Early Halloween Fun

Friday night we got an extra night of Trunk or Treating at the YMCA. Trevor had his last soccer practice and while he was hard at work, Hayley and Jake enjoyed some fun activities in the parking lot.
HAYLEY'S FUN FACE PAINTING

MASTER YODA AND THE CUTE WITCH DECORATING PUMPKINS

After practice they were joined by their soccer star brother, and everyone got a headstart on collecting candy for Halloween. Even Don got off work a little earlier than normal and was able to pick up Michael from basketball practice and met us over there for the candy. It was a fun, free evening! We love our YMCA!

5

Surprise, we are having a baby!

For real.

Due in April.

Lots of hugs and excitment going on here.

Driving in Style

Our car was in the shop Monday for some repairs and our great mechanic gave us a loaner car. I've never drove such a fun car/truck!



Can you tell the kids LOVED it?!! But alas, our mechanic was so good, we didn't even get to keep the loaner overnight, and definitely didn't put on the 4 wheel drive and go off-roadin'! I think having the sun roof and the back window down were adventure enough for the day.

It was a sweet ride!

Flipping Out!

Hayley started Gymnastics this fall and LOVES it! The gymnastic coaches come to the school Friday afternoons so she can go to class right after school ends. It is a lot of fun, plus she gets to be in the same class with several of her friends from school. She is always practicing her round offs and has officially declared Friday her favorite day of the week. Go Hayley!

Conference Fun

Snack Table for General Conference...keeps 'em coming back for more!

Jake hard at work on his General Conference Bingo Squares, another fun activity to keep everyone listening!

Ice Skating

THE MANGUM GANG SKATING IN DALLAS..WE MISSED YOU DON!

JAKE AND ANNA HAVING FUN ON THE ICE FOR A MINUTE

One fun thing we did a few weeks ago was to go ice skating in Dallas. We went during the day when the cousins were at school and Cynthia kept Jake and Anna occupied. They met us at the mall for lunch after skating for 1 1/2 hour. Then much to my dismay, the kids were ready to skate again for a couple more hours. The mall rink gives you a wristband and you get to come and go if you want. So we went back for some more pain :)
STARTING OUT, HOLDING ON TO THE WALL

TREVOR AND HAYLEY GETTING BRAVER
MICHAEL AND TREVOR
MICHAEL FOLLOWING HAYLEY

It was Hayley's first time skating and Trevor's second time. It was a lot of fun, although most of us were cold, tired and bruised from all the falling by the end...except Michael. He was a great help in getting Trevor and Hayley up off the ice after they fell...except for the time he knocked me over! I am sure it was an accident, right Michael??!!

MICHAEL HELPING TREVOR UP

And now time for the some of the fun shots I got...I think Trevor definitely gets points for artistic style!






Gotta go now, the Ice Capades are calling :)

Fun with Cousins

While we were in Dallas during our "hurrication", we not only celebrated Jake's birthday, we had SO much fun with cousins! Who knew a few glow sticks and a trampoline at dusk could be so fun!

GRANDPA AND THE GLOW IN THE DARK KIDS PLAYING
ALEX AND TREVOR WITH THEIR LIGHTSABER GLOW STICKS
ABBY AND HER BEAUTIFUL NECKLACE
MICHAEL GETTING SOME AIR
JAKE AND ANNA, BEST BUDS FOREVER - I LOVE IT!


We just found out this week-end that all the Bowman siblings and their kids will be together in Texas for Thanksgiving this year - WOOHOO!!

Taking Time to Meditate

Have you ever noticed how the afternoons after school can just be total chaos some days? So I try to enjoy the few minutes of quiet in the car pool lane each day...the calm before the storm.

Apparently I am not the only one who feels the need to meditate for a minute. Here is a video of Jake in the car pool lane. He does this EVERY time the song comes on, and gets furious if anyone talks during the first part of the song while he is meditating.

The Adventures of Food Boy

Two of Don's brothers, Marc and Sam, wrote and produced a fun movie called The Adventures of Food Boy. The star of the movie is Lucas Grabeel, one of the main guys in High School Musical. The movie was released today on DVD and can be found on Amazon and at some Walmarts.

It's won a bunch of awards for best family movie at multiple film festivals, and is on IMDB and has clips on you tube. Check it out!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnT7bAsdouU

The Meier's Wedding Reception

THE MEIER FAMILY

A couple of weeks ago we had a fun wedding reception to go to. 2 of Don's cousins got married in August and had a double reception here in town the week after the hurricane. It was a lot of fun. The kids were the official helpers with the door, presents, and passing out thank-up gifts for when people left. They had a lot of fun and looked pretty cute too!

JAKE AND HAYLEY PASSING OUT THE POPCORN BAGS TO GUESTS AS THEY LEFT

TREVOR PLAYING WITH BRITNEY'S FLOWERS

MICHAEL TAKING HIS ROLE AS DOOR OPENER VERY SERIOUSLY :)

The food was awesome of course..those Meiers always know how to throw a party!
JAKE SAMPLING THE PICKLES - THEY WERE HIS FAVORITE!

But of course, I don't know if anything could compare to the tabletop entertainment...
JAKE TOOK THIS PICTURE OF HIS FAVORITE FISH

And the FIVE beta fish that ended up coming home with us!!! That was SO sweet of you Tracy! :)



Good news, all 5 are still alive 2 weeks later, despite me making the mistake of putting 2 in the same container while I cleaned the bowls. When Jake informed me the 2 fish were KISSING, I had to run and break up the death match. But they did both survive - Whoops!

OUR BEAUTIFUL PET FISH!

CONGRATULATIONS JARED & CHESLEY AND ADAM & KATIE -
WE LOVE YOU GUYS!

Helping Hands

Because of the storm, we have been able to spend a lot of time outside doing natural landscaping. The kids have gotten quite good at being helping hands in our yard and the neighborhood...





Michael and Don have also gotten to go out on several work crews and help out with larger projects. This past week-end Don had to work but Michael still got up early Saturday morning and went with a group of men to help clean up parts of town. I am proud of everyones hard work and helping hands to help put our town back together!

No Power, No Problem!

Since the kids had already been out of school for 2 weeks, their school did this...



Hayley and Trevor were excited to go and see friends and do fun activities outside for 2 hours. Lucky them, the school got power back the next night and it was back to school for real on Monday!

Powerless Activities

Things I don't recommend doing when you don't have power or water pressure...

PLAYING WITH MOON SAND. It's lots of fun until it is time to clean up the warm, sticky bodies and floor. Running water really is a fabulous invention. Thank goodness for wipes and the Swiffer mop!

Other fun Activities to do without power...

PLAYING GAMES LIKE UNO TOGETHER

FLASHLIGHT TAG WITH JAKE

PLAYING BATTERY CHARGED VIDEO GAMES

MAKE-OVERS WITH FRIENDS...DON'TCHA JUST LOVE THE NEW 'DO. IT WAS BETTER THAN UNWASHED HAIR LOOK :)

The Power of BYU Football

The most asked question in the last 2 weeks around town seems to be, "Do you have power?", followed up of course by, "So when did you get it?". I feel guilty at times, especially when the entire neighborhood surrounding our street and a couple others, were out of power for 13 long, hot days. But for posterity sake, I have been asked to post our POWERFUL story for all to enjoy.

It was Saturday afternoon after the storm. It was getting a little hot and sticky, but not too bad yet. Don had been up most of the night, monitoring the storm, and accessing damage during the day when it wasn't raining. So about 2 pm, he said, "Well, I guess I'll go try to take a nap, since there is no chance the power is going to come back on anytime soon and I can't watch the BYU game." For those few of you who don't know, Don is a HUGE BYU fan, and seriously, I think he really bleeds blue. At any rate, he was definitely looking a little blue as he headed down the hallway :)

The kids and I were playing games by the light of the front room windows and about 20minutes later, the hallway door flies open and Don is running into the front room. Again, for those of you who don't know, Don rarely runs anywhere. So he totally startled us, and as I am asking "What's wrong?", Don is fumbling for the remote to the TV. The only words I understood coming out of his mouth was "power...football". Apparently the power kicked back on at 2:25 pm, setting of the alarm in the bedroom, shooting Don out of bed into the front room. It took another minute or so before the air conditioner kicked in (Don already had remote in hand before the rest of us noticed!). By the time he reset the Satellite, which by some miracle in itself was still lined up right, the coin toss was over and BYU was lining up for the kick-off. You couldn't have timed it better if you tried. It was a powerful moment :)



And of course, we were really thankful to get power back so quickly and have AIR CONDITIONING! It also probably help save our carpet that had gotten water damage near the front windows since we quickly pulled it up and dried it out with fans and were able to clean it.

And for those of you wondering, it was an AWESOME game - GO COUGARS!

The Horn Player

It was a dark and stormy night...really dark (the power was out) and really stormy (Hurricane Ike was at its peak). All was quiet, except for the wind. The wind was blowing so hard (between 90 -100 mph) and really loud, and 3 of the sleeping kids had woken up. We were all talking quietly in the hall, because we thought Trevor was still sleeping. Until from the far dark corner of the hallway pipes up a voice, "Hey, whose playing that loud horn?!"


We all started laughing, as we listened to the wind play our free concert, whistling through the metal flag holder on the side of the house. It was a fun time, surprisingly none of the kids were scared, just excited to be together eating oranges and telling funny jokes in the dark hallway, listening to the horn player in the wind :)