The Rob Grays in Rhode Island

We had a good time in Rhode Island and Boston. The boys loved playing with Jackson, Cooper and Douglas! Some of the things we did while on vacation were:

Visited the John Alden house in Rhode Island. The boys wished they had more time to run around and play but alas, Grandpa Gray had bigger plans.

Visited the Mayflower II, how did those Pilgrims do it? Peter was the coolest kid there and he spotted the seal swimming around in the harbor. We had such fun watching for the seal to pop it's head out of the water.

We visited Plimoth Plantation and my boys had a blast running around and chasing the chickens there. They also liked seeing what the Indians used to live in back in the day.

We roamed around Boston and had fun looking at all the different buildings and sharing a donut together.

We got a ride on the ferry which was short but fun.

Got in some good cousin time and played a lot. The boys made way too much noise for certain people in the condo but they loved playing duck, duck, goose; hide and seek; and super heroes with Jackson's capes.

The boys looked so cute in their turkey hats! Happy Thanksgiving!

We visited the New England Aquarium and among other things we saw this gigantic lobster, 3 sharks, sting rays, seals, jelly fish, turtles, a barracuda and so many other fun things. But boy oh boy, that place was packed to the gills!

My boys had fun managing the subway system. Caleb even saved our skin by reminding us where to get off at one point in our journey.

And last but not least, Willy enjoyed finding any way possible to push buttons. Whether it was in the condo and pushing the buttons on the oven or in our hotel by turning on the electronics, he was having a blast!

Thanks everyone for the fun time and Grandpa Gray for organizing it all. There was so much more we wanted to do like explore the forests that lined the roads there in Rhode Island or go for an Awful Awful, but that is okay. We had fun! Love you all (we missed you Jason and company)!

Late Autumn Hike

At the beginning of November, on the last really warm day in the valley, I took the boys on a hike on the Mill D Trail in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was a good thing I threw a bunch of warm clothes in the trunk of the car, because it was COLD in them there hills! There was snow on the lee side of the mountains, so I took the boys up this trail since most of the first leg is on the west and south face of this particular mountain. The trail was dry for the most part, with just a few muddy spots. Jonah was sure nervous about falling off the trail and down the mountain in some spots. Kinda weird when hiking up the trail.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We only hiked up about a half hour due to the position of the sun. We turned around with enough time to make it back down with the last remaining sunlight. Jon-Jon kept asking how high we were going to go. "I'm real tired! I don't have enough oxygen 'cuz we're so high up. When are we going to stop and take a break?" We eventually did stop and the boys fueled up on Capri-Sun flavored water and Wheat Thins. Good thing Dad had so many pockets in his cargo pants and jack-vest!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

More pics of Addison

Addison's hair is very difficult to do anything with. Before taking these photos, Dacia smoothed down her hair, but less than 5 minutes later, well, you can see the results.

Awesome!

"Awesome!" That is how Caleb described it to me today. I went and picked Caleb up from school this afternoon and he was all a buzz about some paper he had gotten in school today for being a good kid. I did not know what he was talking about so he went back into school to look for it. Senora Barker came out and told me that in an assembly today Caleb was named "Student of the Month" for her class! WHOA! I was so proud and blown away. Last year when that stuff happened they told us so we could go to the assembly with him. I really wish I could have been there when Caleb's name was called. Mrs. Neral said that he was so surprised and excited when they called his name. What a good kid! He said it felt great to be up there, as it should. I am so excited and proud of him, he makes my heart smile. But that is not all, Senora Barker also told me about how he had lunch with her. I was a bit confused so she went on to explain. In her class the students are given pesos when they do good stuff. After they accumulate enough pesos they can buy stuff from the class store. With some of Caleb's pesos he chose to purchase a treat bag that had a cookie and some suckers in it. But with the remainder of his pesos he bought a ticket to eat lunch with Senora Barker. So today, along with a few other kids, they sat in the classroom and ate lunch together. How cute is that?! I thought it was so sweet that he wanted to have lunch with her so he used his "money" to buy that ticket. Not only is that cute but he told me the other day that teachers are able to visit a magic store. I asked him to give me more details and he proceeded to tell me that this magic store was for craft supplies and that teachers were the only ones that were able to go to this magic store and get supplies for any type of craft. Then he made me smile by telling me that he wants to be two things when he grows up. An Architect first and foremost (he has wanted that ever since he was three). Secondly, he wants to be a teacher so that he can go to that magic craft store and get some stuff from there. Oh, how cool are kids!

And on a side note: Happy Thanksgiving! This is our Turkey Family for this year. They turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself. Love you all!

Happenings

Well, you have all heard about Halloween. It was fun, my boys loved gathering candy and they loved their costumes. Well, William really did not love being taped up with all those glowys but it was fun once we were done. Rob's office also had a trick-o-treat thing on Friday so the boys went to that as well. We did not dress the boys up with their glow sticks so Willy went as a little Architect. It was so adorable !

And everyone loved the boys' costumes. There was one cubicle that the boys really wanted to avoid, they had steam coming out and a strobe light flashing. They made all the kids go past the lights and then there was a guy with a spooky mask on, it was the least favorite part of the trip. Now since November has begun we have had parent teacher conference with Caleb and he continues to make us proud. He is such a little stud in the classroom. We were told that he can be a little "chatty" with his friends but they are very impressed with how smart he is. He does great at getting his work done and he does really well with working on his own and following instructions. Senora Barker is very pleased with how well he is doing with Spanish and he is even starting to read some Spanish on his own and speaking in class with the teacher. Caleb has also finished up with his reflections project for this years competition. The theme is Beauty and at first Caleb did not want to enter a project. He was a little unsure of the word Beauty, but after talking it over and figuring out what was beautiful to him, we hunkered down and made something. Caleb said that the mountains were beautiful to him. He loves to go for drives through the canyon and look at all the rocks, trees, mountains.... He also loves going to Scofield and exploring up there. So, we came up with a 3D project to incorporate some pictures we took this summer, Caleb's talent for drawing and his enjoyment for folding paper and came up with something pretty cool.

There is a picture of Caleb at Scofield, Willy at the cabin in Manti, Caleb's cave going down to Scofield, and one of the deer we saw at Scofield this summer. Then Caleb's drawing includes a lot of details of bears, deer, elk, rivers, trees and bushes, trails going up the mountain, and an eagle and red tailed hawk in the sky. He is a great little artist.

Gray Halloween

We had a great time on halloween night with Grandma, Grandma Gray and Emily! Caleb dressed as robot, Peter a robot cowboy, and Willie as an robot alien. Jonah went as a vampire, Jonathan as dark spiderman, and Spencer as a hunter who hunted, killed, skinned, and then wore the skin of Tigger. Ok, fine, he actually went as Tigger, but we couldn't get him to keep the hood/hat part on, so Rob commented that he actually looked like he was wearing a Tigger skin. Grandma and Grandpa fed us all pizza before we went out and we had a great time!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com