Cancun trip and late Halloween

Hi all. Yes, it's been a while. I can't believe it'll be December on Tuesday already. I was already trying to write '12' when I was dating my chart entries on Friday, so I guess I'm ready. November went by way too fast. Luckily we have most of our Christmas gifts taken care of and half of them are even wrapped! We also spent the day decorating the inside and outside of the house. We had a guest this morning, Mr. Eli Banks, so he and Taya "helped" but mostly stayed out of trouble. :)

Our trip to Mexico was fun but hard. It was my first time away from Taya and I did it cold turkey, to another country. Taya had a great time with Grammy! We stayed at the Hilton resort, where Ethan's conference was, and took a tour to the Mayan ruins, Chichen Itza, on our last full day there.

To cut this short, I will label the pictures (which are not in chronological order) and hope that suffices.
Happy Holiday season!


A building at Chichen Itza
The observatory

Temple of the Warriors

A temple at the game field

The main temple on the site

Another view with me :) I hope you like my hat!

A sink hole on the way to the ruins. These are apparently very common in the Yucatan.

The view out of our room...

A carmel apple pie our friend, Jennifer Endres, made for Halloween. She has a little one but still makes time to bake goodies. Thanks Jennifer!

Family photo op on Halloween

A better picture of the little monkey, Eli Banks. He was an adorable monkey. It was perfect!

Me with two bugs...Layla Endres (ladybug) and Taya (my little bee)

Layla stopped to trick or treat and drop off that yummy pie.

"Sick" days and Halloween

Woohoo for time to post a blog so soon :).
We had a bit of a crazy week. Last Sunday evening, Taya had an elevated temperature, and since the daycare has a policy of making us take Taya to the clinic if she gets a fever there, we decided to keep her home. Tuesday we took her and she developed an elevated temperature within in a hour of being there, so I spent most of the day home with her and also Wednesday morning (Ethan took the afternoons). 2 of the kids at daycare were diagnosed with the swine flu, so they were being very cautious. Luckily, on Wednesday I noticed 2 new teeth, which was most likely the cause of the elevated temp. Below, a few pictures of our time together early in the week.

BEDTIME
A VERY NICE SEAT!

HELPING WITH LAUNDRY.

NIMA SQUIRREL WATCHING...

...THAT PESKY SQUIRREL. (it taunts Nima)

Grammy was in town on her way back from Connecticut. She was able to see Taya in her Halloween costume. We even got some relax time, which consisted of Ethan watching a movie while Grammy and I fell asleep. It was nice to have her here and she will be back in a few weeks :). We can't wait!

GRAMMY SUCCESSFULLY ROCKED TAYA TO SLEEP SEVERAL TIMES DURING HER STAY.

SWEET SLEEPING ANGEL.

Remember that driveway project I mentioned in my previous post? Well, it was completed this weekend. This was the site out my front door for most of yesterday. We even had to DVR the Husker game to watch later! It was fun to have Chad, Maria, and Alex Kruse over for the day (many, many thanks to Chad for helping Ethan with the cement) and also have our neighbors Jason, Lindsey, and Eli Mosel over for lunch and the game (also many thanks to Jason for helping).

THE "MIXER" AS ALEX CALLED IT...

'BEFORE'

SOME OF THE SPECTATORS (Maria, Taya, Alex) AND THE WORKERS (Chad, Ethan [in orange], and Jason)

HARD AT WORK (Chad in gray, Ethan in orange, Jason in red)

ALEX AND TAYA

With some of the extra cement, Ethan filled in a hole under the downspout and it was the perfect canvas for some hand/paw prints.

ALEX'S HANDPRINT

TAYA'S HANDPRINT

THE FINAL PROJECT (Alex, Taya, Eli, and Nima)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN--TAYA'S 2ND

PHOTO OP WITH DAD-O

WITH MOMMY...TIRED OF LOOKING AT THE CAMERA

WITH LAINA BAYLES (daughter of Ethan's boss)

WITH ELI BANKS (Eli is a monkey and he made a cute one)

Currently it is 66 degrees---a gorgeous fall day! Ethan is golfing; Taya and I are going to go outside and play. We all took Nima for an early walk this morning after church so we're soaking in as much fresh air as possible. We hope you had a safe Halloween.

Love, the Mann's