goodbye spencer...see you in two years!

I have been looking through past pictures of my nephew who is leaving on a mission next week to serve for two years in South Africa.  It's been fun to reminisce.

Love you Spencer.  God bless you.

favorite pictures from the summer...

first pinewood derby

elliot and jeffrey took the preparation for elliot's first pinewood derby very seriously.  it was fun to see them planning and working together.  elliot always loves working on a project with dad.  it turned out beautiful.  they put about 5 coats of paint and added some rub ons.  they did a lot of other work like sanding the wheels, putting some special dust inside the axles  and adding weight to the rear underside of the car.  i guess there are all sorts of "tricks" you can do to make your car roll faster.  

well, it seemed to work.  Elliot came in 3rd place and above all, had a really good time.  i didn't get a picture of jeffrey with elliot, but he was there and smiling.  :)

weekend in detroit

the boys were supposed to have school off last friday so we planned a trip with some of our friends up to detroit.  as a result of a snow day the boys ended up having school friday, but we had them miss it anyway.  we had such a great time.

our first stop was the michigan science center.  we went there once right after calder was born with jeffrey's parents.  it is really neat.  we spent about 3 hours there.

my favorite part of the science museum was the electricy show.  it was so cool.  sam did not like the loud noise, but he survived.

 

right outside of the museum there is an alexander calder sculpture.  jeffrey had calder stand in front of his namesake's art.

as soon as we checked into the hotel we raced down to the pool.  we haven't been swimming since december so the kids were super excited.  they were able to go swimming again the next morning with our friends, the iveys and bowens, while jeffrey and i went to the detroit temple.  we're lucky to have such nice friends.

after swimming we all went out to dinner at chilis.  here is our group, except jeffrey who is taking the picture.

i guess i forgot to take any more pictures the rest of the trip, which makes me really sad, but oh well.

that night the bowens and iveys left their babies with me and went to the temple.  the babies were so great!  they both went right to sleep, with very little crying.  jeffrey tackled all our boys in our own hotel room and they finally went to sleep.  none of us got much sleep that night, but we survived.

after our trip up the temple the iveys and bowens met up with us at the Great Lakes Outlet Mall.  Wow, that place was huge.  Not as big as the Palisades Mall we used to go to all the time in New York, but it was still pretty big.

unfortunately by this time jeffrey wasn't feeling too well, so we headed home while our friends went to ikea. we are already hoping to go again sometime.  it was so nice to have a break and get away for a couple days.  going to the temple is always wonderful too.  we actually ran into some other friends from fort wayne at the temple.  it made me smile.