Rose Bowl!

Because we are not sure when it will happen again and we are driving distance away from Pasadena....we are heading to CA for the Rose Bowl to watch Ohio State! We debated about leaving the kids home for a few days with our babysitter, but decided we would take them and go see Mickey for New Year's Eve. So now I am going to be busy getting us packed and make sure there are enough things to keep the kids busy for a 6-7 hour car ride!

Playing in the Snow!

The main reason for our trip was to see this guy....

We brought our "Polar Express" book and the kids wore their pjs for the train ride.

Andrew was so excited on the train. They served us hot chocolate and cookies.

We took the train to the North Pole. Santa got on the train and brought all the kids bells.

We had only planned on staying one night in Flagstaff, but the hotel sent us a deal for another night that we couldn't pass up. So we headed up to play in the snow for an extra day!

Andrew had a blast playing in the snow. The girls loved sledding. The weather the first two days we were there was in the low 40s. Not warm enough for all their snow to melt, but not cold enough to make things miserable.

The clouds started moving in the last morning. This was the view from our hotel room.

By the time we got to the sled-riding hill, it was snowing and blowing!

We didn't last as long sledding with the cold weather. The kids were cold and we had to drive home in the storm.

We got home without any problems. We saw quite a few cars in the medians...they don't salt the roads in Flagstaff. They put down cinder and people put chains on their tires.

This was a picture from the car as we were heading south on the highway.

Merry Christmas!

East Valley Conference Champs!

In all my years of coaching and running, I think I have only seen one cross country race ever restarted. This meet, they restarted BOTH the girls' and the boys' race. I'm still not sure why, but Christine was happy. She thought she got a better start the second time!
The meet in pictures....
Courtney, the first Payne girl, with at least a half-mile to go. She was fourth overall.

The second Payne girl-5th overall.

Three, four and five for Payne with company from another team.

Casey, the 5th Payne girl, with Christine coming behind her.

Christine coming through-6th for Payne at this point and 10th overall.

Close to the finish, Christine now 5th for Payne and in 9th place.

Christine seeing the finish line. She got this girl right at the line.

Gokeys and Penningtons came to cheer Christine on.

Some of the girls after the meet.

Top 10 got medals. Payne had 6 girls in the top 10 out of 8 teams and at the very least 80 girls.

Team trophy!

Sports

Lately, our lives our seeming to revolve around three sports-cross country....

flag football...

and soccer. All the seasons run a little differently than in Ohio. Tomorrow is the last football and soccer game for the fall season and cross country goes for a few more weeks.

Happy Halloween!

Christine all ready to go.



Andrew decided the day before that he wanted to be a vampire too. Had the batman cape that doubled as a vampire cape. Had the white shirt. Went to Walmart to grab some black sweatpants. I thought all was ok. They only had black sweatpants as an "outfit", so had to buy a sweatshirt too. When we went to put them on we found out that someone had switched the pants and they were a larger size than the sweatshirt. So, we had to run next door and borrow a pair of black sweatpants-they were still a little big, but they worked!


Getting a little make-up on Maggie so she wouldn't feel left out!




The scary blonde vampire.

All the kids ready to go. Andrew got the medal at his flag football game that day and insisted on wearing it!

???

The mummy (Brad), Robin (TJ), a blue-haired ninja (Trent) and the vampire.

Vampire girl (Taylor), cowgirl (Anna) and pirate girl (Mags).

Christine with Callie and Casey.


Steve Gokey with the non-human butler. I don't know if the smoke was from the fogger or the guys starting the fire!

Kim dressed up her bug for Halloween.

While the dads took the big kids to the haunted house, we took the little ones out cruising for a little bit.

Happy Halloween!