Life is BOO-tiful

And here we have Robin Hood and Odette the swan princess from Swan Lake ballet. Halloween began for us with an annual through-the-hallway parade at their school and a huge carnival put on by the upper grades afterwards. Guys, this parade is serious business. This year my favorites were a kindergarten teacher who was dressed and looked exactly like Mary Poppins, Mrs. Clark the music teacher dressed like a rotund Mozart, and Will's friendgirl dressed as Ben Franklin. And the partying rolled on from there, culminating with trick-or-treating up and down a nearby beautiful old neighborhood (think big houses and big candy) called the Harvard Yale area.

Will received this Robin Hood hat in the mail. It came with a card that said Dear Will, This is Robin Hood. I am getting old and need you to take my place to fight the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham. Wide-eyed, he put it on and has worn it nonstop since. Beautiful childhood innocence.

In other world news. Travis had his birthday. Note that I didn't say "we celebrated Travis' birthday." I was sick with a sore throat (that first came from him, btw) and he and the kids spent a nice fall day together, which included cleaning the ward building and helping put on the ward Halloween party. So he's due for a major brunch and doting on.

Jane colored on the walls. Her punishment is to clean the marks up herself, which she is doing right now as Will practices violin, which is taking her an hour to complete. When I told her how to clean it, she said, "Hey this is just like the movie where I am orphan Annie and you're that bossy older lady."

Beautiful innocence, yes. Earlier, when she was minding as slowly as molasses, I asked if she needed a warning (warning then punishment), and she said so cheerfully, "No thanks, I already have one!"

Garvin Update

Hey, All!

Here is a quick Garvin update since we last congregated!

First...just a funny picture we all had a laugh at.

We all had a great time at the reunion. (Thanks, Trav and Mar!)

Got to meet little London and go to her blessing...

...where this little angel...

...got this lodged in his ear canal trying to make homemade earplugs during sacrament meeting!

Kimball visited Texas for the BYU game...had a blast with the guys.

First day of school...probably the hottest day of the summer and no one could wear their new school clothes.

Kennedy started preschool with Ms. Cloud.

Can't get enough of this kid.

Camping Birthday party with friends for the big 8! Happy Birthday, Kayla!

Campfire cupcakes

Kayla got baptized. Thanks to all who came!

Looking forward to this wedding next week!! We'll see you Portlanders then!

Love you all!

The Sweetness of Things

First of all, this is very funny.

And this is very sweet.

Garvins, we were so happy to see you for, like, five seconds on your way back to Washington.

I know September has been just as full for all of you, too. Will started second grade and and Jane junior-k. They are both taking violin through the school, which also means that they're a part of the school symphony, which also means also that I sit in on their lessons each week, which also means that there's a lot of squeaking going on around our house. I'm reminded of two principles: that environment itself can be a teacher--Jane already knows so much about the violin because it's been around in our house for her, through Will. And the principle that repetition turns a conscious act into an intuitive act. What we do over and over eventually becomes a part of us.

This is Will on the first day of school, with me giving him the prompt: Pretend that you are meeting your teacher for the first time, and you have just realized that your teacher is Batman and is going to teach you all you need to know about using the Utility Belt. Both Will and Jane's teachers are superawesome, and they feel confident enough in their surroundings that they decided, after Travis dropped them off, to take a tour through the school and enter their classrooms 30 minutes late one day. Which we had to address. They are both taking French, and so we are eeking out un petit peu de francais, en famille.

Eh, but forget about all of that. The main thing is that, while the boys went to the BYU game last night, Jane and I had a revelatory chocolate bouchon at a cute local French bakery called Tulie. So good was this little burst of heaven that we ate in silence until I said, "Jane, this makes me think of happy fall days walking through Paris" and Jane said "this makes me think: yum."

The bouchon is aptly named for its being roughly shaped like an oversized wine cork. Sitting tall and unpretentious yet with slightly smug aplomb, it offers a crusty outside and gooey molten middle. So inspired we were by this little pastry wonder, we made a special trip to Sur La Table for a mini popover pan just to recreate them at home. And we did. With Charles Tournet music in the background, like in Something's Gotta Give--and I pretended I was in some Nancy Myers movie, only I had to clean up the dishes at the end. And we kind of chocolated ourselves out after so many bites. And the kids are kind of grumpy today after a late bedtime. But it's all worth the sweetness.

The End of an Incredible Summer - Part I

Thanks, Mar, for reviving the family blog.  I do hope everyone will post on it.  What a great way to share with everyone what we’re all up to.  I thought I’d give a quick recap of this incredible summer and share some pictures of you and your kids that we were able to spend time with this summer.

First, my incredible summer started off with going to the Sister’s Quilt Show with my quilting friends.  

It is so much fun hanging out with friends that feel just as passionate about quilting as I do at such a great quilting event.  It has been my dream for YEARS to go to the Sister’s Quilt Show and this summer I got to do it.  Here are some pictures of my friends and I and a peak at what the quilt show was like.  There were quilts on the sides of almost every building in town and hanging everywhere.  It was incredible.  They predicted 10,000 people attended the show.

The next incredible event of the summer was when Mar, Will and Jane came to visit right before Grandma Camp.    We had so much fun playing together.

They earned prizes from “Grandma’s Store” with Grandma Cash!

We made crowns together!

We went raspberry picking at a local u-pick raspberry farm. 

We hung out and played a lot on Grandma and Grandpa’s waterbed.

We went to the Waffle Window for breakfast!

We put together floor puzzles!

We made sock puppets!

Then the Garvin cousins came and “Grandma Camp” began!  Grandpa took work off and we just played for 4 days!!

There was lots of jumping around and playing on Grandma & Grandpa’s waterbed.  It was a miracle it didn’t pop.  This will probably be the last year that we have it so play away! It was fun to see how excited they were to be together.

We started it off going to “Out of This World Pizza & Play"

Everyone slept in a tent in the family room for Grandma Camp!!

They all got to pick out a special pillow case grandma made for when they come to visit and they slept with quilts grandma had made.

Sunday afternoon we spent making our own creations out of Grandma’s art supplies

We played some games, including Pick-up Sticks!

Sunday evening we went to the Portland Temple grounds for Family Home Evening.  Grandpa taught a lesson on Eternal Families.  The temple grounds were closed, but we found a beautiful spot outside the fence.

There were “Muddy Buddy’s” for a Family Home Evening Treat!

Then Kennedy and Jane entertained us some with some “dance moves”!

Monday was go to the Zoo Day!

This was at the entrance of the zoo.  Everyone posed for a shot to send parents while Grandpa bought the tickets to get into the zoo.

First off, we went on the train ride up to the Rose Gardens and top of Washington Park!

At the top we had a picnic lunch!

We’re waiting for the train to come and pick us up to take us back down to the zoo!

The dinosaur exhibit was a big hit!

Kennedy was not quite so sure about the dinosaurs and stuck pretty close to Grandpa!

They were pretty lifelike and this one was noisy!

Next was the elephants and the elephant museum!

Everyone had fun getting pictures taken on the statues of the zoo animals.

Kayla, Will and McKay are getting eaten by the dinosaur!!!!

The last day of “Grandma Camp” we played water games at home!

We also went to McDonalds for lunch!

Tuesday evening, Melissa and Taylor arrived!

The Utah cousins got to meet Taylor for the first time.

Taylor with Mr. Magoo eyes!!

So “Grandma Camp” had to come to a close.  We flew to Utah the next morning with Will and Jane and Dad and I went to the Everton Family Reunion at Ruth and Dan’s house.  

So this is part one of our incredible summer.  This was long enough for today.  I’ll try to post again soon with part two.