I thought it was so funny that Jonah thought it was "a little violin!" He has been obsessed with violins lately and can even pick them out of songs. He calls Viva La Vida the violin song!

A Trip to the Zoo

Yesterday we went to the Phoenix Zoo because Peter had the day off and it was somewhere to go! It's no San Diego Zoo, but the kids really enjoyed it and played hard. they all fell asleep on the way home, allowing Peter and I to stop by our favorite Italian Deli in Tempe. Peter used to work right near the zoo, but now we don't make it out to Tempe very often.

Anyway, here we are getting ready to go in. You can see that Eden is having a tantrum, but what else is new?
The kids loved the carousel, especially Eden. She was yelling "Yee-haw" and "Woo-hoo" the whole time, even before it started. Jonah rode on an alligator and a shark, and Eden rode on a leopard and a dolphin. We really should get one of these for the backyard...
We got to see lots of animals close up- the giraffes are situated right in the middle of the zoo and we got a great view of them.
The zebras were also right by the wall. The kids were so excited seeing animals in real life.

Here we are in the monkey exhibit. That's Eden yelling the whole time.

We also went to the little petting zoo they have and the kids got to climb on tractors and pet and brush the goats. They really had a good time.

Eden's way of riding on a tractor:

Well, we had a good day, but were ready to go home afterward!

I Love These Guys...

Okay, I am so glad these guys are back! I am starting to agree with my sister, Lexie, that Amare Stoudemire is the most underrated player in the NBA. This guys is seriously amazing. I just watched him totally work the Pacers over and hit all of his 15 free throws! I still love Steve Nash, Raja, and Barbosa, but I'm still not totally on board with Shaq and I probably never will be. Oh well. I'm also missing D'Antoni (the traitor), but we seem to be doing fine without him so far. I'm interested to see how they'll do against the Lakers and later the Spurs.

So Welcome Back, Boys!

Go Suns!

Some New Videos

Here is what we do almost every night:

And here is Levi playing the drum (sorry for the horrible lighting; I thought he'd move if I didn't just take the video right then.)

Peter's High School Tag

1. Did you date someone from your school? Yes, a couple times, but always ended up enemies by the end of a two week relationship.
2. What kind of car did you drive? First an ugly 1982-ish copper-colored Toyota Tercel, then an even uglier 2nd generation 1980 or so Honda civic. My Dad bought it from my Aunt for $200 and later sold it to me for $400 dollars. Pretty sly.
3. Were you a party animal? It was tough to be a party animal with Seminary class starting at 5:30 a.m. every morning.
4. Were you considered a flirt? No, I was too busy scratching off my pimples, or eating boogers.
5. Were you in band, orchestra or choir? No way, only the nerds were in band, at least at my school. I knew a dude that played the flute or cello, he had it rough... Connie assures me band was 'cool' at her school.
6. What was your most embarrassing moment in high school? Probably getting crapped on by a seagull, or waking up after Geometry class with drool everywhere, or having bugs fly in and get caught in my fro.
7. Were you a nerd? Nerdy looking, yeah, but not a nerd academically. I was more of a loser when it came to actually learning anything.
8. Were you on varsity teams? No.
9. Did you ever get suspended/expelled? No, but I did have a major problem with authority back then. I always thought Big Brother was out to get me, glad I've overcome all those issues. :)
10. Can you still sing the fight song? Probably not, that wasn't required to graduate.
11. Who were your favorite teachers? Mr. Papciak was interesting, he was some former hippy who'd lived as a Hobo for a while or something, and my Civics teacher was great, can't remember his name, but it was his last year before retirement and he never really showed up for class, so neither did the students.
12. What was your school's full name? El Camino High
13. School mascot? A big cat, wild cat, mtn. lion or something.
14. Did you go to the Homecoming dance and with who? No, homecoming was nothing but trouble at my school.
15. If you could go back again, would you? No way, I would just get my GED and go straight to college. I wasted so much time at El Camino just goofing off.
16. What do you remember most about graduation? The feeling that four pointless years were finally over.
17. Where did you go senior skip day? Wasn't that every day during senior year? The Wedge, Newport Beach.
18. Were you in a club? No, but I had my eye on the Ninja/Karate club.
19. Have you gained some weight since then? Yes, and I'm gonna need a 'bro' pretty soon to support my former pecks.
20. Who was your prom date? I missed my prom, but I went to Carlsbad's prom as a Jr. That school was more respectable and funded than ours.
21. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? No, I missed it.
22. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself? Study, work hard, do your homework, go to class. Do not drop out of Math, you'll just be stuck taking those crappy classes in college.

Halloween 2008

I am going to wrap this all into one post.

On Thursday, Jonah had a Fall Festival at school. I'm not sure what it all entailed, but his teacher said he had fun. He totally got hooked up with goodies. He came home wearing this candy necklace. He also got a bag of mixed treats with Cheerios, Goldfish, candy corn, popcorn, and M&Ms in it. Plus he got a trick-or-treat bag with some candy in it and a little treat bag from the bus ladies.
Thursday night we had our ward Trunk-or-Treat. I guess it pays to have 800+ members in your ward, because our Trunk-or-Treat was rockin'! We had a cotton candy machine along with yummy chili, potato soup and cornbread. There were tons of trunks decked out and lots of fun costumes. I am sad to say that there were very few other adults who dressed up, but maybe we got some people into the spirit of it for next year! I went in my Cruella Deville costume, and Peter recycled his pirate costume from a few years ago. Here we are Trunk-or-Treating.

Here's how my costume turned out. We went to a costume party on the 24th and I even won the costume contest! Sorry, Peter's not the greatest photographer, plus I was tired and ready to get out of that thing!

We went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood on Friday night. The kids were pretty good, but got tired soon, so we didn't get to go around our whole neighborhood. Here are the kids getting ready to go. They would not look at the camera for the life of me!
The people in our neighborhood must have been giving out handfuls, because we didn't even go to that many houses, but the kids were dragging their buckets on the way home. This plus what they got at the Trunk-or-Treat will last them the whole year!