BOO!

Here's a peek at our halloween




Party at the church with Lilly
She is a Robot

There were lots of booths and she tried as many as she had time for

Now for some fishing...Yes that's a Dingle girl

She had her choice of chocolate donuts or white.....

Every year I'm ready for the neighborhood kids but some years there is no one.
This year we waited and waited.  No one, 5pm, 6pm 7pm......1 little group......8pm, 9pm....9:15 Yes at last!
 
We heard all the new kids came between 3pm and 4 pm and we are in church until 4pm So sadly we missed all the new kids!

Here is what we did get

 What a surprise to get a little group from Maltby

What will we do when these two grow up?
Hope they keep coming even when they are teens!
I will always have candy here for them.

Visiting son and the pumpkin patch!

Click on any photo to enlarge

So family and friends our oldest is here with his family. We don't see them often as Clint is busy down in Southern Ca. working on one movie after the other. Right now he is in between jobs and making a visit.

As things would go he brought some sunshine from sunny Calif. and we added some cold air to make a perfect blend of good fall weather. This put us in the garden planting shallots and then off to the pumpkin patch.

I'm going to put these photos up fast for far away daughter who can't get e-mailed photos because of the far away place that she is. I'll add names and funny captions later. he he

Lilly 3 years old and cousin Flynn 4 years old are working together
to pull the Pumpkin wagon

It looks like a pumpkin procession,
Cheryl, lilly's mom, Flynn and at the rear Eden, Flynn's Pregnant mom!

Lilly really wants to pick this pumpkin up....watch below...

Oops she slipped a pumpkin under her top....or did she? Due in Dec.

This is our son Clint and Penny who just woke up
naps wait for no one!

family photos never an easy thing!

who's missing?

He does not want to be in the photo

finally we choose our orange beasts and load up the wagon

What a perfect fall day!

It's a yearly event for Lilly to get her photo at the tape measure and now
Flynn has a photo record of how tall he is.

Wow Clint you look like a real farmer

Penny looks curious to find she napped by this big field of pumpkins

Bon Odori Olympia 2010

At the beginning is grandpa Stokes in the baseball hat, very American of him, then Logan,
and grandma Stokes who lovingly provided the kids outfits, little Natalie with her daddy Jared.
We were manning the cameras!

We love a chance to see any of our grand children. Saturday evening was one of those lucky chances. We drove 2 hours south and they drove 2 hours north and we all joined together for the Olympia Bon Odori dance celebration. The dances welcome our lost love ones and gives us an evening for thinking of them. The candle light boats we put in the Puget sound lights the way home for our ancestors to leave us and return.

Enjoy the photos of this warm summer evening, filled with the scent of cooking meat and warm noodles, the sound of foreign song, drum, fans, the hugs and kisses of dear children and conversation with people you love!

first we get dressed for dancing

We dance some......


Natalie is half asleep, she's happy to walk with her dad

Then we eat noodles...............

Logan is convincing Papa he can go to get the noodles too.......

Logan points toward the food booth.

Yummy noodles, Natalie smarty eats some of mine, some of her mom's and some of her own. You can do anything if you're cute!

some taiko drumming to get us in the mood for some more dancing

Ooh time for shaved ice...we can count on some tasty flavors at all the Japanese festivals! yummy

The sun is sinking in the western sky. It's time for the fan dance and one more favorite, the dance of the fisherman, and then it's off to put our boats in the sound.

Natalie passes on the dancing and goes for some snuggle time with papa

Soon we have our chairs put away and we load into the buses that will take us to the other side of the water to put our lanterns in the Puget sound.

We write the names of our departed who joined us for the evening and will now go home. My parents, Papa's parents, some aunts and uncles and a dear friend's names go on our lantern.

The sun is nearly set as we step down to the water to put our lantern boats into the water. Logan is shocked as his floats away.
Not what he had in mind for the candle lite boat.

See the Washington state capital building in the background.

Olympia is our capital.

What a sad face, Logan really didn't understand putting such cool boats
in the water to send them off!

Logan's grandma Stokes didn't know what his head band said but a lady at the water told Logan it said he was Ninja kid and he suddenly became one! Natalie not to be out done tried to do the same Ninja face.

Can we tell her that her face will stay that way
if we don't get a nice family photo?

Oh well we tried,

Shall I tell Lyndy it gets harder the larger the family gets?

Na let's wait.

It's nearly 10:00 pm and Lyndy is pregnant and it gets very hard to feel good in the evening so she will put a lollipop in her mouth to keep her tummy settled. She carry's enough to share and Natalie cashes in on the deal! Can you believe I'm still not shooting with a flash....
Love the bright evenings in the Northwest summers.

As we return from our bus trip and enter the street where we had just been dancing we are overcome with the beauty the lanterns have left us.
So we play under them for a time.

The Street will soon open to traffic and......

At last the hour beckons us to get in the cars and go back our two hours each way home. Good bye cute family. We love you!