Halloween

Halloween is definitely not my most favorite holiday during the year. Probably because of the amount of work it is for me (the mom) to get everyone ready. This year though was a little bit better. The girls mostly got their costumes all by themselves and I just had to find the boys' stuff. Maybe every year Halloween will be a little easier for me thus regaining it's former popularity in my life.

The Halloween season was of course prolonged with trunk or treat at the church; then the school parade, and finally the actual trick or treating. This year the triplets went with friends (no parents) and survived. Jake went with a friend and his big sister so I enjoyed the evening trying to read in between passing out candy. It was a good night.

Matthew arranging his trick or treating group.


Jake the sumo. Easiest costume of all time!

Claire the Sassy Cat.

Katie the 8o's Barbie

Nachoooooo!

Birthday Bouncin'

Tonight our family celebrated my Dad's birthday. He turns 65 this year and my Mom thought it would be fun to surprise him with a party at Bouncin' Off the Walls (a local warehouse filled with lots of bouncy things). Well we knew that all of the grandkids would have a good time but who knew that even the adults would too. We had such a great time and I think my Dad especially did. Both Grandma and Grandpa were spotted zooming down the giant bouncy slide. Here are some fun pics from the party.

The birthday boy with Abby and Claire
Cuties - Claire, Caroline, and Thomas
Little Ry Ry
Davey didn't like bouncing but he liked the basketball.
The Hippie duo - Andrew and Natalie.
We did so much fun stuff...we played air hockey
We slid
...and slid
and slid some more.
Andrew and Tony were silly,
Grandpa blew out his candles
Caroline did too (they get to share a birthday!)
and opened presents.
Here are Grandma and Grandpa with almost all the grandkids (Matthew was missing)
Here is almost everyone. (Matthew and Brian were missing)
Happy Birthday Dad. You are a good Dad, and Grandpa and we love you very much!

Fun Distraction

What do you do while you are sitting in the car for 6 hours while driving to Vegas to see a concert, stay one night, and then drive for 6 hours home again? While Matt listened to the Utah football game I took some cool road photos with my phone camera. I got a cool app called retro camera that adds effects that look like the picture was taken with a bunch of different old cameras. Check out my shots below. Kinda fun.

The concert I mentioned above was Justin Timberlake and Friends. It was an awesome concert featuring: Selena Gomez, Lady Antebellum, T-Pain, Salt n Pepa (the best act!), P Diddy (0r whatever he calls himself now), Christina Aguilerra, Elton John, and JT himself singin a little acoustic. Matt and I had a great time listening to the vast array of music and people watching. Whoooeeee! Let's just say I felt very covered up in my jeans and cardigan.

Pictures from a Funeral

I finally had a second to review some pictures that I have taken over the past little while and thought I would post a few pics that were taken at my Grandpa's funeral.

I miss him and think of him often but as I look at these pictures of our family I am awed at the greatness of his posterity. I love my family very much and am grateful for their great example and love.

Almost all of the Brad Clawson family. Tony's babies (David and Ryan) were at home.

Uncle Denny, Aunt Cathy and my Dad, Brad


All of the Clawson cousins


The Girl cousins.

Nationals

I just returned from my trip to Palm Springs for my tennis team's participation in the 2.5 Adult National Tennis Championships. For those of you who aren't familiar with how tennis league works, it is divided into levels based on ability. It starts at 2.5 and goes up to 5.0 the first being a beginner and the last being really good (like former collegiate players and sometimes former pros). They do this so that competition is fair and the matches are fun. So I am playing at the lowest possible level in the tennis world. At any rate, as I stated before my team was undefeated through our local league play, through our state tournament, and through our sectional tournament and ended up being able to go to this national tournament.

We didn't know what to expect going into it. We had friends that went to this tourney last year and faced some fierce competition. Honestly we went thinking that it would at least be a great girl's trip and we could play a little tennis. Well it turned out that the competition was fierce but we really held our own. We won our first three matches against San Diego, Michigan, and Arizona and then went into our last match against Arkansas tied with them. The winner of that match would decide who got to go to the finals. (In team tennis you have to win 2 of 3 individual matches for the team win.) My partner Lindie and I won our match in two sets and Macy lost her singles match. The last match to be decided was being played by Kris and Celeste. They split sets and went to a tie break and ended up losing 10-7. We fell short of moving on by three little points. At first I was sad and then realized that we did far better than I ever thought we would and I am so proud of how well we did.

Arkansas went on the win the championship (which was maddening because they were mean and they cheated) but I am consoled by the fact that Lindie and I actually beat the national champs. Not bad. All in all it was a fantastic weekend in Palm Springs with girlfriends. We laughed alot, sweated alot, and played alot of tennis. It was a great time!

Here is our "rockin" team photo:

Macy, Amanda, Celeste, Kris, Kim, Susie, Lindie, Tamara