You're A Mean One Mr Grinch

This is dedicated to my sister, who regardless of her Grinchy attitude she LOVES Christmas.

Thanks for all your help on Tuesday!!

Our Blessing From Heaven

Xavier Don Parrish

Xavier made his appearance a few days early, Yea! He was born on Thursday, November 20th at 2:43 pm weighing in at 6 lbs. 8 oz. and 19 inches long. He is a beautiful, healthy baby and so far he loves to sleep.

I am truly amazed at the miracle of God's greatest creation. We are so blessed to have Xavier in our family, he truly is a perfect little child. He has managed in just 3 days to have successfully wrapped 4 people completely around the littlest pinkie finger ever. Payton and Eryn are very good helpers, maybe a little too good. So life is good and we are truly a very blessed family.

Baby Xavier

Baby Xavier will make his appearance on November 24th. We have to be at the hospital at 5 am. I told the doctor that that time DOES NOT exist on my clock, but he was unsympathetic to my sleeping habits. He is definately a braver man than I thought.

Payton's Baptism

Payton was baptized on June 21st. I am very proud of him. He is such a good boy, even though some days he drives my crazy. I thank my Heavenly Father that Payton was able to come to our home. I am grateful for him and his good example.

This is what Payton has to say about his baptism:

My baptism was great I was glad everyone came. The talks were great. that was the best saturday of my life. and the water was cold. and the Bishop helped confirm me.

This is my grandpa Don and Walli. I like Grandpa Don because he takes me golfing and he likes to golf too. Walli gives me good treats.

What a handsome boy!!

Costa Rica - The End (finally)

Our last day of the trip we spent getting our things packed up. We just had time to get Eryn's hair in braids.

While I was there waiting for her we had a couple of visitors. They just came out of the bushes to bid there farewell.

This is one last look of the balcony. The rest of the day we spent in Liberia and left for home the following morning. We had a nine hour layover in Houston so we went and visited Michael's sister, Jennifer.

Costa Rica - Day 3-4

Day 3 was Sunday, we rented a car and started to explore the world outside of our hotel. We drove around the peninsula and made a loop. We stayed mainly on the coast and did shopped in tourist shops.

Day 4 we went to the cloud Forrest. It took us about 3 hours to drive there because the roads were dirt and bumpy but the views were gorgeous.

We took a side trip to a coffee plantation. They have a little co-op all the farmers own their land and they hand pick the coffee.

These are coffee plants. The hills were very steep.

We finally found our way to the Selvatura Cloud Forrest it was very beautiful. We went to the hummingbird garden, the butterfly garden and I did the canopy walk while the kids and Michael went zip lining through the canopy.

The hummingbirds are interesting they are not meant to fly they have the same wings as a penguin so that is why they move so fast to keep themselves flying. The different colors on the hummingbirds vary in different light. They are all brown but when light hits them they change colors.

The butterflies can get drunk from eating too much sugar. They will just fall over from all the sugar.The different colors of petals tell the butterflies which buds have been pollinated and which have not.These are various types of cocoons in various stages. They are all live butterflies waiting to break free.

I started the canopy walk from here. It was 1.5 miles with seven bridges.

I couldn't see much because it was raining, more like a downpour it felt like I was in the shower.

Here are the zip lining crew.

On our way back we stopped at the frog pond. We weren't able to get many pictures because they were all in glass enclosures.

The views on the way back were spectacular. It was the scariest drive ever but worth the views.This was the critter that greeted us when we arrived back at our hotel. Cuddly isn't he!

Costa Rica Vacation - Day 2

Today we left and went to a beach across our little cove. As we were waiting to leave we had some hotel staff to send us off.

We finally got on our boat, here is a picture looking back at our hotel.

They told us that this was a white sand beach but it was more like a salt and pepper beach.

Right before we had lunch they took us on a little jungle tour. We saw monkeys, lizards and lots of crabs.

All the red spots are crabs. They were all over the place.

Captain Sprite as he was nicknamed, because he always asked for sprite, by one of the waiters was driving us back to our hotel.

This was our last day at the beach, both Michael and I got bored. However, Michael took the kids on the kayak and toasted his legs, he forgot to put on sunscreen. I sat in the cover of trees and slept and read.