Days with the Dorans

Jonasen and Ali Jane have been asking about "Papa Dave" a lot lately, and the funny thing is, Papa Dave showed up! My parents best friends live in California but make the trip home still usually once or twice a year to visit family and friends! The Bigs have taken a liking to Papa Dave like we haven't seen with anyone else. And my mom took lots of pictures of them together but they were all actions shots and blurry with the kids running, laughing and playing. Papa Dave of course came with his lovely wife, " Maronica " (really Veronica...) and it was such fun to see them and to spend some time with them. We had beautiful weather and played a lot in the lake and they happened to come on the weekend of the big fireworks show on my parents lake. Once again, the fireworks didn't disappoint and we all had a great time oooohing and aaaahing over the beautiful sight! Though my brother is on a motorcycle trip across the country, my beautiful sister-in-law brough...

I was very excited to go to Jonasen's school party this year. It is probably the ONLY time I will ever go to any of my children's Halloween school parties since, as a teacher, I am usually having a party myself. I was REALLY sore for standing for two hours but it was worth it seeing Joey with all of his friends. At the bottom is a video of the song we've been hearing for the last week... We were happy to have my parents' best friends, the Allens in town this year for Halloween. The kids have taken a particular liking to 'Papa Dave' who actually got the name 'Papa Dave' because the kids were calling him Davis (a little friend they have) and couldn't get his name right until we put a 'Papa' in front of it. Being a new Papa himself, I don't think he minded one bit. I wasn't able to go trick-or-treating with the kids this year because of all the walking so the boys took the kids while the ladies stayed back to hand out candy. Thankfu...