Halloween 2009

Here are some pictures from Halloween and our recent visit to the pumpkin patch. I was especially proud of Nicholas' costume. He and his friends Charlie and Brady thought they were hilarious as cheerleaders. There is also a picture of Jensen's right ear. She pierced her ears yesterday with her good friend Audrey. They were very excited. There is also a picture of Jensen playing clarinet at school during the school's costume carnival. The 6th grade band was playing "scary Halloween music" while all the kids walked through. The Chambers' kids are the others in the halloween pictures (they came over yesterday and brought dinner and then Jonathan and Austin went off to their 8th grade halloween mixer party and Keith and I took the other kids trick-or-treating while Sue and Bobbi handed out candy. Jensen's friend Sarah Gregg is in the picture at the pumpkin patch, as is Nicholas' friend Charlie Martin.

July Shipp Activities - 4th of July, Nauvoo trip, Salt Lake City trip

Been a while since we posted pictures. Here are some from our July activities, including pictures from the 4th of July (we watched the parade with Erik and Rachel Kingston and family - Jensen was in the parade with her swim team). Also have pictures of our 3 days trip to Nauvoo with the Chambers. Two of the kids are Chambers cousins (McKaylee and Chandra). We had a great time seeing the sites, playing the pioneer games, and watching the Nauvoo pageant. We also took the over 12 crowd to the temple to do baptisms. We have some pictures of our trip to Idaho and Susan's family's famous campground, Kennelly Creek. They have a creek next to the campground with water that is about 50 degrees. I challenged Jonathan and Nicholas to dunk their head in and they did it. Afterwards, all of the kids got their suits on and braved the cold water. I also posted a few pictures of the great house / cabin that we stayed in in McCall, Idaho, 2 hours north of Boise. I also put a few pictures in from our 3 days in Salt Lake City. We mostly hung out with Carl and Heidi Reed and family. We went and saw lots of church sites (Beehive and Lion House, went to the top of the Church Administration Building, saw the Joseph Smith movie in the JSB building, went to the primary exhibit in the Church History Museum, went to hear Music and the Spoken Word Sunday morning, etc.). We also visited Aunts Colleen and Kathy. Finally, I posted a picture of our baseball party that we had the day after returning from our trip out west. Our team went 13-1 and won our division.

Trip to Virginia

We had a wonderful trip to Virginia last week. Here are a few pictures. We had a great time rooting on Jen and Abby in their swim meet. We also had an incredible time at Kings Dominion. You will notice how dry we are in one picture and how wet we are in the next picture. We rode this water ride at 8:30 pm as we were leaving and we were soaking wet the whole way home. Chris enjoyed having his picture taken with Little Bill. We also went downtown and toured the newly renovated American History museum. I especially liked the "Dumbo" ride from Disney World. If we can't be there in person, it's nice to get our picture taken with the ride. We also enjoyed our annual trip to the Tortilla Factory but sorely missed mom and dad.

Dance Recital, Last Day of School, Soccer Tournament and Other Fun May Events

Here are some recent pictures. The first two are of Jensen and friends at her dance recital from yesterday (Saturday, May 30). The picture with 4 girls are Jensen, Paige and Kara (from behind us) and Elizabeth (friend from down the street that moved to a different school this year). There is also a picture of the three older kids on their last day of school. There are also a few pictures from Nicholas' Memorial Day soccer tournament where his team went 3 and 0 in the round robin but lost in the finals. One of the pictures has Jonathan's friend Austin and Charlie and Mallory Martin (Charlie is Nicholas' good friend). There is also a picture of Chris on the day of his first baseball game, a picture that Jensen desperately wanted me to post from a band concert about a month ago, a funny old picture of Nicholas at the February 2009 Cub Scout pinewood derby, and one of my favorite pictures of our kids from Christmas 2008.