Dress-up Fun

Mystery in Euphrania

"The Mopp Sisters" did it again (FINALLY)! They put on a spectacular mystery dinner last night that was enjoyed by all (c'mon, Andy, you know you had fun...). I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to share the plot, but I can at least share some pictures! I was after all, there to chronicle the banquet for my upcoming edition of the Euphranian Gazette!

Our own Wanda Mopp

Jessica Fletcher, "interior decorator"

 Dr. Hemlock Frodson: "General Practitioner"

 Mintia Rosenthal: daughter of Kermit Rosenthal, girlfriend of Herbert Salch

Mississippi Smith, deputy-sergeant of the International Peace-Keeping force

 Dostoyevsky Karamazov (otherwise known as "Morevodka", owner of the tavern The Schlaussen Buchket and brother of Tolstoy Karamazov

 Tolstoy Karamozov (see above)

 General Hernandez Dissarray, ambassador from Cuba

 Sir Purfluous, ambassador from Florin

 Helga Squasch, gossip columnist

Corrie Creevey, editor-in-chief of the Euphranian Gazette

Esmerelda Disarray Salch, mother of Herbert Salch and cousin of Gen. Disarray

 

Mintia and Judah (an extra)

"Lady Josephina"

 Zelda Mopp

 Frau Bitten, blind palace housekeeper

 Count Rugen, ambassador from Guilder, making an important announcement

Kermit Rosenthal, local scientist

Henre Frodo, "Nat'l. Geographic photographer"

 Lining up for food at the hot dog banquet

 Someone has been murdered!

 Mississippi Smith is on the job!

 Putting the pieces together...

 Mintia is obviously grief-stricken

 :)

 A vial of smoked lemming residue

 Poor Dr. Frodson

 And poor Tolstoy!

 

 The Conclusion!

Family Vacation

This last weekend we ALL (15 adults, 8 kids) went to Zion Nat'l. Park in Utah. Sorry for the repeats for those of you who follow my relatives' blogs (as the pictures are mostly from Katie!)! With taking 5 little kids camping, whenever we weren't chasing them around, we were too wiped out to pull out the camera! Christian seriously only took one picture. Oh well, happy memories none-the-less- my motto for the weekend was "Sleep is for the weak!"

 Sweet little Ka-la-la- such a happy little camper. :)

 If you look closely at this picture, it looks like Christian has a REALLY small head. It's actually Elijah on his back as they jump off the rope swing down at the river.

 Berea enjoyed the water much more than Tirzah, who enjoys the swimming pool much more... I think it's all the noise of the crowd that freaks Berea out at the pool, and Tirzah just couldn't get used to the river water. At least she enjoyed the shallow parts and seeing the little minnows.

 Elijah and the "Crocka", as he calls it.

 Anne was a trooper and enjoyed herself even with a too-big life jacket.

 Elijah was so brave swimming around by himself. :)

 I had to do the rope swing to egg on my dad to do it- what are daughters for? :)

 After both daughters did it, he had to give in. :)

 That was definitely Peter's favorite part of Zion!

 Of course, this was Christian's only picture- Anne's pointing at a tarantula they found on a bike ride. Ick.

When we got home, we discovered this happy find in the chicken coop! And all 9 chickens still home!

Wedding slideshow

This is a video I made after finally scanning in our wedding pictures a couple months ago while Christian was on a big tour, in honor of our anniversary, which we then proceeded to forget. Oh well! :) Enjoy the pictures!

P.S. I normally don't like country music, but I had to make an exception with this one...

Adventures in Picking Fruit

Christian and I got to celebrate our anniversary yesterday, thanks to Auntie Yaya, Marmie, and Boppa watching the kids for us! We got to Oak Creek at about 9:30am and spent about an hour and half picking blackberries, coming away with almost two gallons of berries! (I'm just freezing them right now and will hopefully get more creative with them later "when I have more time") At one point in the morning I heard Christian make a manly squeal and assumed he had found a big spider in one of the thousands of spider webs in the blackberry canes. I started feeling a little proud of myself and my boldness in reaching past those spider webs to get the beautifully ripe berries. Of course I wasn't actually seeing spiders, so in retrospect it wasn't really all that bold. :) I hollered out to Christian, "I feel like living in Doney Park has made me braver since I know that at least none of these spiders would be black widows! (we have lots on our property) He chuckled and said he was very proud of me. I started sort-of following behind Christian at a distance, thinking that maybe I was finding berries he had missed. I was comparing myself to Ruth gleaning in Boaz's field (it seemed to me like Christian was leaving a lot behind) when I decided to make my way up a little hill. Almost at the top of the hill I heard a loud "BUZZZZZZZ", looked down and saw a probably 15 inch long rattle snake!!!!! To my credit I actually jumped back from the creature while shrieking, instead of jumping over it like the last two snake encounters in Africa. And I managed to hang on to my almost-full container of berries! Christian came back with me to our depot of berries not too far away and suggested I stay put for awhile and calm down while he continued the berry-picking. Sounded good to me! Within a few minutes I heard Christian's manly squeal again- yep- he came across the snake again, though he thought he was avoiding it. So he made his way down and around the Snake Hill and found a gold mine of a berry patch, so he convinced me to come help him take advantage of it, my heart pounding the whole time. But it was worth it. Wouldn't have been worth it if we had actually been bitten of course. On our way back to the car we ran into a gopher snake that was probably 2 feet long. It was almost as if God were chuckling at my pride of conquering my fear of the spider webs and saying, "Ok, how about snakes?" :) Later in the day we were picking peaches at a friend's house in Camp Verde and the trees were covered with HUNDREDS of June bugs, that sound very much like rattle snakes when you're already feeling paranoid. So Christian did all the picking while I caught the peaches and put them in the crates in between shrieking and diving for cover every time a fresh group of bugs took off flying. I'm sure the neighbors enjoyed the entertainment, if they were peeking through their windows. :) Later in the afternoon we went for a bike ride around the wetlands at Kachina Village and got caught in the rain and then hail. All in all, though, we loved the chance to be together and will remember and laugh at that day for years to come! No, neither one of us managed to remember to pull out the camera! Sorry!