Adventures with Flat Stanley...

Flat Stanley has been our family guest for the past few weeks...As usual, we have been horrible hosts...He went without a few meals and is looking a little thinner than normal. We put him in the car and forgot about him for a few days. One family member tried to eat him and he barley escaped without losing a limb or worse. Oh, and he doesn't fair very well in the Seattle rain. Let that be a lesson to you people...Visit at your own risk.

 Most of Stanly's adventures during the past few weeks seem to revolve around hospitals. His first real family outing was into Seattle to visit Sam's new baby brother. Congratulations Rachel and Chris!

Stanley Photo-bombing again...

Stanley also learned some new words like "urology", ureteroscopy, laser and shockwave lithotripsy, and hydrocodone.

I think the most "fun" we have had with Stanley happened at the tail end of this last week. We made our costumes for the Trunk-or-treat in the parking lot of the church Friday night and they turned out way cooler than I expected...There is a family in our ward named the Knights and we had joked weeks ago about them coming as the miner family and we would come as the knight family.

With cardboard, hot glue and 3 hours of work (I always underestimate how long I think it will take) I think we pulled it off fairly well. Daddy passed out candy from within the walls of the cardboard fortress, horribly butchering a James Doohan impersonation (the other father happens to be named Scott and I wanted to be a "Scott"-ish knight).

On Saturday Zach, Madison and Millie attended a costume contest at Fred Myers. In the parking lot Marshall got embarrassed and didn't want to dress-up. He is at that age and it surprised me a little how grown up he is getting. I had to smile...while I was putting on my helmet to walk into the store I wanted to make it clear that if he didn't want to it was OK (especially since I was starting to feel a little silly too at that point) but if he didn't participate then he couldn't split the prize if one of the other kids won. He agreed and I almost chickened out too at how silly his dear old dad must have looked. Well. We won the contest. We made lots of people smile because we were the only entries in the entire store. In the end I think Marshall learned a lesson that I still need to relearn once in a while. Don't miss out on doing something good or fun just because you are embarrassed.

If the fruit is good, eat, enjoy, and forget about that large and spacious building. 

Favorite Food: Pumpkin Cookies, Daddy's Chicken Gnocchi Soup completely from scratch (yes I rolled the gnocchi myself)
Books this week: Nada...I need a new one people...What was that book you suggested Brent? I canna' remember it laddie...