HALLOWEEN

Hi Everyone,
Hope you all had a fun and spooky Halloween. We were glad to have Jessica come home with us this weekend and to also have our Dad home for 3 whole days before he had to fly out to Florida again today. Just click "play" on the smile box to enjoy our Halloween pictures, and may they bring a smile to your face!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

I just thought I would share some of our soccer season with you so far. Rachael and Jacob are both playing this year. Rachael is on a U10 league (meaning under 10yrs. old) Her team is the "Geckos" She has definitely improved this year. She has learned to pass the ball really well to her team mates and she is learning so much more about making plays and playing different positions. I think she likes playing defender because as defender she gets a little bit of a breather waiting for the ball to come down the field her way!



Rachael really hustles after the ball in her games !!!




Here's Rachael playing goal keeper in her game 2 weeks ago!




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Jacob is on a U8 league (under 8 yrs. old). His team is the "Slimers"!! Jacob has had an interesting soccer season so far. His first soccer game was exciting. This year in soccer They changed rules for U8, they no longer have a goal keeper. Wanting to encourage more kids to score goals in a game. Well, none of our kids who have played soccer so far have actually scored a goal before so Ted has been bribing the kids for years that he will pay $10 for a soccer goal. Anyway during Jacob's game they had a kick off (the referee drops the ball and one player from each team tries to kick and gain control of the ball). Jacob was the player from his team to be in the kick off. As the ball dropped and Jacob and the other boy kicked the ball Jacob got kicked by the ball right in the face. I wish I had had a video camera...there was a fire that suddenly burst in that boy!!! I could tell he was mad and at first I thought he was going after this other boy but as the game kept going Jacob was going harder and faster at the ball. He was on Fire! Finally he got himself in just the right spot and kicked that ball good and hard and made a goal! Then the next game he scored 2 goals. Ted ended up coughing up $30 to Jacob before he decided that he needed to lower the offer for making a goal! Luckily for our pockets he hasn't scored a goal for the past 2 games!?

Kick it hard Jacob!!!



Jacob racing to see if he can get to the ball first!


WE are proud of our kiddos! It's great to have the opportunities to have our children participate in these kinds of activities. They are not the most athletically talented but they try hard and have a good time doing it.

Tennis/Phillip

We also have to include Phillilp in our sports update. He has been playing Tennis at Carson Jr. High, 9th grade boys team. Their season just finished the end of October. Phillip played several doubles matches and only a few singles I don't know that we will ever see him at Wimbledon but it was definitely a fun season for him with all his friends on the team too.

Lilly's B-day & other stuff!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And other fun stuff!!



Is there any question as to who is the Queen?!


Lilly celebrated her 3rd birthday on September 16th. We had 2 parties! She was able to have a party with all the playgroup kiddos (other 2 & 3 yr. olds w/ moms) on Wednesday and then later on Sunday we had a family party too. Of course Lisa's birthday was on Friday and Ted's was on Sunday so we threw a party all together. It was so nice to have Jessica home again for a little bit! It was also fun to watch Lilly opening presents with her little friends on Wednesday. She would open a present and then want someone else to open one, she actually wasn't quite getting the idea at first that this was all about HER! She caught on though. Her favorite gifts were of course all the ponies. Though she loves being the princess with her new Tiara and wand and she likes to do her pretty hair with all the accessories that she got!



Here are some of the mom's and kids at the party from our playgroup on Wednesday

Just a fun little thought. Lilly informed me the other day that our dog Sarah is her friend and then she pointed to our cat Jo Jo and said, "and he's my sister!"
Then yesterday Jacob very seriously wanted to know what Sarah's last name was???

This is Benjamin's bridge of Pennies, I was kind of impressed by it. It's all pennies, no glue or anything else to support it, guess what he wants to be when he grows up...
We've always thought he was some kind of engineer!! (He was building this bridge while he was supposed to be doing homework)

college

We are off to a new adventure in Life...

Jessica setting up her new room

Sending a child to College!!

At the end of August Ted and I along

with Rachael and Lillian drove to Tuscon
to move Jessica into her new place. She
is attending U of A with a scholarship that
covers tuition and books. Jessica is majoring
in Creative Writing so someday everyone
can read her bestseller novel!!!
It was a good trip (of course Ted was
outnumbered by the girls!) And yes I cried,
but not until it was time to leave her and go
back to mesa. We do get to see her
every now and then, she just came back
home for mine and Ted's birthdays in September, and
she texts Ted and I both for all kinds of things, help
with job applications and english assignments, and to ask

"mom, where do you get paper cups and plates?"
Life is always an adventure isn't it?!
We look forward to many more from all our children!

Lilly and Rachael came to
help too (of course I don't

know how helpful Lilly was?)

Our Nauvoo Trip

August 2008
Our long awaited family vacation this summer was spent in Nauvoo. We actually flew to St. Louis Missouri first and spent some time at the Westward Expansion Arch (or Jefferson Memorial Arch), in St. Louis. We learned that the Arch was 73 stories high and I was chatting with a man and his wife from New York and they were claiming that the empire state building was approximately 90 stories high. Rachael was not extremely thrilled about going up in the arch at first. 1st 2 pictures are of our family inside the Arch and the next is some of us coming down the steps at the base of the Arch. 3rd picture is Geoff and Lilly checking out the Mississippi River, it was flowing quite well. As you can see in the last picture the river was high enough to cover up most of this Statue!

Vacation Continued

From St. Louis we went to Independence Missouri and visited the LDS Visitor's center there. They had some things set up like in pioneer days like a log cabin that they said 10 families could have lived in at one time and the printing press also. Lillian's favorite was a kids room that had a horse and wagon and a small log house and some pioneer children's toys. You can see from the picture that she LOVED the horsey!


The next day we went to Liberty Jail. It was great, our family had our own tour.

More in Illinois

On our 3rd day we traveled to Far West and Adam Ondi Ahman.
These first pictures are from Adam Ondi Ahman. We just walked some of the paths and enjoyed the scenery. The second picture I believe is on Spring Hill there.
We also went a little photo crazy taking pictures of nature. The
kids had fun chasing the butterflies, they were all over the place!

This tree was just cool
looking with the vine growing
on it.
At Far West We saw the corner stones of the dedicated Temple site and one of the kids highlights there was Phillip catching a little frog. Just about everyone wanted to hold him. Lillian just laughed at it!



Benjamin and Lillian check out one of the cornerstones.
These two places were just beautiful to see.

Nauvoo

Finally we arrived in Nauvoo! Here's a picture of Lillian in the Visitor's Center standing by what she says is "her temple"! Then right outside of the Visitor's Center is the Garden of Statues. My favorite part about coming to Nauvoo was when we drove in we actually ended up on a road that followed the river and it came up a hill and around a curve and I saw the temple coming up the hill. It actually took my breath away for just a second. It was beautiful! Looking just like the pioneers had probably built the first one!

One of the kids favorite spots was the Blacksmith shop and we learned the difference between a Wheelright and a Wainright ( a wheelright made the wheels and wainright made the wagons) We also were able to take an Ox Cart ride (Jacob said they were too stinky!) Our family was also able to take a horse and wagon ride as well and Lillian loved that because she was right up front with the horse!


On our last day in Nauvoo we took a walk down Parley street where the saints walked as they left to cross the river and go west. About halfway down the walk you can turn around and see the temple poking up through the trees and I imagine it was quite a heartbreaking sight for them to leave that temple and city. At the end of Parley street before the river is a statue of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.


Jessica is standing in front of the famous (or infamous!) Porter Rockwell. When Ted and I looked up our ancestors in Land and Records we found out that my ancestor John D. Lee owned property next to this property, to the south.




In the Heber C. Kimball home there was lots of fun stuff to see, and this room that Lilly is sitting in is a kids room and that is actually a pioneer kids potty seat. It was on our trip that spurred Lillian to potty train. Everywhere we went Jacob's announcement was always "I need to go potty!" so Lilly started saying the same thing and when we got home she ditched her diaper and has been going potty in the toilet ever since... it is a Wonderful Life at the Lunt home!!!


Here at the bottom of the page are pictures of Jessica and Geoffrey doing what they do best anywhere they go!!!

Sorry guys had to put it in! I love them anyway and they were wonderful on our family trip!

Vacation's almost over

On Sunday while in Nauvoo, we took a trip to Carthage. We got into a tour of about 25-30 people and that really made you think about how miserable it might have been when they had us in the dungeon cell all cramped in there. The pictures I have above are Ben and Phillip in front of the statue of two other brothers, Joseph and Hyrum! I thought it was appropriate to put these two in this picture since Phillip and Ben are also very close and great friends as brothers! Next to it is the room where Joseph, Hyrum, John Taylor, and Willard Richards were when the mobs came and shot Joseph. That is the window that he fell from, and there is still a bullet hole in the door to this room.


Our last day in Nauvoo, Tuesday, we did the Nauvoo pageant. Before the pageant they had a bunch of activities for the kids to participate in.

Ben and Phillip are trying to saw a log


Rachael is participating in a sack race.


Ted and Lilly are trying their hand at a game where you toss a ring with two poles.










Jacob is getting good at rolling his hoop with a stick!



Wednesday on our trip back to St. Louis, we took a detour in Hannibal Missouri. We were able to take a Steamboat ride and learned that Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) actually did get his steamboat pilots license at age 19 and was a steamboat pilot for a few years. The kids figured out one of the best spots on the boat was up front, not just for the view, but there was a nice breeze blowing in that spot!


Our final stop before we got to the airport was at the St. Louis temple. It was very peaceful and pretty there. As always the temple grounds were beautiful. A great end to a great trip. This was a memorable trip for our family, and I hope my children will remember this one a long time. We wanted to do something like this before sending Jessica off to U of A (which is next weekend!) Hope everyone is happy and healthy and settled into their school routines!