Here's a few pictures of the boys in their chosen attire.

I couldn't manage to get both of them to smile at the same time. On Wednesday night Simon said he wanted to dress up for our big dinner and he wanted to wear a tie. Dylan jumped on the bandwagon as well. Simon also told me he wanted to be the one to answer the door when everybody got here so he could wish them "Happy...what day is it again?" Dylan kept his tie on for an hour or so after everyone got here, Simon was trooper and kept his on until bed time. It was a great Thanksgiving for us. We missed our friend Ken, who was a constant guest at Thanksgiving for about 5 years or so, but other than that it was great. Our friend Shane and his wife and son came over. Their son, Atticus, usually just clings to one of them whenever we're around, but he got down and played with all the other kids quite a bit, which was fun. After everybody left and the kids were in bed Faith and I were reminiscing over Thanksgivings past. I pointed out that last year at this time we were inside Jeremy's house while he was talking to the police and Ethan was hiding in the bathroom. Ah, good times. Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving.

Here's a picture of Dylan about 3 minutes before the previously mentioned fall in the creek.

Nothing new.

Nothing new, we just wanted to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving. We'll have 13 people at our house tomorrow. Everybody but Simon was sick all week, Faith and I were wondering if we'd even do Thanksgiving. I took the kids out to a creek near our house on Sunday to pan for gold and throw rocks. Simon and Dylan both swore they could walk in the creek and they wouldn't get cold because they had rubber boots on (the creek is about 4 or 5 inches deep where we were). I tried to tell them they'd get cold, but they kept saying they wouldn't, so I figured what the heck, maybe they're right. So within 5 minutes Simon was crying that his feet were freezing and Dylan fell in the creek. We had been there for about 15 minutes all together. While they got in the Pathfinder I scooped up some dirt and rocks from the creek bottom and we panned for gold at home. No gold, but we all found some little purple crystals. That's about it. Oh, wait, no it's not. While Faith, Dylan, and I were home sick on Tuesday, the school called. Simon had been bitten 3 times on the arm. None of them drew blood, but they said it was obviously bite marks. Upon questioning, Simon told the receptionist that a boy on the bus had done it. When he talked to the principal he told her that Dylan had done it on the bus on the way to school. So the school called us, and we told them that Dylan had stayed home sick that day. They asked Faith to talk to him and try and get the real story out of him. The result: He had bitten himself during quiet time after recess. When he got home I talked to him about it and asked why he had done that. He said he wanted to play a trick on his class. When I asked him what the culmination of the trick would have been, he said he wasn't sure, he just thought it would be funny. Faith's not very happy that I start laughing everytime I think about Simon biting himself. Oh boy... Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Dylan opening presents at his birthday party.

Dylan with some nerf gear he got for his birthday.

Simon lost his first tooth!

Dylan's birthday was on Tuesday. He woke up at about 530 and asked if he could open his presents. We made him wait for Simon to wake up, so he opened them at about 6. We had a birthday party after school. There were 10 kids over, ranging in age from 2 to 8. It was utter chaos. After they ate cake and ice cream it got even worse. It was pretty fun though. There are 2 new videos on you tube, just type curtisfamilyrepublic into the search engine. In the video of all the kids on the trampoline make sure you keep on eye on Simon after Dylan gets off the tramp. Well, they're not on there yet, but they should be uploaded by tonite (Friday). Not much else has happened this week. It snowed a couple of inches at our house last Sunday, but it all melted. A winter storm watch was issued for Republic for Wednesday night, so when I woke up Thursday morning I told the kids to look outside and see how much it snowed. It hadn't snowed, it rained all night. When I left for work and got a couple of miles from our house there was a few inches of snow. Town is maybe a hundred feet higher than where we live, and that was enough to have snow in town. Everyplace else was rain though, even in the mountains. That's about it, hope everybody's doing well.

These are all the guys I hunted with in Oregon, clockwise from the bottom left are James, Ron, Phil, John, and Kent.

In the blind with John, Kent, and Jack (John's new dog).

Ron and Phil. I was about 800 feet away when I took this picture with my new camera at 80x digital zoom. I was pretty pleased with it.

Me with our ducks from the first day.

Our ducks from the second to last day.

I got home Friday night from my duck hunting trip. It was tons of fun. The total tally for the group for the five days we hunted was 51 ducks, three falls in the river (two of them were me on the same day), and 4 holes poked in waders (all me). I heard the funniest thing one day down in Oregon. Sensitive or easily offended readers should maybe skip to the next paragraph. Ron shot a wood duck, also called a "woody", and they are really awesome looking ducks. John said he should get it mounted, but Ron said he didn't think he could afford it. He said "I'll see if anybody in the other blind wants it." He grabbed the radio to call the other guys we hunted with. He keyed the mike and said "Hey, I've got a real nice woody over here if anybody wants to mount it." Utter silence followed that statement, and Ron just looked at us as we stared at him in shock. Then grabbed the radio again and said "It's a wood duck you perverts." I laughed so hard I almost fell off the bench. Not much else exciting happened, unless you think getting up a 330 in the morning to wade around in a river putting out decoys, then laying in a blind either freezing or roasting, all so you can shoot some birds, then pick up all the decoys and spend the rest of the evening getting ready for the next day exciting. I find it very exciting.

Faith took the kids to Colville to go grocery shopping on Halloween. They wore their costumes and figured out that they could trick or treat at each checkstand in the 3 grocery stores they went to. By the time they were done shopping and it was time to go trick or treating at houses, they said they had enough candy and wanted to go home. Weirdos. Faith didn't take any pictures of their costumes, or of the awesome pumpkins we carved the night before I left. Simon told me this morning that I couldn't go hunting anymore because he missed me too much. We didn't do much today. Tomorrow we're going to go out to a lake and shoot some guns and mess around. That's about it, hope everybody's doing well.