These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

Forget brown paper bags tied up with strings...
This is Wesley (aka Napolean Dynamite) in his moon boots that he looooooves. The first day he discovered them he would NOT let us take them off, even to sleep. He is really into wearing his shirts in the "Conan The Barbarian" style, as Jason like to call it. Who knows why. And if you try to fix it for him, he will just pull his arm out again. And lastly, this little boy does not have a security blanket but he does carry around a movie/dvd cover pretty much wherever he goes. He has little preference for which movie either.

(Thank you Hedricks for the moon boots and pj's)!

So that's how it happens...

We kept wondering why the thermostat was messed up. Allie swore she was not the one and Luke does not know how to lie very well yet... We were impressed with the toe hold on the leather chair.
Caught!Thanks Grandma Payne, McCray and Reed for the railroad tracks. Luke and Wes play with them every day.
Allie was quite proud of this fort:
No whiny boys allowed (click to see the tears)!

Happy Birthday (last month) Allie!

Allie's birthday was the day we found out about Grandpa Jackson. I feel bad because I was... in a "different place" all day. In the end we had a very nice time with "the girls" over to help celebrate. It ended up being a quick cake-n-ice cream-pajama party because it was a school night and everyone needed to go to bed. I ruined Allie's giant cup cake birthday cake too when I tried to turn it and it almost cracked in two. And the camera flash was doing some funky things so the photos turned out kind of funny. But I guess in the end it was a success because she felt special and loved. Isn't that what it is all about? Celebrating the light and life and love that someone has brought to the world by their very exisiting?!


Happy 6 years old Allie Payne!

Driving Adventures

We just returned from Grandpa Jacksons' funeral. He was 97 and invaded Utah beach at Normandy, Italy, Algeria, and other that I don't recall. The military came and performed a three gun salute and gave a flag to his daughter. I suppose that is a nice thing to do after a guy participates in changing the course of history.

On our ride home we stopped in Arches Natl' Park to stretch our legs. There are several window arches that we hiked around for awhile- the kids sure loved it.




OK all you airplane buffs out there. While we were hiking in Arches we heard a strange sound and looking up saw this way up in the sky (pardon the extreme crop):
It is some kind of super rare twin engine (see contrails) canard turboprop. I thought it was one of these:A Piaggio P180 is an Italian aircraft- about 200 or so have been made.
But the wing is straight looking from underneath. So instead I think it was one of these:
A Beechcraft Starship. Only 20 were ever made and 11 sold. Most were intentionally scrapped and only 9 have survived. One of them belongs to the Rutans and served as chase plane for Virgin Galactic's "SpaceShip One" recently.Its profile from below looks correct with the photo I snapped. Trevor or dad, please correct me if I am wrong, and for the other blog readers, thanks for putting up with the geeky commentary!