Scary Rockers

The boys dressed up as rockers for this years "trunk or treat".



And Sarah is a belly dancer.


Being rockers, they had to try out a little rock band action.





We met up with Dan and family at trunk or treat.


Dan's sporting his broke back mountain motif this year.

Boy scouts were not like this in my day

I See Plaid

Lots of cake to eat at this time of year around our house. But even with the abundance of cake we are so into birthdays we even put candles on ice cream.



For my 40th birthday Cathy through a plaid party. Plaid is my favorite color so everyone was instructed to show up in their favorite plaid-ware. Even the cake was plaid.




It's not a party until someone gets out the fisheye lens. It's like a fun house mirror strapped to the front of your camera.

Bowling Birthday

It's birthday season at the Hoyles house. Cathy starts working on the party preparation in June and it all builds up to these two weeks.

Ben and Chris's party was held at a bowling ally this year. Of course Cathy made the cake in the shape of a bowling ball and pins.





There was pool play to go with the bowling.




And air hockey. With our family's heritage the boys should be better at this game.

And then there was bowling. Some of the kids had pretty good form.




Others...less so.

Soccer

Big day today...3 soccer games and the twin's birthday party. First some soccer pics.

one more time

OK, this time instead of computer it's trains but it's still funny.

Evacuation photos

During the recent hurricane we were taken in by Sam's parents in Austin for a few days. Four kids, six adults and two dogs. A little crowded but everyone had a great time. We would like to thank the Ferrel's for their kind hospitality. Without their offer of a place to stay we'd have to have bunked out at the Super 8 with the other million Houstonites.

We spent most of our spare time watching the weather channel. When the weather channel broadcasts live from your home town...it's time to call your insurance agent.




We took the kids to the local state park to run off some energy








Karen thought about trying her first step.

Later in the week we took a trip to the "Ferrel Family Compound" lots of horses and puppies for the kids to play with.





When we finally re-vacuated we found very little damage to our property.


We put the kids to work...

Some were not so lucky...

We ended up loosing power for 13 days while the electrical crews made sense of the spaghetti dinner that was our power system.

We had a generator hooked up to the house. We used it to power the kid's computer so that they could play "spore". No lights...just spore.

Eventually the lights came on and I shaved my evacuation beard.