Pumpkins!!!

Each year we carve pumpkins with my folks. It's always interesting to see what we come up with. Each of us are standing behind our own pumpkins. This was the best I could get with the pumpkins lit up. The 2 on the left belong to my parents and the 4 on the right are ours.

Kaleb's 7th B-day

Kaleb wanted another Pirate Party this year and Klara wanted to be a Queen. This worked out really well since WalMart had the costumes. Then we ordered a cake thru Sams Club and they put his pic on it. He loved that. And of course, the group photo.

Nekol's B-day

My folks came up to help celebrate my b-day and Kaleb's. They posted our pic on the news so I took a pic of us on the tv.(P.S.) You can click on the collages to make the pic larger if needed.

Happy Birthday To Us

Kaleb will be 7 on Oct 23rd.
And I will be ** on the 23rd as well. He is my special birthday gift. Happy birthday to us both!

Turkey and Carrot Soup

Isn't this cute?!? We bought it as a thank you gift to my folks for watching the doggies for 2 weeks. I should have removed the tag from it's nose before the pic, but it's cute anyways.

Then for dinner we made Carrot soup with all the ripe ones we had in our garden. We used sour cream to make the "web" and green onions for the "spider". The kids loved their web soup. It wasn't until after they were done eating that I told them what it really was.

Wolf Creek Pass

We spent the night in SW Colorado and the next morning we headed over one last mountain pass. I'm sooo glad we got to see it during the day. The colors were awesome! At the top of the pass we were treated to snow. We stopped at a few scenic overlooks and the view was worth it. Sadly, it was time to go home. Clif got us thru the reservation as fast as we could and then quickly home. Once home we unloaded the car, reload for 1 more overnight as we headed back down to Phx to get the doggies. We were glad to see our pups again, but sure missed our vacation. The kids still love looking back with fond memories and can't wait until their next vacation. They both did excellent in the car for so long and we only had to put out a few fires. Otherwise, they got along really well. So well, that I would love to take another vacation with them now.

Pikes Peak

We left Chicago and a few days later we were in Colorado Springs. Yes, we still want to move there...but we went up to Pikes Peak and drove to the top. All 3 of my family members were getting high altitude sickness so we didn't stay very long up there. It was a bit icy in places and oh so cold. We drove half way back down and pulled over for a picnic lunch in a nice area. Then made our way out and back on the road. The colors on the trees were in high color and made for a beautiful drive thru all sorts of mountains.

Kuipers' Farm Day 2

On Monday we went to the farm again and this time we were able to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa and other extended family. Clif's Aunt and Uncle are the owners of the farm and very busy, so we didn't get to visit with them as much as we would have liked. However, we knew it was their busy time and so we figured they would be busy. But Clif's grandparents were off that day and spent time with us. We toured the farm with a few golf carts and the quad. Grandpa took all of us on a tractor ride and daddy showed the kids (and I) how to blow air across a blade of grass to make it whistle. What a great time we had....I think this was the best part of our whole vacation. Great fun and extra great company!

Willis Tower

After Navy Pier we took the bus to Willis Tower....formally known as Sears Tower. We took the 90 second trip to the 103 floor to look out the SkyDeck. The views were great and they were exceptional from the SkyLedge. There are 4 glass slide outs that you can walk onto and then look straight down. Dare devil Klara just trotted out there...Kaleb was quite hesitant to go out and needed some prodding...I was very cautious and Clif was not bothered by it. It was a very odd feeling. Then it is only 60 seconds to go back to the ground and yes, we did it....we bought the souvenir picture at a 300% mark up....but it was a great pic of the 4 of us standing on the ledge together with Kaleb's death grip on my hand.

Navy Pier

We took a day and went into the downtown area. We took the train in and caught the bus to Navy Pier. The morning was COLD!! We thought about a tour on the lake, but way too much wind for us. I didn't want to spend so much money to find out if the kids get sea sick or not due to the waves. Maybe another time. Along the pier is a shopping mall for tourists. We of course spent time there as well. Then we went to the rides area. We rode the very tall ferris wheel and a few other rides. Then back on the bus and headed to Willis Tower.

Off To The Farm

We visited the farm on two different days. This was Friday. This is a top notch operation. We had sooo much fun. The bouncing pillow was the family favorite. Even I got on it.

Police Station

Next stop, Chicago. We were able to visit some family on Clif's side....Aunt and Uncle that I've never met and had been a long time since Clif had seen them. We had a wonderful visit with them. Then we took a tour of the police station and jail. Uncle Paul gave us a huge tour and we learned tons. Oh, mug shots too...but Clif wasn't supposed to laugh.

More of St Louis

Inside the arch area was a museum. We spent some time there and the kids wanted pics by different things....I won't bore you with all of those. By the time we were getting ready to go, I wanted the pic of someone holding the arch. I'm surprised they turned out this good because everyone was overly hungry and you know what that means in this family. However, I thought these came out pretty good.

Vacation...St Louis

The next big thing we did before getting to Chicago was a stop in St Louis and of course, we did the arch. The pic of the kids and I shows the size of the capsule we rode in to get to the top. They considered Klara a lap child, so we had to squeeze 6 of us in there.

Vacation....part 0

Hey, this collage thing is fun to do. Anyways, here are the kids before our trip.

Vacation...Part 1

I finally wanted to share some photos from our big vacation to Chicago. However, it was hard to narrow down my selection...so I've tried to make a collage and transfer it to blogger. So we'll see how it goes. I hope the pics are not too small to see. We started our trip with a quick trip to Phx to drop off both doggies for their 2 week vacation with my folks. Then we headed out. Our first big stop was at Meramec Caverns. The kids loved the chance to walk in "a cave".