Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you all are enjoying our snow across the state! We are having 'almost' record lows on the eastern side of the state with -5 this morning taking Jacqui to school Brrrr! We've got about 4-5 inches of snow right now, with expectations of more all through the weekend. Hope you all have a safe, happy, and healthy Thanksgiving. We have you all in our thoughts and our prayers. Please pray for us that we have a safe trip with all this inclement weather, and you will hear from us and get pics when we get back! :) Love you all!

Happy Veteran's Day

Once again it is that time of year. Please thank every veteran you know for their service and sacrifice for our country.

Thank you Grandad and Granpa Spence for your service, and thank you Hank for yours... Our nation is made great by the sacrifice offered by so many for the rest of us to live in freedom. Once again, thank a vet and appreciate everything they have fought for that we often take for granted. Thank you Veterans!

Coach of the Week ~ Sean!!!

Just thought you might be able to put this up on the Cross Blog. We are so proud of Sean. And we will miss him...a lot. Sometimes he becomes the actual glue that holds some of us together. We love him. Anyway...here is the link. What a cool picture! Maybe they can get to the play offs again and can play Will Smith's son, Wayne Gretsky's son, and Joe Montana's son. :) They have a play off game tonight at home. But tickets are of course unavailable. Matt and I wanted to go so badly. Vic

Check out the link below to see Sean's team and him as Coach of the Week. Way to go Sean!

http://www.skylinegridiron.com/index.php

Coach Sean

http://www.skylinegridiron.com/index.php
Here is the link about Sean!

STOMP

Hey all, just had to post a quick note. Hank and I went to STOMP last night and it was phenomenal! I absoluetely loved it. If you ever have the opportunity to watch this show, take it! It is an 18 year old Broadway production created in Britain from a street percussionist. Working and living on the street you use anything you can find to 'beat on' to get the rhythym going and this show combines different random objects to put on a heckuva show; garbage cans, sinks, lighters, match boxes, plastic buckets, paint cans, innertubes, etc. Just wanted to sing its praises and encourage you all to see it if you can. NEAT!

Check out the link if you'd like to see a brief video of them in action...
http://www.stomponline.com/tickets.php

Trick or Treat

We had a pretty fun day. I took Hank and Jacqui to a surprise date at the FOX theater to see Bugs Bunny and the Symphony. It was a fun show and lots of the audience were dressed up for Halloween. Jacqui chose to dress up as Hannah Montana this year, complete with long blond hair and sparkle boots. After the show we picked up Lyrik, Jacqui's friend and went to the Gonzaga dorms to go Trick or Treating. Lyrik was a cat, and soon into the evening turned into 'Hannah Montana's cat' and that is why she had the gloves and feather boa ~ MEOW! I love that Gonzaga provides trick-or-treating for the kids inside the dorm. It is safe, warm, indoors, and there is not so much walking around outside. The girls loved it and came home with a haul of candy... As usual. They also got to make their own cookies in one of the girls' dorms. What a treat! Jacqui started out with her long blond wig, but tired of it quickly as it was itchy to her neck. It was a fun evening and we enjoyed the family time. They were both worn out by the time we finished going to just 3 different dorms. They sure were cute explaining how they are Hannah Montana and her cat and how they are both 6, and all the other things only 6 year olds can explain to undergrad college students.

Also, just for fun I encouraged a bunch of my coworkers to dress up in Star Trek theme with me on Friday and included a pic of 2 of us. We had all kinds of fun running around with phasers, communicators, and tricorders. We have a great crew and now the ongoing joke is that they all tease me as the 'Captain of our Starship' and I assign out 'the Con' when I'm off. FUN!

Fun fall days

Sorry we haven't posted anything in awhile. It has been busy busy busy here! We finished installing windows in our house, as well as the rental up here... 16 new windows total. It was a fun project and interesting to install. We took out all the old ones and had to figure out how to make the new ones fit! The rental house at over 100 years old, is not quite square, so despite our measurements to buy windows that would fit; it was not necessarily that easy... What a learning process!

Jacqui has been doing wonderfully in school. She had a presentation this week that her whole class worked on about the Day of the Dead and celebrations in Mexican culture. She is learning a lot and really getting into reading now as she becomes more sure of herself. She has been excited about getting to have music class and PE. She is super excited to pick out a book from the library every 2 weeks. She doesn't have much to say about school but "I just learn reading and writing and math, that's it" but she's happy and enjoying it so I count my blessings!

She has taken on learning to roller skate as we have 'skate days' at school and her friends from her old school and new school love skating. She is getting a little more comfortable walking on wheels, but it is a process :) She is finally brave enough to keep trying when she falls though, and for that I am grateful! We took Hank with us the last time, and it was HIS first time skating also. So we all had a ton of fun!

Hank and I went to watch the Broadway South Pacific show. It was fantastic and a great show! We had sushi that was delicious and got to have a grown-up night out. I love the old musicals and Hank liked the show since it had military stuff. I'm getting him into some of the 'finer arts' type shows that come to Spokane, he's not crazy about it, but he tolerates going with me and is a good sport.

We've been blessed to have friends and family up to visit us now that we are not traveling around the state with school back in session. Grandma Quack Quack came up and spent her birthday with us. We went to Green Bluff to have cider, pumpkin donuts, and caramel apples. It was a gorgeous day and we had so much fun Jacqui has wanted to go back every weekend I have off. So the next time we took Lyrik up to the corn maze and her and Jacqui played around for a couple of hours and of course had caramel apples. Then this weekend Hank and I were craving a nice Green Bluff grilled cheese sandwich, so we headed out in the wet, rainy weather; only to find out they didn't stock bread this weekend. :( So we had some of their homemade chili and of course Jacqui had another caramel apple. :) It was wet and cold, but it was a fun day and we enjoyed spending family time together.

I finished my 1st class back for my Master's and ended up getting 101% out of the class ~ not bad! My new class is a little more challenging, but there are some great assignments and I'm excited about some of the books we have to read.

Jacqui, Hank, and I are going to Gonzaga to go trick-or-treating at the dorms tomorrow, so I will post some pics for you guys of this year's Halloween.

Love you all and hope all is well and you have a safe Halloween!

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