Trip to Panama

Earlier this month Joseph spent a week in Panama.  The company Joseph works for does Operation Walk each year and Joseph was invited to go this year since he speaks Spanish.  I really wasn't too excited about Joseph's trip because it meant he would be gone for 8 days and that is a long time to have him gone.  We survived his trip and the kids did fairly well.  The weekend was the hardest, but we made it through.

Joseph enjoyed his trip.  He loved using his Spanish and talking with the Panamanian people.  On a light day of work he was able to take a tour of the Panama canal.  

At the  Panama Canal

City Life:  The following pictures show some of the city.

Add caption

Panama City cityscape

Typical little street.

This quaint little church was built in the 1500s.  

Buying souvenirs.

Hospital Life:  Operation Walk provides free joint replacements for people in need.  The Op Walk team performed 60% of the operations that this hospital provides annually.

Making rounds.

More rounds

In action.  Joseph is dead center.  It was fun to see pictures of him in action
since I never get to see what he really does at work.

 We are very glad to have our Daddy back home.  I'm very glad Joseph doesn't travel regularly for work.  We are still undecided if he will go next year if he is invited.  It was tiring for Joseph and it was especially hard on Kimball not having Joseph around.  

Halloween Fun

We had a busy month full of many different Halloween and Fall related activities. Here is a run down:

Pumpkin Patch:  We didn't have much time for a pumpkin patch this year so we were glad we found one just a few minutes from our house.   It wasn't as extensive as I was hoping it would be, but the kids had fun.  Maybe next year we will have time to find one more to my liking.  There was a corn maze and Kimball enjoyed leading us through it.

Climbing on Farming machinery.

Driving the tractor.

Farmer Kimball

In the Corn Maze

Kimball was off school for Columbus Day so we made Candy Corn out of paper squares.  We also made other crafts throughout the month:  bats, pumpkins, Frankensteins, and skeletons.

Kimball hard at work.

Rebecah hard at work.

The PTO at Kimball's school hosted a Halloween party.  There were over 700 people in attendance and it was very crowded.  The kids had fun and I was glad Kimball could see some friends from school and show off their costumes.  There were games to play and food.

                           

Joseph and I aren't super into carving pumpkins, but we did remember to do one this year.

Rebecah removing the innards.

Kimball working on the eyes.

 

                                       

Our ward had a Trunk or Treat activity on October 30th so we went to that.  I was glad the kids were able to get candy there since there was a strong percentage of rain in the forecast for Halloween.  I didn't want them too disappointed if Trick or treating got rained out, but I also wasn't going to go house to house in the rain either.

 Rebecah's preschool had a little singing performace on Halloween.  Her class sang about 3 songs for the parents at the end of preschool.  It was so cute watching Rebecah sing the songs and do the actions.  She loves preschool!

There are only 4 girls in Rebecah's class out of 13 kids.

Rebecah with her friend, Riley.  

Kimball's school doesn't do individual class Halloween parties, but the 1st Grade did do a Harvest festival part of the day where they went to the different 1st grade classes and did various educational activities relating to the season.  I was able to go and help at one of the stations and it was fun to see Kimball at school.  It made my day when Kimball told me the best part of his day was seeing me at school.  That meant a lot because I was expecting him to say Trick or Treating was the highlight.

This year for Halloween, Rebecah wanted to be Rapunzel so that was an easy one.  I made her some yellow hair, but I could only convince her to wear it for the pictures.

Princess Rapunzel.

Kimball wanted to be something "scary" this year, but I'm not into scary costumes for Halloween.  I think costumes should be "fun" not "scary".  I convinced him to be a pirate and he was fine with that.  I really don't think Kimball would have enjoyed being something scary because he gets scared when he sees people dressed in scary costumes.  

Rapunzel meets Blackbeard the Pirate!

Joseph, unfortunately, had to work Halloween evening so I took the kids trick or treating by myself.  We went about 8 houses and Rebecah got sick.  It may have been nerves, but that spoiled her night.  We had to finished our little loop to get back home so Kimball went to another 8 houses or so before announcing that he was finished getting candy.  Most houses gave out multiple pieces of candy so he had a pretty full bucket. We skipped the rest of the houses and headed home.  I was so proud of Kimball for deciding when he was finished gathering candy without being greedy.  He even offered to share candy with Rebecah since she didn't feel well and when we got back home he gave her about 6 pieces of candy...he gave her good stuff too so I was proud of him.  We got home just in time because it started to rain so it was a win-win situation for everyone.  We now have a lot of candy around the house, but the kids are very willing to share their booty.