Up-diddily-date

Life has been busy..very busy, there are no two ways about it. Ahhh, but busy with what, you ask?!? Well, that is the funny thing, you can ask me what I do in a day and my answer will almost always be, "nothing out of the ordinary" but it sure seems that "nothing about of the ordinary" leaves me with so little time that I am lucky to get a shower in every 2-3 days and nice recreational activities such as blogging, well, this post has been in the works for about two weeks if that gives you a clue. Anyway, but I believe I finally have time to finish this...you see, I devised a plan and got up early this morning before the kids wake up. BWah-ha-ha-ha! Now I should be able to have a good chunk of time without needing to stop to wipe a nose or change a nappy or feed or play with puppets....you get the idea. So, for those of you who are actually interested, the following is our West family update:


First there was Halloween. It was great! Mike was in charge of a ward Halloween activity so we spent the evening manning carnival-type booths where kids could win candy. Tons of people participated and dressed up. The booths looked something like this:



Andrew and I looked a little like this:


ROAR!


Mike did a little of this:


Some people got a little crazy like this:


(Cute little Abby was dressed like a cow...that picture is refusing to post, don't know why. I'm super bummed!)

Next up were birthdays. Mike and I turned the big 28 within four days of each other. We threw wild parties that lasted all week consisting of this:





And this:


And this:


In the UK we celebrate Guy Fawkes day/Bonfire night. It's in celebration of a time when some imbecile named Fawkes tried, and failed, to blow up parliament. It's sort of like the Fourth of July to you and I. We decided to brave the frigid temperatures and went down to the beach where all the action was taking place. It was packed with people and looked a little like this:





Mike and Andrew did a little of this:


Their eyes sparkled just like this:


(Mine were mostly looking down to make sure a certain little cow was warm, didn't get any pictures of that)

Next up was Thanksgiving. WHAT!?!?! No, the UK does not celebrate this beloved holiday (for what I assume would be obvious reasons)but some of us Americans did! Yee-ha, wahoo, go git yer boots! We spent an evening with great friends (all Americans with the exception of Mike and our friend Gemma--she is from Orkney, don't know where that is? Google it, it's awesome!)

The Sorber's provided the gathering place and the Turkey (fresh from a farm). It tasted DELICIOUS and looked a little like this:



The table looked like this:


The people looked like this:




Good times, good food, good company!!!

Well, the weather decided to turn on us and now the ground that once looked like this:




Now looks like this:


And this:


It makes me go a little crazy. I hate being cooped inside. I hate letting Andrew watch lots of TV. So it has driven us to do a little of this:







And this:


And this:


And this:


And this:


Some of those things make Abby feel like this:


Or this:


But sometimes we get a little adventurous and do some of this:


Once Andrew's wee friend Alex cam over and they had a BLAST doing this:




And this:


So, even though the weather makes me feel a little like this:


We ultimately do our best to have lots of this: