Halloween Fun

Our Halloween was sort of interesting this year. We began the season with a trip to a pumpkin patch...not easy to do here in Germany. In the States there are pumpkin farms all over with activities for the kids and fun corn mazes but here in Germany we were happy to find someone that had planted about an acre of American orange pumpkins and we could go out in the field and pick some up. Don't let the blue skies and sunshine fool you in these photos, it was freezing!!

Each of the boys picked out a pumpkin that was just their size.

Julian and his pumpkin. He thought it was a ball and kept throwing it, I'm surprised it made it home in one piece!

Daddy and the boys carving our pumpkin.

Emerson and Townsend removing the "guts"...why are boys so enthralled by everything yucky?

Our finished jack-o-lantern

After our fun pumpkin patch experience we headed to Rome for a week and we sort of missed the school Halloween parties and our church Halloween party. Because Halloween in on Sunday this year we weren't going to have the boys trick or treat so they were going to miss out on the Halloween fun altogether! But, because they have such a great mom (come on, I come through sometimes!) I decided to invite a few of their friends over for our own Halloween party. The neighbor kids that live next door came over as well as Laney and Ty Campbell. We don't do huge parties at our house but we did have fun with the few people that came. We started with lunch, hot dogs and yummy cranberry/marshmallow salad and then we played games and decorated cookies. The boys didn't dress up too fancy, we just told them to go up to the dress up box and grab something to wear. Townsend was a king and Emerson was a knight, but I don't have a photo of Emerson in costume. The robe was driving him crazy so he only wore his costume for a few minutes.

Townsend with Laney Campbell

Trying to eat a doughnut off a string without using their hands

Frosting and decorating cookies.

Farewell, Our Beloved Opa

Hyrum's father passed away on October 3rd. I can't really describe the emotions that I have felt over the past few weeks as I have let it all sink in. I flew out to Utah for a few days to be there for the funeral. It was so hard to walk around the house and the yard and have so many reminders of Opa everywhere and yet know that he wasn't going to walk into the room or come in from the garden.

May 1st 1999, on our wedding day. I don't think I realized fully on this day how much Opa would mean to me.

Opa with Townsend and Emerson, doing what he did best, making others happy.

Little man Jules won't remember his Opa and this makes me very sad. I know Opa loved him as he loved all his grandchildren.

I can't adequately describe how much he has influenced my life. First of all he taught Hyrum by example how to be a wonderful husband and father and for that I will always be grateful. He taught my boys how to enjoy a good hike and how to build things. They worked with Opa to build a bird house and then also a swing that hangs in our yard. Mostly I will remember how kind he was to everyone. He made everyone feel at ease when they were talking with him. He had the best laugh and always made me smile.

I know he is in a better place, free from pain. I know I will see him again some day and on that day I will give him a great big hug and tell him once more how much I love him.

The boys were not able to come to Utah for the funeral, it would have been miserable for them to make that flight twice in just a few days time. Because they didn't get a chance to say goodbye I had the idea for them to write notes to Opa and then we would tie them to a balloon and send them to heaven. Here are a few pictures and a little video of our boys saying farewell to their Opa.

Here are the pictures we drew. You can sure tell from these pictures that we all knew he loved being in nature and hiking up mountains especially!

The boys ready to release the balloon with our messages tied to it.

We all watched the balloon float up into the sky until it became a tiny silver speck and then finally disappeared.