Sweetheart

On Friday I got to pick-up Halli early from Grandma and Grandpa Vances. Grandma was telling me that while they were at Fred Meyer's they enjoyed some hot chocolate. Which I couldn't help notice was on her shirt and pants. :) Well, she saw two policemen and went over and told them that when ever she sees policmen she prays for them. They told her thank you and they appreciated it. I could imagine her little smile and feeling proud.
We started doing this when she was younger. It makes my heart happy to know that she cares and is praying at a young age. I can only imagine what God has planned for her life. I know it will truly be amazing!

Merry Christmas

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Will post pictures after Christmas and Halli's birthday.

Andy, Carey andHalli

Dave & Chelsea's Rehearsal & Wedding

The wedding has finally arrived. Dave and Chelsea are so excited.

And as you can see below, so are Jacob and Halli.

Dave and Chelsea with the kids. Jacob only wanted to stand next to Halli. They were so cute.

What a cute couple. :)

The kids dancing at the reception.

You couldn't keep those kids off the dance floor. It was very cute!

Halli's 1st Day

Halli's 1st day of pre-school. What an exciting day. Halli was a little unsure of school this year. She really liked her little class last year. This year her friend Jackson is in her class. Some of her friends from last year are in a different class. She will get to make a lot of new friends this year.

This is Halli sitting with her new teacher, Teacher Kathy. I've heard that Teacher Kathy is wonderful. She does go to our church. So, I'm sure we will be bumping into her at sometime.

I'm excited to see how little Halli is going to do this year. I get to take her to pre-school this year. Halli is really excited about that. I can't believe that in a couple of year she will be starting kindergarten. Time is going by too fast.

Zoo trip with Grandma and Grandpa Vance

Halli loves going to the zoo. During the summer they have a butterfly exhibit. It is her favorite! This summer she wanted to make sure that Grandma Vance saw the butterflies.

In a new part of the zoo, they have an eagle's nest. Halli likes to pretend she is a bird.

Halli never passes up a time to play in water. This is a table that has Mt. Hood at the highest point and you can pour water over it and watch it run down the different streams and then turn into lakes. Halli can stand there forever and keep pouring water. She doesn't mind how wet she gets or how cold the water is.
We finally made it to the butterfly exhibit. This day the butterflies were being extra friendly. This is one of the butterflies that landed on Andy. Halli was getting upset that one wouldn't land on her. She tried extra hard to be very still. Finally, one did land on her. I wasn't quick enough to capture a picture. She was very excited though!!!

Another one of Halli's favorites in the zoo is the Larakeet exhibit. You can purchase a little cup of juice and feed them. Halli was finally still long enough for one of the birds to come visit her cup. It did climb on her arm for a little bit. She loved it!!! Halli has a love for animals. Right now she says she wants to be a veterinarian.

Another favorite in the summer, is SNOW CONES! Halli's favorite flavor is bubble gum. I think she likes it that it turns her teeth and tongue blue. What a goof! :) Mom and dad get an elephant ear. Halli tries to lick the sugar off when we aren't looking.

The State Fair

Halli loves corn on the cob. Especially if it's at the fair and on someone else's plate!

Who would of thought that looking at chicken eggs would be so exciting? The kids spent alot of time weighing the eggs and looking at them under a light. They thought it was interesting. :)


Halli and Jacob riding a plane together. I think Halli liked it better than Jacob. They really did have a lot of fun.

Halli and Jacob enjoying a canoe ride. They liked splashing the water more than being in a canoe by themselves. It was cute to watch them.

Who wouldn't love driving their own car? We had soooo much seeing the kids do all the rides. This was the first year that they all could do it. We look forward to next year! Isn't she cute?

Summer fun at Bullwinkle's

Clackamas County had a special family night at Bullwinkle's for the employees. We thought Halli would enjoy it. She loved it! We only had time to ride these bumper boats and the go carts. Halli wanted to squirt the water all by herself. She thought it was really funny when she could get close enough and get mom wet. Andy and Halli were both soaking wet when they got off.

I wish I could have gotten some pictures of us riding the go carts. Halli and I rode together and had sooooo much fun. We can't wait to go next year. We know now to go earlier!

I have pictures!

This was the first year Halli wanted to do fireworks. We went down to Jefferson and spent more than 2 hours setting off fireworks. It was fun, but loud. Halli really wanted to do her own sparkler. She like the really long ones!

Life is Crazy!

Sorry it's been so long for an update. Things are busy in the Vance family. We finished our summer up with going to the State Fair. Halli loved riding the rides and seeing all the animals. Of course we couldn't leave without having an icecream cone.

Halli started her second year of pre-school. She is liking school more and more each week. She really likes that mom takes her to school this year and will be going on the field trips with her. It's always exciting to see what she has learned that day.

Halli also started AWANA's at church. She is liking that more now also. Each week she has a different verse to learn. She is so smart that after she learns it she really gets tired of us asking her to say it again. She definitely has the eye roll down.

We also got to go to the zoo a couple of weeks ago with Johnna, Olivia and Jess. It was so cute to see the girls together. They had never met, but knew about each through pictures. The girls walked off together and acted like they've been friends forever. Halli still talks about her "sister" Olivia. It was so nice to see them all and we hope they come back for another visit soon. :)

My brother David got married a couple of weeks ago. Halli was a flower girl. She did a wonderful job. I do have to say that she was the cutest flower girl. She took her job very seriously. Dropping flowers all the way up to Uncle Dave's feet and then coming back and sitting in the right chair all by herself. Andy couldn't sit with her, he was an usher. I couldn't sit with her because I was playing the Bridal March. During rehearsal Halli thought it would be a good idea to come help me play. Not everyone thought that was too funny. We made it perfectly clear to her that she could not do that at the wedding. :)

That's about it for now. I hope to add pictures soon.
~Carey

More New Orleans

"Oh boy! We're going to Story Land!!!!!!!" Halli was a little excited to be going to Story Land. She had seen some of the things earlier and couldn't wait to go and check it all out!

How creative to have a place just about stories. Some of them Halli hadn't heard of. We will need to get out some different books. There were a few things we couldn't go on or enter because they still needed to be repaired. You can imagine what it looked like before Katrina. Another reminder of how long it's going to take to rebuild the city. :(

We got go on a train ride around City Park. I think it was a 15 minute ride. It was long enough to get a nice breeze and to enjoy a snack. You also could see how many more things still need repair.

Halli thought this was Jonah and the Whale. She just didn't want to leave! I thought she might be a little scared of it. Nope, she loved it! When it started pouring rain on us, Halli said we could stay in the whale and be dry. I had to carry her out of the whale and put her in the car.

Halli trying to patiently wait for Logan and Jordan to be done riding the roller coaster. She didn't wait that patiently and then went and pouted instead. She told me she lost her patience and couldn't find it.




Halli get to ride the cars all by herself!

Halli was soooo excited to see that the Brantley's have flamingos. She was surprised that Fred and Frannie flew all the way to New Orleans to see her. Fred and Frannie are some flamingos that she passes by everyday in someones yard. They have become her friends. You never know when they are going to pop up somewhere. Last year they showed up at our camping site!










"Look mom! I can fit in your bag!" Why do kids and pets love climbing into bags?

Camping in Pacific City

We had a great time at the coast! The weather on Saturday was wonderful. In the mid 70's and not too much wind. We went down to the beach and Halli and Jacob had so much fun. I think that Grandma had more fun though. :)

Halli has wanted to go in the ocean for awhile now. We told her that she could put her feet in and that it would be cold. Well, we started with the feet. By the time we left Halli and Jacob were soaked and covered with sand. Thank goodness we had a shower that we could rinse them off before going to lunch.

Halli and Jacob also got to fly a kite until it ran away. Andy finally was able to get it down when it got caught on a cliff. Thank goodness I had the video camera so no one could get video of me chasing the kite. I almost had it a couple of times.

Grandma and the kids building a sand castle.

Halli found a hole filled with water. Jacob quickly followed. They had their own private "pool". They enjoyed covering up each others toes.

There was a sand hill next to our spot. The kids spotted that and thought that would be fun to climb. We were all surprised how high they climbed. We finally had to tell them that they were to high and needed to come down. They had fun sliding down.

We also had fun playing back at the camp site. Jacob got to try roasting marshmallows. He didn't care for it. He wanted a "raw" one. We also tried to do s'mores. Both kids just wanted the chocolate. Who could blame them?

More Camping

We are headed of to the coast this weekend. We are hoping that it won't rain on us. My parent's and Jacob are coming up Saturday to play for the day. Halli and Jacob will have soooo much fun. Thank goodness we plan to be on the beach so they can run and yell as much as they want. It is what they do best. :)

I'm hoping to post pictures next week. I haven't had time to download them off my camera.
~Carey

Camping in Bend

Well, we had our first camping trip of the summer. We had a great time. Halli loves camping soooo much. She got to do all of the things she loves to do. Our second morning we woke up to a squirrel looking down into our tent "yelling" at us. Halli thought that was pretty neat.

Halli also loved swimming. She's practicing blowing bubbles in the water and her dog paddle. I see swim lessons in her future. Maybe Auntie Heather can help with that. :)

This weekend we are camping in Pacific City. Halli doesn't know about camping in the desert one weekend and camping on the coast the next. We've explained that is one of the fun things about Oregon. We just pray that it doesn't rain on us!

Halli on a listening walk.

When it started to get dark we took Halli on a walk so she can hear all the different animals that make sounds at night. This would help her sleep better. She didn't last very long. She was tired and wanted to go to bed. :)

Halli also enjoyed playing miniature golf.

New Orleans

Halli and I have been back for a week now. Halli is still talking about Louisiana. She said she wants to go back and play with her friends Logan, Jordan & Ms. Susanne. Sorry Mike. She really liked feeding the stingrays, riding the carousel and riding the car ride at city park. We can't wait to go back and show Dad all the fun things we did. Thanks again Brantley's!

This weekend we are off to SunRiver to go camping. Andy and Halli love camping. We are hoping for great weather and lots of playing. Halli says she is ready to go swimming. Last year she wasn't to fond of it. We'll see what happens this year.

Have a wonderful weekend!
~Carey