We ate the half smoke with chili and onions. Very good!
and, of course, Chili chese fries, delicious!
Kimberly and I enjoying the C&O Canal. The weather has been amazing here and it was such a beautiful day. It's been in the high 60s.
Great Falls, there was a nice trail to the falls.
What a great way to spend the day! 
These are our traditional Halloween and Thanksgiving Day breakfast. Pumpkin pecan butter filled pancakes.
So I realize they don't look that appetizing from the picture, but really pumpkin pancakes are quite tasty.
For dinner we had pumpkin-shaped pizza. 
Valerie and Alexis decorating some sugar cookies! I think more went in their mouths than on the cookies.
The ward Halloween party was a lot of fun. They had a costume parade, a pinata, haunted house, and trunk-or-treat.
Valerie, Morgan, Alexis, Maggie, Anna.
Dinner, Yummy!
These two are completely crazy. Notice the ears...yeah, so glad they can laugh at themselves.
What a fun Halloween! After the ward party Alexis and Valerie met some friends and went to Fear Forest for the second time. Of course, it was completely dark out, again. 
Michael, Maggie, Valerie, Alexis, and Taisha. It was a beautiful fall day, in the 70s. What a better way to spend it than going for a nice hike!
Alexis: Are we there yet? Valerie: I'm so thirsty. Maggie: This is so much fun!
Once you reach to top of the "mountain", there is an amazing view. 
This picture really doesn't show all the beautiful colors.
Having some fun at the top of the rocks.
YEAH! We did it !
First high school dance, doesn't she look amazing. She spent the day with Morgan and Maggie getting ready for the "big night", makeup, hair, and, of course, sparkles anywhere and everywhere.
Morgan, Alexis, Maggie, and Maggie's friend Michael.
Morgan's mother even treated them to Applebee's before the dance. She had a great time and made some wonderful high school memories!
Thanks to Sylvia Ammodt, Young Women's President extraordinaire, for driving my oil paintings over 2,000 miles from Utah to Virginia. Now, it truly feels like home. I've missed these paintings. They're so beautiful. 
After my mother retired, she decided to take some oil-painting classes. Our entire family has benefited from her amazing talents. The top painting was a graduation gift. She painted one for my sister Cindy and I really liked hers, a lot. I had know idea she was doing this for me. She spent several hours painting this at her art classes. Best gift ever!
This one is a re-creation of a Thomas Kinkade. I think it's beautiful. I love the misty background and the beautiful colors of the tree leaves and flowers. It's very calming and relaxing to look at.
Even the grandchildren received oil paintings one year for Christmas. Alexis loves her purple fairy and it looks great in her bedroom.
This festival is during Sept and Oct. The atmosphere and surroundings make it feel like you stepped into a fantasy world.
So many different characters were there. People came dressed up in "Renaissance" clothing. Some people even had tails, we even saw someone dressed like Tumnus, including horns on his head.
They even had some jousting.
Turkey legs, yum!
The day started out with an art show in Alexandria. Kimberly, Miriam, Alexis, and me also went to La Madeleine for lunch, for the best tomato soup ever! What a fun day we had!
We had, of course, another swim party to celebrate Alexis' birthday. From left to right Mckayala, Maggie, Valerie, Alexis, Maria, and Sadie in the pool.
I still can't believe Alexis is in High School already. She had a really great first day. Her first class was Drama.
Iwo Jima Memorial.
Then to Alexandria for some ice cream. We're so excited! 
Old Post Office Museum, Nat'l Archives, the White House, three smithsonians, Iwo Jima, Old Town Alexandria...complete and total exhaustion. We both hope McKenna enjoyed her first trip to Washington, DC! Alexis has been friends with Mckenna since she was three years old and we're so glad she came for a visit!