Halloween!!!

Hello to all. Halloween here is a blast. Better than any place I have ever been! We had such a fun day yesterday!!!!! Molly and I trick-o-treated 3 times. At 10 am Molly (Cinderella) and I (Cinderella's mouse friend) went with her preschool to all the offices in the park (National Park Service, Delaware North, etc) and everyone had decorated their offices like one would decorate a house. It was a hoot. Then Jack's whole school (30 kids) went to all the offices at 1pm and Molly and I went with them. Then last night all four of us went with a bunch of our friends and their kiddos to all the houses. It really was a great time!! I love Halloween! Here are some pictures of our day and of the cutie Halloween cookies I made to give out.

You can click on the pictures to see them bigger!!

GO RED SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WORLD CHAMPS!!!
Pretty darn cool! What a great series! What a team!!

I will be writing in red today in honor of the Sox!

Now that the Series is over, we have moved into high gear for Halloween. Molly and I are busy today making Halloween cookies to give out Wednesday night and Jack is quite busy flip flopping what he wants to be. One minute it is a pirate (big draw this year) the next it is a super hero and then out of the blue this morning he said he would like to be a leaf. So who knows. Molly is going to be Tinkerbell again for trick or treating but she wants to wear her Cinderella costume for her school parade. Brian and I haven't decided yet what we will be, so you will have to wait and see the pictures Thursday morning.

The picture above is a plate of baseball cookies I made for one of the games! (they weren't hard, just tedious) Love you Beedi

Jack, The Singing Sensation

Okay, so this is a little video of Jack singing some songs that he wants to sing for his sharing day at school on Friday. He has been practicing all week and he is very excited! I am not sure where he learned the first one, but the second one he made up and the third is obviously the ABC song. I told him yesterday that I would tape him singing so everyone could see him and he said "Um, how about if we call ABC World News and have them come and tape me". Seriously, I could barely keep a straight face. A little shot on the news and suddenly he is a star with demands. Makes me giggle!!

Yosemite Facelift - Jack, the Big Star!

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3704872&affil=wsyr

Check out this link! It is Jack on ABC World News from last night (October 8). We just had Yosemite Facelift and Jackson and his school were a part of it. WE got to help clean up the park that we now get to call home! It was neat. Jack thought it was really cool to see himself on tv. He said to us after we watched it "Wow, I was GREAT, I am a star!" I was there when they were taping the segment and it was really fun. If you look closely you can see Molly in the background wearing a hot pink sweatshirt.

We miss everyone terribly! Can't wait to have some visitors out here soon!!!

I am so very sorry it has been so long since I last wrote. It has been very busy here. My parents came and were here for a week and we had a great time. We went hiking and biking all over the place and went to the high sierra country and saw amazing views from up there. Then Beedi came the following week for a long weekend trip and we had another great time. We actually went camping (which I don't really love) at May Lake one of the the High Sierra camps with friends from work and it was very very cold. Brian hiked up from our camp with a group of people to the top of Mt Hoffman. The picture he took are amazing and I will post some soon (I have to go get Jack from school).



So now we are settling back into our routine and doing quite well. Molly has started preschool and she loves it. All her friends from along our meadow go to school with her and so she thinks it is wonderful. Today she made donuts and last week they made carrot cake (carrots being one of Molly's favorite things, she was quite pleased with the whole thing).

Brian and I are celebrating our 9th anniversary today!!! So, Yeah for us!!

We miss everyone, but we are making some great new friends! Hope everyone is well!

A Nice Visit

Hello All,

We had a great time with my parents. They really seemed to enjoy themselves. My dad became Mr. hiking man while he was here. It was nuts. We did all the crazy little touristy things there are to do here and it was a blast. I learned a lot about the park that I didn't know before. We also went out to dinner a lot and that is always nice. The picture is of us at the Awahnee Hotel right before we ate.

We hiked in one day to see the Sequoia Trees. They were amazing. Then we went up to Glacier point where you can see our meadow and our house (if you squint and know where to look) :-)

All in all a very nice time. We drove them back to San Fransisco on Sat and spent the afternoon there. We saw the trolley cars - which my very dear sister in law to be calls "Rice a Roni Trolleys" (I am calling them that now to b/c I think that is the greatest name ever!!)

Things continue to go well. Jack is now in his second week of school and is still enjoying it. Molly still misses him, but the two of us are keeping busy. I am one of three parents on the school's committee to decide what the curriculum will be and what changes need to be made from last year. It is good. Molly and I will be going to a co-op preschool about 45 min from here staring in September. And I think she is going to start Kumon like Jack did back in the day. Brian is working hard, but still has such a nice amount of time at home. We are all busy beavers.

This is a a picture I took of Half Dome from our front porch. Every morning Brian and the kids say good morning to Half Dome, Glacier Point and the Royal Arches. Those are the three granite walls we can see from our house.

This week we have been working on getting pictures hung up in the house and everything put away. My parents are going to be here for a week arriving on Friday. The kids are very excited to see them and to see Izzy (our dog) who has been visiting my parents while we moved across the country.

Pilates starts tonight for me, so that will be lots of fun! I can't wait. Molly and I have been bike riding in the mornings after we drop Jack off at school. I also have found the Race For the Cure, which I have done in Orlando the past few years, is in Fresno too!!! I am very excited about running again (took a break over the summer in Orlando - to darn hot) :-)

Brian and Jack have been working on some bike riding lessons and it is going very well. Molly just likes to run behind them yelling instructions at Jack. The whole thing is pretty funny!

1st day of 1st grade at Yosemite Valley School

Jack had his first day of 1st grade yesterday and he loved it. He is going to the Yosemite Valley school and it has only three classes. He is in the first class that has the kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades. He had a great time and met lots of nice friends. There are about 13 kids in his entire class. He is having a hoot. He was very excited to go back again today! Tomorrow (they have half days on Thursdays) they are going for a walk at lunch time down to one of the meadows here to have lunch. He was talking about that all last night and all morning today - can't wait!!

Molly missed him yesterday and was a bit sad this morning when she finally woke up (she is not much of a morning person - similar to Aunt Sissy and Beedi) to find that he was already gone. But she is now having some breakfast and watching the Backyardigans, so she is content for now.

Jack was telling us last night at supper that he loves Florida and Brian looked at Molly and she said, "I just love Pizza". So that kinda sums up Molly's thoughts on the state of things. As long as there is pizza she will be happy enough.

We Have Arrived

Yeah!!! We are here in Yosemite at last! We have been here for about two weeks now and we are all having a great time! Our first weekend we walked down to the river (The Merced) and let the kids throw rocks, it was a lot of fun!


Since then we have done lots of bike riding (b/c that is the best way around) and lots of hiking. The kids have really gotten into it. Jack got some new hiking shoes and thinks himself a rock climber now. And Molly has Jack's Timberland boots and has declared herself the Mountain Princess. So we are enjoying ourselves quite a bit.

I feel like I am at summer camp every day. It's great. We have met lots of really nice people and we are excited to see and do all there is for us to do. We miss you all so much. We were actually doing alright, hadn't cried to much and then last night Bri and I were watching tv and the Launch Experience commercial came on (for those of you who don't know, Brian worked at Kennedy Space Center for 10 years before we came to Yosemite). We both looked at each other and we couldn't believe how homesick that commercial made us. Sad for us. We truly do miss you all and can't wait for you to come visit!!

On Our Way...

Well, we are officially moved out of the house. It was sad to leave it and very hard to say goodbye to all our dear family and friends. We had an amazing going away party with our dear friends, and that was super hard, but we thank them all for being the best friends ever!!! Chris Henn, so sorry it has taken me so long to update, but thanks for checking :-)

We are on the road now and we spent our first sad night away from Florida in our second home in Etowah TN at our adopted parents. Thank you Ralph and Polly for your gracious hospitality and the most delicious food in all the world!!!! Fried Green Tomatoes ROCK!!!!!!

Today we are in Kansas visiting cousins! It has been a hoot- many laughs had by all. We will be spending one more night here and the tomorrow we are off to the Kansas Cosmosphere. After that the road is open before us with many options.

I will try to keep you all updated. I am sorry there are no pictures this time. We have taken quite a few, but have not had time to upload them yet. As soon as we do I will post them! Take care! We love you all!