A Day Carving Pumpkins

The only rule was that they had to pick a pumpkin they could carry. That way Tanner didn't pick one of the biggest ones he could find to make a fort out of it.


Let the goo slinging begin.


How do you like the slime?


Tanner chose a skull and cross bones pattern. And carved all but the final eye detail (it was a little trickier than he could do without popping the inner eye out).


Jordyn decided to make hers with three separate faces.


Shad, of course, had to make a HALO 3 Logo. Tanners finished Skull-n-Cross Bones. Carl with the sculpted pumpkin face. And the PI pumpkin for a party at work.


The three sides of Jordyns pumpkin, lit with a flash light.


The three sides of Jordyns pumpkin, lit with a candle from the neighbor.


Tanner's, Shad's, Carl's and my pumpkins lit with candles.



All five of the pumpkins lit with candles. Tanner, Shad and Jordyn with the pumpkins.


Here is a photo of the pumpkins that the Kids and Carl carved after 5 days. The Halo one was "melting". Jordyns held up pretty well. Tanners was starting to come apart. (These were taken early Saturday morning before it started to rain. The candles in the bigger ones burned all night.

Pumpkin carving

Riding the Mules

Glenn Lasley (a neighbor of my parents) built these "mules" for the twenty-mule team days parade. So the kids got to go for some free rides around the desert area behind his house. As soon as Glenn brings them out, all the kids from across the street come running over for rides.

They are a pretty cool setup. Each one has a trailer ball in the back and a hitch in the front so they can be chained together in any configuration. Some have wheels with axels that are offset so the mules rock up and down.

First Day of School Aug 11 2008

The kids started back to school again today.



Shad starts the 6th grade this year. Jordyn starts the 4th grade. And Tanner starts 2nd. All three seemed excited about starting again. Both Shad and Jordyn will be in the G.A.T.E. program this year. It sounded like Shads teacher was going to be doing some photography in there program again. So time to go out and shoot some more photos Shad...

Tanner was the social butterfly or at least trying to be. Anytime he saw someone getting a hug, he would run over to get some to.

Jordyn was asking me if I knew her cell phone number and telling me never to call it while she is in school.

Shad was "playing it cool".

I just can't believe how big they are getting now. They grow up so damn fast. But it is fun, they can now do more of the fun things and actually have some interest in them.

The Lemonade Experience

Jordyn and Tanner decided they wanted to make Lemonade late Sunday afternoon. So they took a couple of lemons and squeezed them into water. Then decided that it was not 'yellow' enough. So they then added lemon coolade mix. Not sure if they ever put any sugar in it or not. But here are the tasting videos.

4th of July

Tanner, Jordyn and I had a good time at the Fourth of July Pool Party. Tanner was really getting the hang of surfing the boogie board. He did smack his chin on the side though, but I don't think he was on the board when he did that (Lori has video of that I believe). Both Tanner and Jordyn are becoming quite the little 'fish'. Shad was up in Utah with his cousins this weekend (see other posts). Tanner and Palsy we more interested in digging out the "Rocks" from the lake bed we parked on than watching the fireworks show. But at least they were entertained.

The photos below are just some of the fireworks shot that I took while out there watching the AV Fairgrounds Fireworks Show. The last one is the mad rush of people leaving after the show was over.

Afternoon at Apollo Park

I decided to take the Carpet Sharks out and run them a little this afternoon. Just to run down some of that energy they alway store up before bed time. So we went out to Apollo Park since it is closer to the new house and I hadn't been there in a while. It also was a beautiful afternoon with no wind and looked like it might be a good sunset.

The carpet sharks burning some energy.





You can see Tanners horns in this one.



Strike a pose. Tanner thought it was disco pose... Jordyn went for vogue... Not sure what Shad went for.



I love how the flare reflection worked in this one with the combination of the kids silhouetted as well as the water ripples. Worked alot better than I thought it would.



The sunset turned pretty good. The water was calm so reflections worked really well. Had one issue where as usual at Apollo Park, had a bird crap on my camera. But the kids thought that was really funny. Luckily it was only a glancing splat on top of the auto flash housing.

The following photos are some of the better shots that I took. Kind of an experiment in light.