Goodbye Zack!

Hello again. We have a lot to tell you about today! We downloaded our camera yesterday and it was almost full, so we have lots to share! Let's start with another cute picture of Miss Haley...

Here is where Laura finally got her to sleep in a swing(she usually doesn't like it). We love how she sleeps with her fingers interlocked all of the time. She is such a little lady!

Benjamin loves to hold Haley. Here, Haley has fallen asleep on Benjamin's chest. She loves to sleep on his chest. She is a snugglebug!

Here is where Grandma Cathy (Benjamin's Mom) was holding her two granddaughters. This is Zoe, Elizabeth's daughter. Elizabeth came into town to say goodbye to Benjamin's little brother, Zack. More on that in a moment...

Now for RUFUS CORNER. We have two pictures for you today. The first is of Laura harassing him like she always does. He looks like he should be saying, "What up, dawg?!" (Sorry for the creepy eyes...)

This one is where he was harassing Laura. Rufus got up on the couch and we are trying to break him of that habit. Laura told him to get down off the couch. So he put his front paws on the floor. That's right. He is still resting his back half on the couch with his chin up there too. Laura then had a discussion with Rufus about how that is not the definition of "get down," but we are sure he didn't understand. There is the slight chance that he did understand, but he sure is playing dumb if that is the case...

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So here is the story on Zack. Zack (or Elder Thomas) reported to the MTC this last Wednesday, the 22nd of October. He is going to Argentina after he finishes his training in Utah. Before he left, Elizabeth flew into town with Zoe to spend one last long weekend together. We spent a lot of time together as the whole Thomas family. We decided to tell you how one of those days went in more detail.

We drove up to Jacob's(Benjamin's older brother) cabin. Casey has been working to fix up the cabin for Jacob, so we wanted to support both of them as well as have a little fun. We left a little after 9am. Haley ate at 8am and fell asleep on the way to Benjamin's parents' house where we were meeting. When we got up to the cabin, Haley was still alseep! What a sleepy girl.

Elizabeth, Benjamin and a sleeping Haley sit near the fire place to get warm.

We decided to have lunch up there so here is Cathy trying to cook pounds and pounds of bacon for our BLTs. She had a hard time finding anything to cook it in. Because the cabin is still being fixed up, she found a random stew pot that she first had to scrub out in a bathroom sink(with no hot water). We were even more surprised that Casey has been spending Monday through Thursday up in the cabin while working on it after seeing how much work still needs to be done. But it is exciting to see the progress and Casey and Jacob think it will only take a few more weeks until it is completed!

And now back to what Miss Haley was doing. Benjamin decided to try and wake her up so because she had been asleep so long. She somehow got a hold of his nose, and, while sleeping, would not let go. We all laughed and Laura took a few pictures...

Well Uncle Zack had a great time with his neice and nephews. We are all impressed with how great he is with children.

Did we mention that Haley was sleeping?

While we were all playing, Casey and his friend and partner in business, Dan, worked on the deck of the cabin.

We brought the tether(sp?) for Rufus so that he wouldn't wander away. We didn't end up using it because he was having such a great time playing with Kilo, Casey's boxer, on the hillside right next to the cabin.
Meanwhile, Annie, the family dog, rested comfortably inside the cabin. She wandered around for a little while, but we were all glad that she stuck around for the most part. She is completely deaf and we have to chase her down when she decides to go exploring!
Here is a picture of what Haley did next...

Zack and Cathy went on a ride on Terry's new ATV that we brought with us. Kristy and Elizabeth went for a hike in the woods. While they were gone, we watched Logan, Carter and Zoe. Here is Benjamin spinning Logan so fast that you can barely see him!

When Cathy and Zack got back, we left our still sleeping baby with Cathy to go for a ride. Here is Laura getting ready to go. Then we both got on it together. Benjamin let Laura drive. She was pretty nervous. He was pretty impressed when she got up to almost 25 miles per hour. Once she got her courage up, they did the lap again and Laura took a huge puddle going almost 25 mi/hr. She got up to 35 mi/hr byt the end. She was so proud.

We had a lot of fun. We decided to try and kiss each other... pretty hard to do with helmits on!

But then we took our helmits off. Talk about bad helmit hair!

When we got back Zack was playing with the three little rugrats outside.

Then we went back inside to see our happy baby... still sleeping.

That was the easiest babysitting job Cathy ever had to do! She was finally taking a break from the lifetime supply of bacon that she made earlier.

When Kristy and Elizabeth got back, Zoe was very excited to see her mommy again.

Although it was only Monday and Zack wasn't leaving for the MTC until Wednesday morning, Casey had to stay up in Island Park to keep working. These were the last pictures taken of all of the siblings together for the next two years. They stood in age order and were happy to put their arms around each other one last time for a long while.

And of course they had to get pictures with just the bro's!

Then it was time to say goodbye. Casey and Zack said goodbye while we loaded up the car to go back home. Rufus and Kilo had a blast and it was hard to separate them. Kilo kept climbing into the car with us. Aren't they so sweet!?

On the way home, Zoe fell alseep in the car and took a little nap.

Guess who joined her?!

On the way home, we had Annie sit under Laura's feet while Rufus sat in the back. This was much more comfortable. Rufus was in the front on the way up but he kept climbing into Laura's lap because he thinks he is a lot smaller than he really is.

Haley finally woke up to eat for the first time after her first meal of the day around 5 pm. After she ate, she slept until about 10 pm. Laura thought she was in for a long night while Benjamin worked but she fell alseep for the night around 2am. Not too bad.

So that was the day. Zack left since then. The batteries in our camera died so we did not get any pictures of the last night that we spent with Zack. Terry got some good ones so we will be posting those once we get them from him.

We are so grateful for the example that Zack has set for the whole family. We are sad that he won't be able to see Haley grow over the next two years, but what he is doing is so much more important. We are so grateful for our family and for the gospel in our lives. Alleluia and praise the Lord because life is good.

Love, Benjamin and Laura