New Year's Eve is always a fun time at our house. This year we continued our yearly tradition with Charmaine's family for food, games and a lot of noise! Dutch Blitz and Catch Phrase were the evening favorites. We came home to snuggle up and read stories until midnight.
We're ready for 2010!
We scurried over to the local sledding hill to take advantage of the bit of snow on the ground. Sammy has shown a great delight in being out in snow, so he got to come along to the park. It is fun for Becky to try to capture Sammy in a photo, and it isn't easy!
The kids had fun meeting up with friends to sled, but we're really hoping for more snow to come!
Well, it happens every Christmas! We can't resist letting our true colors show! We're really sort of a goofy family under that mild-mannered exterior, but we manage to have a lot of fun despite a crazy-busy schedule. The kids love this tradition, and every year we have to come up with another silly pose for the holidays. Stay tuned for next year's photo!
Becky's work celebrated Christmas with a chilly trip to the Antarctic this year. We decided the best idea was to dress like the natives. :) Actually, it was a fun evening, loads of visiting with friends and coworkers, yummy food, and a chance to take penguin family photos.
Sarah's 5th/6th grade class put together a performance of the Christmas musical, "The 6th Grade Scrooge," tonight. The kids all did a great job! Of course, our eyes were on Sarah since she had a solo part. She was the expected nervous/excited. It was clear the kids and teachers had really been working on this to make it special. To top it all off, there was a spread of yummy treats! We made mini chocolate cupcakes with candy cane frosting. Strangely enough, there weren't any leftovers...
We couldn't pass up the leaf piles today. I'm sure we were supposed to be doing something productive, but we pulled over for a spontaneous leaf stop. The kids rolled down a hill into a pile of leaves, ran across big rows of leaf piles, and buried themselves in leaves. Yippee! Fall is going by too quickly this year and we haven't had enough good leaf days. This will have to do for awhile!
After leaving Mt. Rushmore, we headed off to our KOA Campground. We lost the bus at one point, so decided to enjoy the scenery a bit along the way. It worked out great because we ended up pulling into the camp at the same time. Sarah is standing in front of the Crazy Horse Memorial.
What a blast to go to Mt. Rushmore with our kids! So many great adventures already on our trip. We explored by groups, so Sarah was with a group of girls and Clint was with his boys. Ben and I quickly worked on earning his Jr. Ranger badge. It was fun when we would run into each other. Everyone is easy to spot in these yellow shirts! We enjoyed looking at all of the interesting displays and videos. Ben tried to sketch the view in his sketchbook.
This was the first time for our whole family to see Devil's Tower National Monument. We camped right outside of the park, and enjoyed gorgeous weather. We're enjoying our cooking crew and appreciating the well planned meals. They arrived ahead of us and had our food ready for us last night.
No turning back now! After more than a year of fund-raising, and months of preparations, we're off. We loaded Sarah on the Pathfinder bus, put the rest of us in our van (along with way too much luggage and stuff), and headed off to the big International Pathfinder Camporee in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It will be a long road trip, but with lots of great stops on the way and alot of excited kids on board. 
Our girl is now 11 years old! We decided to go for a swimming afternoon with a group of friends, but first we had to enjoy Clint's surfing birthday cake. Having a wave on top turned out to be fairly challenging, but it really turned out great. 
On a sunny, Sabbath afternoon, we couldn't resist the opportunity to catch up with Cliff, Jan and Ethan at Hat Rock. We have never been there before, and were thankful for the opportunity to check out the park, relax with friends, play in the water and enjoy supper together. They were kind enough to let us try out the kayak too!
Today was the last day for family groups at Sarah's school, so they had a big outside game time for most of the morning. It is hard to imagine just one more week of school. She was having a blast with the kids and this shot is at the balloon toss.
It was also the last day for her student teacher so we got a photo of them together. He was fabulous, and we'd love to recommend him for a teaching job so let us know if you need a great 5th/6th grade teacher.
Ben and Sarah have fun doing piano lessons together. Sarah refers to her old teacher's notes, and Ben uses her early piano books. She enjoys being the teacher and Ben is pleased to have someone interested in showing him the piano. He's made a lot of improvements this year. We're just enjoying two kids on piano!
After practicing for a couple of weeks, Ben and Kristian finally had their moment in the spotlight to sing, "The Duck Song," for the homeschool group talent show. It is a fun song for young boys and makes them laugh. There was a bit of nervousness, but they did a great job with Kristian's grandpa helping out on the guitar.
Sarah saw her old homeschool friends, including Emily shown here. All the kids took at bow at the end and we left feeling really great because it was over! 
We couldn't pass up a chance to head to the park today, enjoy a picnic with friends from church, and then head up a hill to find a geocache we haven't found before! It took us on a trail we haven't explored before, and then turned off the main pathway. We were brave to fight through the long grass and surprising heat to reach the top of the hill. Ben was the spotter of the cache!
The view was terrific and we left with a great feeling of satisfaction after finding our 150th geocache! 
Could it be time for Ethan's birthday again? We always enjoy his birthday because we get to have a PARTY! This year we rolled out the birthday greetings at the bowling alley. Now that he's 10, he's even better than ever. After bowling, we went out for pizza and cake, with an appropriate amount of boy joking around.
One thing we love is when friends stop by to stay with us! Our long-time friends, Darren and Yvette, and their three boys, came all the way from Montana to be with us. Well, o.k., maybe they did really come for the Friendship Tournament, but between basketball games, they did come to see us. :) It was great one of their teams won at the tournament this year!
The boys had a blast playing all day and sleeping together in Ben's room on the floor. Becky and Yvette didn't have quite enough time to get caught up on everything, but it just refreshes our souls to see long-distance friends. We'll try to stop to see them on our way to Osh Kosh, WI, in August!
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