This year's halloween was "return of the ninja." Ethan wanted to wear his same ninja costume from last year, and luckily it fit. Here he is with our carved pumpkins anxious for trick-or-treating and doing one of his best ninja moves!



We started the evening with his pal Dylan and headed over to Zane's house to pick up more friends for group trick or treating. Here are some pictures of the gang.







Dad joined in on the fun with a hat from Grandma Sharon and one of the kid's masks and gloves!



Grandpa Ed stayed at the house and scared the neighborhood kids as they came to the door for candy. Here he is in his scary costume.

In preparation for Halloween, we made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. This year we went to the patch at the local garden center.



I wonder if this pumpkin will fit in this hole?



This seems like a good way to carry these heavy pumpkins!





Photo break with mom.

Ethan had his first accident and trip to the hospital on the weekend of October 6, 2007. We decided to take at trip to Marfa, Texas near Alpine and Ft. Davis on Friday, October 5th through Sunday, October 7th. We were going to the Chinati Foundation Open House. This is an art institute in Marfa. In particular, William wanted to meet an architect from London who was speaking as part of the festivities. On Friday evening, we had a great time staying at a lodge and visiting the University of Texas McDonald Observatory where we attended a star party. We got to look through some of the largest telescopes in the world and learn about the constellations. Here is a picture of Ethan near one of the art exhibits with neon lights.




The second night we were camping in Fort Davis as the State Park. As we were setting up our tent, William heard Ethan crying. Ethan was running to the playground to play and an older boy lost control of his bike and bumped into Ethan (Ethan was on foot). Ethan't face was covered with blood. After quickly looking at the wound and realizing that we could not see one of his front permanent teeth, we rushed Ethan to the nearest hospital (30 miles away in Alpine, TX). We learned that our Suburu can go 100 - Anyhow, Ethan had to get his lip sealed with DermaBond (a liquid dressing). We were told that his front permanent tooth was pushed back into his jaw and that he would need to see his dentist the following day. We went back to the camp site, packed up, and drove home all night. Ethan is doing just fine now. The dentist thinks that his tooth will just grow back out (it is already starting to come out). Here is a picture of the little guy in the hospital with dad.

This summer we took our first big family vacation that did not involve a trip to visit other family members. It was also Ethan's first long car trip. We left Cedar Park at 4:00am on July 27th and headed to Carlsbad, New Mexico. Along the way we stopped off to eat breakfast in Junction, TX at Isaack's Restaurant (a place where William always used to stop when traveling with his family to visit his grandparents in Plainview, Texas). Here is a picture of the boys outside Isaacks.



We stayed on night in Carlsbad and visited the caverns. We took a park guided tour of the King's Palace which was really great. After our visit to Carlsbad, we were off to Roswell, NM to go to the International UFO Museum.



After our brief visit to Roswell, we continued our drive to Taos, New Mexico where we stayed four nights at the Inn on the Rio. We spent our days in Taos riding bikes and hiking. We went to the some of the BLM lands near Taos and went to the Colorado River Gorge and also did a 6 mile bike ride. You heard it right - Ethan rode his bike for a whole six miles. We packed our lunch and stopped for a rest and snacks on the way. On another day, we hiked down to a natural spring had lunch and skipped stones in the water. Here is a picture of me and Ethan on one of our biking trips. You can see the bridge that goes over the Colorado River Gorge in the background.



Here is a picture of William and Ethan stopping to enjoy the view.



Here is the trail we hiked down to get to the natural spring where we had our lunch and skipped rocks.



Here is a picture of Ethan throwing a big rock into the river.



We left Taos and headed to Red River, NM where we stayed in a cabin and did more hiking, mountain biking, and rafting. Here is a picture of our cabin.



We had a stocked pond in front of our cabin, so William and Ethan also enjoyed fishing (catch and release).



During our stay in Red River, we took several memorable hikes. William had the brillant idea of bringing Ethan's bike on the hikes (up the mountain to a lake, usually), so that he could ride back down. Ethan was usually able to ride a good bit of the way up, but dad ended up carrying his bike up many times. It always paid off as Ethan loved riding his bike down the mountain. We had one day where we hiked up for 5 hours. Ethan was a real champ - we never made it to lost lake, but we went really high into the mountain - it was beautiful.





Here is a picture of our picnic at Middle Fork lake.


One of the themes of our hikes was rain. We always made it up the trail and had lunch before the daily afternoon rain, but never quite made it back before getting soaking wet. Here are some wet shots of Ethan (two different hikes).




Another exciting thing we did on our trip was a half day guided rafting trip. Ethan had great fun sitting in the front of the raft the entire time. Here are some pictures of our rafting trip. While we were waiting for the rafting to start, Ethan and William played chess with our travel chess set.




We also rode the ski lift at Red River and hiked down and took a side trip to the Indian cliff dwellings at Bandalier National Monument.





We had a wonderful time and would like to go back and do a hiking and camping trip, so we can go on some longer hikes.

Ethan's first day of first grade (August 27, 2007 @ Cox Elementary School in Cedar Park, Texas). Ethan is in the first grade - no longer the youngest in the school. He has a great teacher, Ms. Suffield who puts an emphasis on hands-on science in the classroom. Science is one of Ethan's favorite subjects. Here are a few pictures of him going to school and with dad outside the classroom.





Below he is hard at work at his desk!

We took Ethan and his friend Zane down for a hike and swim in the Barton Creek Greenbelt at the Twin Falls access point over memorial day weekend. We have been getting lots of rain, and the creek is really high. It is a great time to go for a swim. We all hiked down the trail to the creek. They boys both found good walking sticks which proved to be handy.

Here we are at a portion of the creek where the water was flowing pretty fast. Ethan decided to check it out by hanging on a tree branch. No, it is not as dangerous as it looks - the water is very shallow here.

Here are the boys testing out the water with their walking sticks; it was pretty chilly!

They decide to take the plunge!

We both swam with the boys. I even enjoyed it despite the cold water.

Ethan had his Kindergarden show last week on 5/26/2007. Each of the Kindergarden classes assembled in the gym for a series of songs - one song was "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. Then, each of the classes sang a song about colors. Ethan's class was the color blue. The class wore blue tie dye shirts and blue and white whale hats.

After the show, we headed to Ethan's classroom for cookies and juice. Here is Ethan in his classroom with dad.

The big surprise for Ethan was that grandpa Ed from Florida appeared at the show. Ethan was standing in line in the hallway and grandpa Ed walked by. Ethan was really suprised - he smiled and waved really big and then gave grandpa Ed a hug. Ethan's last day of Kindergarden was Friday, May 25th 2007. We are on to summer and then first grade...

Last Friday was Field Day for the Kindergardeners at Cox Elementary. Ethan was so exicted! They had multiple obstacle courses and some water courses as well. Ethan picked out this outfit - glasses, hat, and all for the adventure.

We had Ethan's last soccer game for Spring 07 over the weekend. Ethan's team won (Ethan scored several goals). It was a good game; the teams were evenly matched in terms of skill level. Here is a shot of the team and coach Tara (minus two players).

Here are some shots of Ethan in action on the field. Here is Ethan going for the goal. He gets past the red team member and SCORES!!

Here is Ethan signaling to his team mate that he is open for the pass.

Here Ethan is ready for the kick off. Probably the funniest moment of the entire game was when Ethan put two fingers towards his eyes and then pointed the two fingers back at an opposing team member just before the kick off as if to say "I have my eyes on you." The entire crowd was very amused.

After the game, the team had a cook out and awards ceremony with cupcakes.

Here is Ethan showing of his medal (complete with blue cupcake frosting on his face).

After eating and awards, the kids headed for the playground. Ethan is doing one of his playground favorites - the monkey bars.