Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving in Indianapolis with the extended Runyan family. My parents, Gary and Sandy Lueken, came to enjoy the festivities, as well some friends of Emily and Jaron. The girls were thrilled to spend time with their cousins, aunts and uncles, and BOTH sets of grandparents. Highlights of the weekend included paintball, eating, early morning shopping, eating, jumping on the trampoline, eating, watching movies, and eating. We had a wonderful time!

Alyssa and Vincent brought their super fancy camera and took family pictures of all of us. Here is a big group shot, Chief included.

PAINTBALL! This was the first time in 8 Thanksgivings that Chris did not participate in the Turkey Bowl in Cincinnati. To make up for it, we had a paintball party. This is a before shot. Pictured are those of us man enough to brave the cold and shoot at each other: Cameron, Gary, Dee, Chris, Jaron, Alyssa and Vincent. Mike is taking the picture. He was man enough too.

I included this action shot of me and my dad that Chris is particularly fond of. I would like to send out props to my dad who was awesome at paintball, even though this was his FIRST time ever. At one point, he even captured the flag and ran it back to the base for us. Yeah Dad!

With the leftover paintballs, the Dads supervised paintball for kids. They LOVED it. Here are Spencer and Morgan with their masks on.

Here are Rachael (mask) and Mikey.

Chris and Dee in the kitchen after they cleaned up from paintball, but before the feast.

Vincent and Alyssa making Cranberry Chutney. It was soooo yummy.

It finally happened. Morgan out-grew the Runyans kiddie picnic table. She is pictured here at the 'grown-ups' table.

The wee-ones at the kiddie picnic table. Pictured are Mikey, Joshua (?), Spencer and Rachael.

Just chillaxin'...

Dee and Rachael and Chief. He is such a lap dog.

Morgan is getting quite good at her violin. Her teacher gives her more and more to learn, and she can't seem to get enough. In fact, she tends to master what her teacher gives her in a day or two, and then sounds things out on her own...Perhaps she has a little of Nana's ear for music. She brought her violin this weekend so that she could play with Spencer. He has been learning how to play the piano, and is doing quite well.

VIO-lin, lin, lin, VIO-lin, lin, lin, VIO-lin, lin, lin, ahhhhhhhhh. (That comes from a They Might Be Giants song that Morgan and Chris find especially funny.)

A.O.A

Alpha Omega Alpha. A really fancy way of saying 'Medical School Honor Society'. As many of you know, Chris is a very busy man. This is because he works VERY hard, and may or may not be a bit of an over-achiever. Anyway, he was honored along with several other students this week, as they were inducted into A.O.A. (It is difficult to receive this honor, as it requires good grades your first two years, along with good grades and great evaluations your third and fourth years. In addition to this, you need hours of community service...Thank heavens for callings!) There was a special dinner, and all the inductees received a certificate. At the dinner, we ran into Dr. Froehlich, who was also there to receive an award. He was the doctor who delivered Rachael, and about 80% of the babies born in our ward over the last 7 years. It was fun to run into him after all this time.

Halloween

Trick-or-Treat! Chris was post call on Halloween this year, which meant that he was able to go trick-or-treating with us. Hooray! (He missed out on last year's festivities.) The weather was beautiful that day, and we had a great time. Our neighbor, Campbell, joined us for the candy gathering. Rachael wanted to be a cheetah again, while both Morgan and Campbell wanted to be something evil. (Great.) Campbell was an evil fairy, and Morgan was an evil snow queen'. When asked why she wanted to be an evil snow queen instead of a good snow queen, Morgan replied, "Because I want to carry a wand, and only an evil snow queen would carry a wand." Okay. Notice the wand in her hands. It lights up and makes a pretty cool swishing noise. When seen in that light, who wouldn't want to carry a wand and be an evil snow queen?

Rachael with her spoils of the evening. She even counted it! (She counted 168 pieces. Now that's a lot of candy!)

Ouch! At one point during the evening, Morgan tripped over her long dress. (It was pretty sad.) This happened in an unknown neighbor's walk-way. The owners of the home were kind enough to clean her up, apply Neosporin, and give her a band aid. Morgan was pretty sad for about three houses after that, and then perked right up for more trick-or-treating. Nothing like candy to cheer up an owie...

Pumpkin Carving

A family tradition in our home is for Chris and the girls to carve a pumpkin together. Here are some fun pictures of this year's carving.

Squishy, squashy pumpkin innards. Yummmmm!!!!

Eeeeeewwwwww! Gross! (They loved it. Really.)

Tah-dah! The finished product. (Shhhhh! This is actually a picture of the pumpkin we carved in 2006. We forgot to take a picture of this year's jack-o-lantern before our sanitation friends took it away. This pumpkin turned out so well, I thought that we needed to see it again...)

Harvest Moon!

Each year our school puts on a great fall festival. It is a lot of fun and the kids really look forward to it. This was the first time in three years that Chris was able to attend, as he was either out of town or working at the hospital. We had a great time playing games, winning prizes, and eating delicious festival delicacies like caramel apples and cotton candy. -Oh, and taking advantage of choice photo opportunities such as this one.
















































Here are Morgan and Rachael at the 'Pumpkin Toss'. Great job girls!


A highlight of the evening was the obstacle course put on by our gym teacher, the famous 'Mr. B'. All of the children at school love him, our girls included. The theme for the course was 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. Mr. B and his family set it up based on the movie, and even included a zip line and a plank to walk. Chris and the girls LOVED it. We ran into some of our friends, Joe Jungkunz and Liz Baker. (Liz is Mr. B's daughter.) They helped run the obstacle course, and posed as characters from the movie.




I am a room parent this year. One of my responsibilities is to help run a booth at the festival. Our booth was the 'Guessing Jars', as is evident from the poster. My co-room parent Liz Fox was great. We had fun setting up the booth, gathering jars, and what not. (Her son Ray, in Morgan's class.) We got our kids together one evening, and they all helped make the posters while Liz, her husband Tim and I filled jars and counted the contents. Props to Tim for counting the beads that went into one jar. Who knew that you could fit over 1,600 beads in a quart sized canning jar...?
What fun!

Cousin Time!

Chris had time off Conference weekend, so we decided to spend it in Indianapolis with the Runyans. Emily and Jaron had the same idea, so we all got together. The girls were so happy to spend time with Spencer and Mikey. Here they are on the swing with Mikey. We had a wonderful time together and really enjoyed the sessions of conference.

The Devil Whale

Cameron and his band, The Devil Whale, came to Cincinnati on tour! Matt Hopper, a friend of the band's was also touring with them. Mom and Dad Runyan came into Cincinnati for the show. We got a sitter for the girls as they were playing late at night. A friend of ours, Adnan Mir, joined us for the show. We all got ice cream from Graeter's before the show, and had a nice time spending time with Cameron. After the show, Cameron and Matt Hopper stayed with us. The next morning, the band joined us for a huge breakfast. Thanks for stopping in Cincinnati boys!