Courage of a 9 year old

Brayden has been wanting to do this for a while, but he wasn't tall enough at the beginning of summer, but he made the cut recently! He loved it and did it pretty quickly on his own. (Kids ahead of him needed a little assistance.) Way to go Brayden!

4 year old's perspective on death

Kai has been talking a lot about death lately, not anything that worries me though. Here are a few things that I've heard him say lately:

After finding a squished toad in the road...
"Oh, that poor little froggy. He is dead and in heaven now. Why didn't he stay close to his mommy? Well, I guess he's dead and in heaven now, huh?"

After killing a fly with a flyswatter...
"I got that stinkin' fly with the flyswapper! Now it's dead and in heaven!"

After Brayden shot Kai with a play gun (obviously) in a game of shooting or whatever they were playing...
Brayden: "You're dead Kai!"
Kai: "Oh, you shot me! HA! I just got resurrected!"

Tagged

Jessi tagged me! (This is the first time I've been tagged, up until now, I've managed to avoid it!) Thanks Jessica!

1. Where did you meet your husband? We met at college in Idaho (BYU-I, formerly known as Ricks.) We lived across the street from each other. We didn't date pre-mission because we were both dating other people, but we did hang out a lot and became good friends. (We wrote every week on his mission and that was so cool!)
2. How long did you date before you married? He got home from his mission in Feb, came to see me in HI (now I was at BYUH) and we were engaged 2 weeks later. We were married 3 & a half months later. Yep, when you know it's right, you just jump on in and let the fairy tale begin. :)
3. How long have you been married? Just celebrated 10 year wedding anniversary in July.
4. What does he do that surprises you? He literally surprises me...loves to scare me when I'm coming up the stairs and he's hiding around the corner. It's like living with a teenager. He gets me a bag of Riesen's every now and then and it's so nice to hide them from the kids and have my own treat! (He gives me flowers and the occasional girl movie, too, but who's husband doesn't? That's kind of becoming a prereq.)
5. What is his favorite feature of mine? He tells me everyday that I have the perfect butt. :)
6. What is your favorite quality of his? He's a good example when it comes to helping people. He'll drop just about anything to help someone out or give whatever to help people out, even if they've already ripped us off in the past.
7. Does he have a nickname for you? Usually just calls me Steph or Babe.
8. What is his favorite food? Pizza
9. What is his favorite sport? Basketball/Football
10. When & where was your first kiss? Laie, HI...1998
11. What is your favorite thing to do as a couple? We go on a date each weekend and at the end of our date, we always get ice cream someplace and hang out and talk. That always ends up being my favorite part.
12. Do you have any children? Yes, 4 great kids.
13. Does he have any hidden talents? He is a great dancer and singer. He sings to the kids each night and he sings so good. I love it. He and I dance at home, but we've never gone anywhere public to dance. He's a great dancer and I just follow his lead.
14. How old is he? 31
15. Who said I love you first? I did, but if you ask him, he would say he did.
16. What is his favorite music? He likes Hawaiian music (mainly Israel Kamakawiwo'ole) and he likes 80's and 90's stuff.
17. What do you admire most about him? He works hard to achieve goals he's set for himself and for our family.
18. What is his favorite color? Blue
19. Will he read this? Yes, but only because I'll ask him to. He doesn't do the blog thing. :)
20. Who do you tag? Meghan, Megan, Heidi, Jen, Kelly....you know what, just everyone that reads this can go ahead and do it. :)

Ike visited us, too...barely

Well, we didn't get much of Ike, only some wind, but it was strong enough to bring a little excitement into our lives. We had been home from church for a few hours and I had made a couple apple pies for after dinner. Well, we decided to drop by Lonnie and Sarah's (my brother and his fam) who live about 10 minutes down the road. We loaded up the kids and pie and headed their way and the wind just began to really pick up. By the time we got to Lonnie's, there were branches in their driveway, their cars were parked away from any trees, so we took the hint. We had to dart across their lawn pretty quickly because walnuts were shooting out of their trees like bullets, it was pretty crazy. Little did we realize we'd have dessert and a show! We sat on their front porch watching branch by branch crack and fly off the trees as we ate apple pie and ice cream. They had already lost power by this time, so we were wondering what it would be like when we got to our place! It was an exciting drive home with trees and power poles and lines down, but our home only had a few branches down (darn it...we have cottonwood trees and I would have appreciated a few more branches down) and a few spots of shingles off of our roof. Thankfully, we had power, but we do have a generator and it's always fun to fire it up. We are thankful that Kevin's dad was visiting this weekend so he could help Kevin replace the shingles on the roof the next day. Our thoughts and prayers really go out to our friends in Texas and Illinois who were in much worse situations than ours. We hope you were kept safe in the midst of it all.

Saydria
Brayden
Kai

My friend Meghan took these pictures of my kids while I was with Cole and her little guy Crew on a bike ride. (Hence, no picture of Cole.) But I really liked these pictures. So, thank you Meghan!

Here's some pics

Our friends visited a few weeks ago (from Cleveland) although we know them from Idaho. Kevin grew up with Dale. Dale married Meghan and we were friends from day 1. They ended up moving to Ohio for Dale to attend Podiatry school and so it's been so nice to have them close by because we get together every so often. We're going to miss having them close when Dale's done with school. Meghan took some nice pics of my family while they were here last and we went to the temple with them, etc and posted them on her blog. So, click on the link below to view them if you like. :) This is we how lazy bloggers blog!

http://www.pyperellecrew.blogspot.com

Photography

I thought I'd post this picture because I haven't uploaded the pics from my camera to our computer as of yet, and this was one from our Snapfish account. This photo was taken by my dear husband, Kevin. Here we were with some of our friends on a gondola ride (l to r: Ben, me, Levi & Rachel), Suzy was on the other side of Ben and Kevin was at the other end of the boat); they strategically placed us this way for whatever reason...and we all, at one point, tried to tell Kevin that the strap to the camera was in the way, and he was absolute in his response, "No, it's not, I can see you just fine." Rachel & Suzy have great photography skills braided into their DNA, I just smiled and let it all happen, then later had Rachel take a legit pic. So, that's the reason I kept this strange picture, there's a great story behind it. :)

As for the wiggler, Saydria's tooth fell out while she was at a birthday party on Saturday. Very exicting! I will try and get some pics posted later of a great hike we took to Hocking Hills. We explored a cave and "beach" area and had a fun time.