Silly Cal

Cal did a very funny thing this morning. For some reason, he was convinced

that my Christmas tree ornament that looks like an apple, was real. The string it hangs from was broken, so I just kind of laughed when he picked it up and started chewing on it. Even when he broke a few pieces off and revealed the Styrofoam, he wanted to keep chewing it. I eventually had to take it away and hide it from him so he didn't eat the whole thing. I also love that he closed his eyes in the middle photo because the flash was blinding him. I love my crazy dogs!

Thanksgiving fun

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday. We started it off with my crazy family tradition of running in the Turkey Trot. I ran the 4 mile and Sydney ran the 100 meters for 0-2yr. olds. I shouldn't say Sydney ran it; she took 3 or 4 steps before falling down on her knees bawling, so I'd pick her up and get her to take 3 or 4 more... Sydney likes running, but she was miserably cold as you can probably see in the 3rd picture.

Then our entire Hippen family (except Heidi, Matt, and Sarah, and Rob who were horribly missed) gathered at Grandma Smith's house for some feasting! Eran and I fried a turkey for them, and it was just good times all around. The next day we went to the Thanksgiving Pointe dinosaur museum with my sister Heather's family and my brother Seth's family. Here's Sydney looking cute on one of the statues.

Very fun vaca

So I just got back from a very fun vacation to California. I went down all by myself for a roommate from BYU reunion. Even though 2 of the 6 of us backed out at the last minute we had such a great time! It was also a wonderful opportunity to use some of the lessons I've been learning in my photography class. It is a community class that explains how to use you digital SLR camera. Last week we talked about lenses, so in California I used my macro (setting) lens on the many different beautiful flowers, sea shells and weed, palm tree textures. I used my zoom lens to get those pelicans on the rock. If you want to see pictures of us girls, you'll have to visit our B2 bombers blog.

Halloween 07

We had so much fun yesterday! I had to go shopping for a costume for Sydney since her Aunt forgot to send the vampire one we had been promised. While

we were there, we decided to get one for Daddy too - even though he tries to be a bah-humbug about Halloween and costumes. "Dog the Bounty Hunter" is highly entertaining in our household, and Daddy wearing the costume was even more entertaining! Sydney was unsure at first when she saw him. She wouldn't even go to him, but she warmed up after about a half hour of trick-or-treating. She loved her monkey costume! It had monkey shoes, and she went around saying, "OOOh! Ooh!" She kept telling me there was something on my face and even honk-honked my nose (there were several reasons it didn't stay on long). One of her favorite parts of trick-or-treating was ringing the doorbell and occasionally snagging a candy before it went in her bag so she could eat it!