"If one night a big fat man jumps in at your window grabs you and puts
you in a sack don't worry I told Santa I wanted you for CHRISTMAS."


Bad Christmas humor with good Santa letter picture make it ALL good!
Translation:Dear Santa I love you alot I would like a I phone and a Chihuahua and a DSI and a Electric Drum Kit
Love Ben

Merry Christmas!

"The hardest part of ice skating is the ice"




We ice skate AND play limbo Heellllooo! Another Indian Guides extravaganza of fun!....for the kids that is. Being used as a balancing pole by a 55lb 6 y.o. is not my idea of fun. But the limbo was pretty cool!

“I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.”
Bernard Manning quotes
Mystery Tree 2009

The soul is healed by being with children.FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY


Ben in his Karate debut pose!

Ben and Mommy holding his white belt.

Ben has been taking some Tae Kwon do classes through an afterschool program. He got to go to a graduation ceremony where he earned his White belt. He is very proud of that belt. HiYAAA!

Birthdays are RAD!



Here it is!
3 hours
2 sheets cakes
A quadruple batch of rice kripie treats (to build the mountain)
5 cans of frosting
and a few swiped toys from the toy box=

1 VERY incredible Matterhorn birthday cake!

Ben had his 6th birthday at a Rock Climbing gym and had a BLAST!

Happy Birthday!

Annual Birthday trip to Disneyland!!! Topic....... FASTPASS......it's like a strategy game!.....Discuss! I am a little Verklempt!

What is a Cyborg?

Hideous Halloween costume #2....a Cyborg
Yep, Daddy took him to target to spend some of his hard earned cash....BUT NOOOOOO he wants to go next door to Party City and buy yet another spooky costume the day before Halloween. (See previous post of the costume he wore to school) So here he is with the Hunt crew.

Ben Loves,loves loves to surf. Here are a couple of great shots from a San Diego winter here at La Jolla shores beach.

Pumpkin carving the night before Halloween

The first Halloween costume that Ben wore for his school parade. Daddy takes him shopping as mommy tells him not to come home with a creepy costume.....so he comes home with this....a Ghost is what they call it. I call it a creepy, scary ghost.

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. ~Frank McKinney

The Ammunition


The Weapon

Shooter 1

Shooter 2

Shooter 3


Have you ever heard the story about when Daddy & Uncle J. were kids, how they threw their cauliflower off of the back deck when Grama wasn't watching............
So here we have at the Smith house an intentional Cauliflower launching event.
Grama is SUCH a good sport to participate in this! If you look close at Shooter 2 & 3 you can actually see the flying Cauliflower.

We had the greatest opportunity to watch our best friend (and Ben's God father) Todd get sworn in as Nation Chief today for the whole La Jolla Indian Guides. It is a big honor and we spent the day in Indian Hills celebrating the day. Zip lines, archery, swimming and playing on a HUGE tree house playground just to name a few of the events. It was great fun.

Mommy & Ben a rare photo of us together


Zip line for the whole family!


Boy: .... A noise with dirt on it!


Yep...that's our boy/man kid

Linus: [to Sally as she walks away with everyone else] Hey, aren't you going to stay to greet the Great Pumpkin? Huh? It won't be long now. If the Great Pumpkin comes, I'll still put in a good word for you!

We could stand it no longer. I under the best intentions chose a new pumpkin patch to attend this year that was a bit closer.
Needless to say it had undergone a relocation with out notice and ended up in a parking lot in Lakeside. Yeah....good times...good times! But we did snap some cute pictures of the family and kids! It will take a long time to live down this one. The kids didnt know the difference. Good thing.

Jenna/Ben/Kyle

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. ~Henry Miller

Ben is in Kindergarten!

Ben 5 3/4 (waiting all year to call himself that age) School Picture

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich. ~Dan Wilcox and Thad Mumford, "Identity Crisis," M*A*S*H

Ben & I were so lucky to go to Minnesota to see my sister Robyn and her fabulous family!

Kids with suckers.....it is beautiful!


Auntie Robyn & Ben at teddy bear park in Stillwater


JoJo, Gabby, Ben, Mommy at the Minneapolis Childrens Museum


Mommy & Ben at the St. Croix river....the trees on the other side of the bridge are in Wisconsin! This place was beautiful.

There was a single blue line of crayon drawn across every wall in the house. What does it mean? I said. A pirate needs the sight of the sea, he said & then he pulled his eye patch down & turned and sailed away. Brian Andreas


September 19th is International Talk like a pirate day is a REAL holiday, and is joyously celebrated at Ben's school. He was waiting ALL week to wear his pirate costume to school! Here he is pointing to a pirate friend that has no arms.

"It takes a long time to grow an old friend."
- by John Leonard

Ben & Wes peeking out of the tent on Beach Camp bonanza weekend!

Ben & Dad always having a great time with Indian Guides

"Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap." Barbara Jordan

Bens's 1st day of Kindergarten 2009



Last years Old School buddies from the Pepp program

If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable - each segment distinct. ~Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Ben 5 1/2 anxiously waiting to be 5 and 3/4

Ben & Wes catching a wave

Don't worry daddy started off as a duck butt surfer too.....but he got better!

You don't raise heroes; you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes, even if it's just in your own eyes Walter Schirra Sr
Indian Guides Catalina Camping Trip

.
Cant find Ben...Where is he?....In a tree with 5 Girls! He's just fine.

Finding the coolest Army dudes to let the kids on the boat to actually touch the real guns!

Best Dad and Son ever!

Question: How would you make a marriage work?
"Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck." -
Ricky, age 10



It's official and it has been put in writing. Kate & Ben will be getting married.
Marriage art work done by Kate Hunt

Ocean: A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills. ~Ambrose Bierce

A nice guy on our snorkeling boat let us borrow his underwater zoom zoom thing (technical name) Ben drove it!

The Water Boy in his Glory!

"Every boy who has a dog should also have a mother, so the dog can be fed regularly."
Anonymous



Max the dog loves mommy....but also anyone who will give him the space to lay down on.

You can fall in love at first sight with a place as well as a person.
-- Alec Waugh
Atlantis Beach

Yep! Those are the sharks we snorkeled with

Snorkel adventure boat



Mommy and Ben on Rose island (the private island adventure we took)


A great little bar to hang out on right at Atlantis beach

Temple slide racing (mommy on left Ben on the right...he won)



Daddy time in the lazy river



The much anticipated journey to Atlantis in the Bahamas finally arrived. It was our 10th wedding anniversary. Atlantis was amazing. Something new to do everyday, that place was HUGE! 3 beaches, 8 slides, 2 lazy rivers and about 20 different pools not to mention the dry land aquariums, live music, turtle and stingray feeding and much more. We jet skied, took 2 boating adventures, 1 to a private island and a 2nd one for a 3 stop snorkeling adventure. 1 of which involved about 20 bahamian reef sharks. And yes Ben did it all. Snorkeled, went on all of the slides (except 1, it was way too steep and mommy couldnt handle the stress of sending him down it) fed the animals and just had a great time all around. Ben even lost another tooth there and the Bahamian tooth fairy brought him 20 bucks! These are just a few pictures. The water was really that blue. But beware, the next time you come to the house, you will have to see the whole slide show!