Pumpkin Carving!

For family home evening today, we carved a pumpkin. Anna Claire has been reading a book about pumpkins so she was excited to make a jack o' lantern. She helped Daddy gut the pumpkin and picked out all the seeds so that we could broil them. Mariah got a kick out of watching from her high chair.

Doing the pumpkin boku squat pose.

Here's Mr. Jack O'Lantern.

The great pumpkin crawl.

Soccer and Lions

We stopped by a soccer tournament today sponsored by Rob's Medtronic Diabetes team. Anna Claire brought her little stuffed soccer ball and had a "ball" kicking it around with her friend Nathan.

She also got her face painted like a pink lion -- and enjoyed roaring at everyone. We are so lucky to have had lots of fun family Saturdays lately!

Desalpes in Semsales

Today we made a little trip to the "Desalpes" celebration in Semsales. Lots of the mountain towns in Switzerland have big celebrations each year to mark the coming down of the cows from the mountains. They dress the cows up with giant bells and flowers and parade them through the town, along with loads of musicians, etc. The girls loved seeing the cows, but I didn't really enjoy all the manure that collected on our feet!

Here come the bell ringers!

Hanging out in the crowd near the music!
And, finally, the stars of the show!

Wow, Mommy, I can't take my eyes off these cows!

Sad news

Many of you might know that my fabulous sister-in-law (really almost sister -- I've known her 22 years) Joy was diagnosed this week with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML). She is in the hospital getting chemotherapy treatments and is amazingly brave. I'm both shocked and devastated by the news, but, with everyone, I'm hoping for the best. I've been bad at keeping up this blog, but I've set up a blog for Joy so that we can keep everyone informed of her treatments. It's at http://www.joywoolley.blogspot.com/.

Anyhow, we're keeping her and her family -- my brother, Ken, and their five beautiful children in our prayers. Here is a recent photo of their family from Johnny's wedding: