Our night of caroling at the River Walk

Tonight was an awesome FHE event. We went down to the River Walk, in down town San Antonio. We started the evening by taking a picture of our family in front of the Alamo, followed by a great dinner to include homemade rootbeer at a German deli called Schilo's. Later, we joined some friends down at the river boats and rode along and carolled the night away. The girls all agreed that this will have to be our family tradition while we are here in TX. It was a fantastic night for everything since the weather was nice and warm. It was a lot of fun and a great way to get the Christmas spirit going!

Dancing Queen(s)

December is such a busy and fun month! I expect we'll make a few more posts before the end of the year. The other night, we were treated to a dance recital for Halee and Nora. Our girls really love to dance! Our girls have been taking dance class from someone in our ward, out of the garage of someone else in our ward. Sounds weird but they really enjoyed the classes. It was great how the whole thing came together in the end since the dance space in the garage was very limited. Both of them participated in 3 dances.

Halee loves trying to be graceful - and while she's at it she makes some pretty funny faces and moves. Its fun watching her grow-up.

Nora is pretty good at dancing and practices pointing her toes and keeping her lines straight. She's progressing well with her dance.

I have uploaded a couple of videos of thier recital for your viewing pleasure!

Nora dances to "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend"

Halee dances to music from Anastasia

Our Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was spent here in San Antonio. Tracy told me that this year, she was not going to cook so we had better think of something to do. She wasn't snotty aobut it, just that she wanted to do something different. At first, we had discussed going and breaking bread with the military members down at the USO - since they were putting on a free turkey meal that day. Sounded fun, but impersonal.

We then had some friends invite us over for the day. We spent the day at the home of Rick and Rochelle Williamson and shared company with them and with a 3 0r 4 other families. There was tons of food, lots of kids and plenty of good conversations to break into. The kids got to do some arts-n-crafts, creating pilgrim or indian attire, thanks to Cassie White. We had a great time eating outdoors and roasting marshmellows (despite the total burn-ban for the area - keep that a secret).

Overall, Thanksgiving day 2008 turned out to be a great success! We went home that night with our bellies full and with plenty of leftovers to carry us over a few more days!

Halloween - a little late

A was looking through the pictures on the camera today and realized that I never put anything on here about the girl's Halloween costumes this year. I suppose that since Thanksgiving hasn't past yet, I am still in the clear for putting a post about Halloween up.

This year the girls were dressed in poodle skirts that Grandma McEuen made. We were able to find some vintage looking shoes for McKayela at the thrift store but didn't have such luck for Halee. Nora really wasn't participating too well (if you couldn't tell by the pictures). I guess we should give her a little latitude since this was 2 days before she was admitted to the hospital and I know she didn't feel very good.

Nora actually spent Halloween in the hospital but the girls were dressed here for the Halloween party down at the church that happened on Saturday, before Halloween. I wasn't around for it but Tracy said they all had a good time at the party and that Nora actually perked up a bit once she was at the church.

If you would like to see some of Nora's pictures from Halloween in the hospital, click on the link for "Dustin and Amanda" that is Tracy's sister's page. Amanda and cousin Sophie came out to help Tracy with the kids while Nora was in the hospital.

I recently got to participate in a teaching assignment aimed at building better relationships with military members from other countries. The mission was called "Operation Southern Partner" and included teams sent to Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile over a 2 week span. I volunteered for the assignment and asked to be sent to Paraguay - since that is where I served my mission. At first, I was on the Paraguay tail of the assignment but was later removed from that mission and placed in the Argentina portion of the project. I was disappointed at first and still am a bit since I really wanted to see some of my old stomps but Buenos Aires was beautiful!

I did get to stop, very briefly, in Paraguay. I was able to get off the plane, get a picture with one of the Paraguayan military members there. Speak some Guarani with a Paraguayan Colonel.

Then I got back on the plane to finish a 22 hour trip to Chile (where we stayed for 8 hours before going to Argentina.

Before I left, Tracy had warned me that Nora would probably end up in the hospital at the same time that I was gone. Unfortunately, that prophecy came true, which didn't make it easy for me to be gone.

The trip was good although I will think twice about taking a trip when Tracy has some form of prophecy or when I find out it includes a long flight on a military aircraft (not comfortable).

Sea World

I thought I'd share a picture that Tracy took of us at Sea World this past week. You can see my bald head with McKayela and Halee in the back of the boat.
Sea World is offering a free day at the park for military members and their family. We had a great time there. If you are in the military, check out this deal before it ends this year.

Halee's new glasses

Another one of our children has taken after their dad and has been blessed with terrible eyesight. This child is Halee. She got her first pair of glasses a few weeks ago. It was funny how we figured out that she couldn't see. We were at my mom's house visiting and while we were there we were giving eye exams to my neices and nephews. (we obviously have a strange way of having fun at Grandma's house).

Anyway, Halee asked if I would do her eye exam. I don't think she could even see the big "E" on the top of the chart. It was then that I realized her eyesight must be poor (I guess all the bumping into closed doors wasn't proof enough). It was also then that she told me she couldn't see the TV unless she was sitting in front of it. She never squinted or anything so we really had no clue.

Anyway, we went down and had a professional eye exam and sure enough - she needed glasses. The glasses she chose have a little H and a diamond on them (for Hannah Montana). She fell in love and that is what she is wearing these days.