Pre-Halloween Pics

I know that Halloween isn't until tomorrow night, but our girls have already been to two Halloween/Harvest parties. I guess you could call it Halloween week!

Jenny Weasley, of Harry Potter fame





















Pirate girl -- arrrrrgh!





















80's gal: like, you know, fer sure!





















Just hand over the candy and no one gets hurt!
















Super soccer mom with Jessica

Lambert's 49th

Can you believe we're old enough to have a great friend like Scott Lambert turning 49!? We gathered with the Reeds and Lamberts recently at El Cholo in Santa Monica to help Scotty celebrate. Can you believe how big all our kids look?

Carrie, Kim & Scott
















Our teens: Luke, Zack, & Jenna
















The girls: Jenna, Jessica W., Michaela,
Micah, & Jessica R.
















Michaela & Isaac
















Scott, Becky & Jon
















A good lookin' couple, don't you think?

Jessica's Volleyball

Jessica plays league volleyball twice a year, during fall and spring. She loves the fun and excitement of playing volleyball coupled with the less intense nature of the competition. But don't be deceived -- Jessica plays to win. Last Saturday, she came up to serve with the score tied 27-27 in a very close game (rally scoring goes to 25 but you have to win by 2). Jessica nailed the final two serves and led her team to victory! Nice job Jessica!

Finally: the stonework

This past week we saw the completion of stucco on our house, the addition of the stacked stone by the front door and the start of the roof. This week we will get sidewalks : )

Halloween party

On Friday night Blake went to a birthday/Halloween party at his friend Meghan's house. Meghan is the tall blong, and Blake is the piratey guy. They both like soccer and kareaoke (sp?). Austin and Phyllis spent a good part of the weekend in bed with the stomach virus that's going around (2nd time for Austin!)

Apple Store Goofs

While Michaela was at a b-day party, the rest of the family went to a little outing at the apple store. With some special effects, we took some pretty crazy pictures!











Jenna calls this one the elephant.

















Jessica "Dudley Dursley"



















"The Duck"































Pretty luscious lips!

















The "Lion"

Red Rock w/ Refuge

Garrett and Mike went with the rest of the middle school youth group from church (Refuge) to Red Rock for the annual off-roading, dirt eating, watermelon dropping, cave exploring, rock climbing weekend. Although it was SUPER windy, they managed to find a shelter so they could enjoy their campfire and meals. Can you find Garrett on the rocks in the photo?? Also, in soccer news, the Blues Brothers missed Garrett this week. Blake filled in admirably in the center mid position, assisting with the two goals our team scored. Unfortunately, the other team scored one more than us in the last 3 seconds of play.

Cousin mind-boggler

Garrett learned this in science class and wants to share it with his cousins: can you cut a standard 3x5 index card in such a way that you can fit your entire body through it?? Answer will be posted tomorrow : ) P.S. I am not able to post the image right now - some kind of error code comes up, but will try again when we post the answer!

CA trip

Ok, you can tell I'm going thru some archives right? But here's a picture from the church planters lab in Sacramento. It was my first kiss at the Golden Gate bridge--very nice!

Trisha's b-day

Here's a fun picture of our family on Trisha's B-day dinner!

fun pix!

Ok, Olivia is just hillarious. She's finding her voice and just squeals with delight when she plays with her big bro's & sis. Here they are in the bathtub having some bath fun. Just edible!

Conejo Fall Retreat

About 95 of our congregation shared a weekend up in the mountains above Palmdale at the Conejo Church's annual fall retreat. We enjoyed some great times of worship, class, games, campfire and conversation together.

Jenna & friends Hannah & Jenny
















Michaela and buddy Ashley
















Carrie, Jessica & Andy on the first place
Volleyball Team! (Jenna's soccer team also
took first)
















Following two consecutive horseshoe
championships, Andy lost his crown

Blues Brothers' Soccer

Wish I had a picture to share, but anyway, just wanted to post the results of our soccer game on Saturday. This was an 8:30 a.m. game after a rainy night, so we weren't sure we would even play until about 8 a.m. because they really try to protect this field. Mom and dad were ready to come watch the boys play, but since we didn't get an update until 8 a.m. that was too late to drive all the way down. It was a morale booster game for our boys. They only had 10 players there, so they had to play 10 vs 11, but they still came out ahead 3-0! Garrett dominated the midfield, and Blake played tenatiously in the defensive position. Way to go Blues Bros!
Mike and I attended a parenting conference at our church this weekend led by Paul David Tripp, based on his book The Age of Opportunity. It was very good. To raise Godly children he urged us to begin with ourselves and make sure our lives are centered on Christ, then we can influence our children to be followers of Christ. It was convicting and encouraging at the same time (who is your master??).
Also, on Saturday it was AYSO night at the Home Depot center where the Galaxy play. So, we got to go to a Galaxy game last night to watch them play against Toronto. They won 2-1 in an exciting, fast paced game.
As always, we look forward to pictures and notes from all of you!!! : )

Didn't manage to attach the photos....

Soccer catalog shoot

Blake had a fantastic opportunity to be a soccer uniform model for SCORE on Wed and Thurs of this week. He got paid, he missed school, he played soccer at the Home Depot Center (Beckham field) and had a great time. SCORE used 4 boys and 4 girls for the shoot. Blake and his teamate Kurt were from his select team. Two of the girls were from Thousand Oaks! All in all, he has a wonderful time!!!!

Mom, may I pleezzzz..........

New doors!

We got our new front door and new garage door last week. Wow! I'm parked in the garage right now : )

Austin celebrates being 15!

Go Kart World was the destination of Austin's 15th b-day party on Friday night. The young men (yikes!) rode on the slick track, the super track, the turbo track and the crazy bumber cars. VERY FUN! Back at our house we rounded out the evening with 7 (yikes!) pizzas and a cheesecake.

The next day Garrett and Blake played one of the better soccer teams in their division. It was a thrilling game, but the winning goal was made by the other team as a penalty kick when one of our boys touched the ball with his hand in the box. We were very proud of their great efforts!

Runners Take Your Mark...

For the past two Thanksgivings, the Wall and Thomas cousins have all participated in the Turkey Day Dash in Newbury Park. Signups are now available online and the Oak Park Walls are all in. I believe that most or all the Thomases are all planning on running as well.

We're hoping we can talk some of the Texas Walls into joining our little Thanksgiving day jaunt -- perhaps Ben and Alex? It's a great way to work up an honest appetite for the traditional Wall family turkey day feast. The thing is, it costs the same to register two people as it does the whole family. So if two of you do it, you can get T-shirts for your whole family.

If there are any other takers in the family, we'd love to have you join the fun. A lot of people come and walk the 3.1 miles. Click on the link before and it will take you to registration.

http://www.active.com/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1488215

Let's get ready to run!


The Wall family is registered and here's the proof!