother. Cousins came home from school at 3 p.m. Connor had volumes of schoolwork that lasted clear until Thursday! We were so glad to have all schoolwork behind us! They were great students!

The Pumpkinman Triathlon & Las Vegas 118 mile Century Ride

Ken will need to blog later about the races. In need of catching up on my blog postings, I'll just say that Ken had scheduled two weekends in a row for races out-of-state beginning with the UEA school-break week, and so we decided to check all of our young ones out of school and make a family trip out of it. Here are photos of Ken and Jeff Meads during / after the Nevada Pumpkinman:




It was a good time with cousins as well as brothers for our boys. Jessica was hunting with her Dad and would join us mid-week when Megan came home for the weekend.