The Week in Review

2 Nov 2011: The ghostly image of a doe.

It's been a full week, and here are some highlights:

31 Oct 2011

Monday night was Halloween, of course.  With only one child left at home, I wasn't sure whether it would be much of a haunt, but it turned out okay.  Dylan never has been one to wear a costume.  Even when he was a small child, his older siblings wanted to dress up to the hilt, but I was lucky if I could get Dylan to wear a tee-shirt with "Trick-or-Treat" written on it.  This year was no different.  He decided to spray his hair green and draw himself a mustache with my eyeliner pencil.  Good enough.

31 Oct 2011: Chris texted me this picture of Diego

as Karate Dog on Halloween!

Dylan and a bunch of his friends (most of the members of his Teachers Quorum at church, in fact) went to the annual haunted house put on at the nearby fire station as a fundraiser.  It's the most popular haunted house on the mountain!  Dylan reports that it was actually scary and they had a blast.  After that, the guys went to one of the boys' homes and hung out until almost 9:00.  It was a school night, after all.

1 Nov 2011: Jeff arrives at the surprise party for his 50th birthday.

Tuesday was my little brother Jeff's 50th birthday.  His wife Dana set up a surprise party for him at a Mexican restaurant where, upon his delayed arrival, he was greeted by a room packed with family and friends.  It was a lot of fun getting together like that.  And the Mexican food was good, too! 

Dana, Jeff, and 4-year-old Callie, the youngest of their 13 children.

As Jeff pointed out, we only have one more sibling to hit the 50-year mark.  Our baby brother, Darryl, is still only 48.

Jeff's birthday cake.

The candles are lit!  Dana, Jeff, and the cake.

On Wednesday night, Dylan and I went to Mutual (youth group).  When we were leaving the church afterward, Dylan spotted a couple of deer on the church grounds.  We see a lot of wildlife in our rural area, but it's unusual for deer to come that far into the town.  As our car neared them, they crossed the street and we followed them, camera at the ready.  It was too dark to get any good photos, but the ghostly one at the top of this post came out pretty cool!

5 Nov 2011: Snow-covered pine in front of our house.

And finally, last night we had our first real snowstorm, the kind that lasts all night and sticks around for awhile.  We only got a little over an inch at our house, but I heard they got six inches in Flagstaff.

5 Nov 2011: Snow-limned oak branches in our front yard.

There was one more big event that took place on Thursday night, but I'll save that for the next blog post...