Blake Purcell Family: February 2024

February 1 - A beautiful sunrise, filling the whole sky.

All this little Penny needs is a rug and she can entertain herself for 20 minutes.

Penny can push the turtle walker, but she'd rather "walk" on her knees.

February 3 - Watching more basketball starring Clark, Ryder and Michael.

They are improving every game.

Maden participated in a MathCounts event. His school brought a team and they also competed individually. He had been in contests all morning, but no one could go watch that. Then in the afternoon, we got to go watch the Countdown event. It was absolutely amazing. They had 45 seconds to answer a problem correctly, but they had to act faster to beat their opponent. Maden went into the Countdown round in the #1 spot, but no one knew that til the very end. The problems were incredibly hard and he persevered and won the whole thing! He took first place for the whole event. His team was the 2nd place team. It was intense and amazing! We are so proud of you, Maden! Now it's off to the state competition on March 9th.

February 4 - We celebrated Hallie. She turns 5 on Feb. 6th. She loves being the star of the show! Her Grandma Bair made this darling cake for a darling girl.

We took some pictures of all the grandkids. The top picture is missing Scottlynn, but we made sure she's in the bottom one!

Penny loves to "dance" to the music from her little house. She knows just which buttons make her favorite music.

Penny still gets a little jealous if I hold Scottlynn. It's so nice to feel loved.

February 5 - A nice little snow storm.

February 6 - Hallie's 5th birthday! She chose to go to McDonald's. Then we went to Walmart and she bought a fun Gabby microphone thing that I was really glad went home with her. Then we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream! It was a fun day! We sure do love this spunky Hallie girl!

Brian brought a little surprise to see Grandpa at work.

Penny just loves to dance to the tunes on her little house. She figures out new moves every day.

February 7 - A gorgeous sunset!

February 8 - Randy brought Happy to see Penny and Hallie. She loves the kids.

February 10 - More fun basketball games!

These kids really try hard!

We had a birthday celebration for my mom, Beth Chambers. She turned 85 on the 9th! My sister Suzanne was here from South Carolina and she arranged for a nice cake and decorations. The kids had fun playing bingo.

Mom and Dad got to meet Scottlynn!

We arranged for a few friends to come. Thank you Dorine, Raymond & Josh, Mel & Beverly and Lynn & Julene for coming!

Dallin & his family, Jared and his family, Michelle and her family, Brian, Aubrey and Scottlynn, and Branson & Avery all came to wish her well!

February 11 - Super Bowl Sunday! We had some good food. Look at the difference in the amount of food on Maden's plate compared to Annie's!

We had Suzanne take our picture of all of us in our Kansas City Chief shirts! Brian had an ice cream cake made too!

Blake and Suzanne and I just tended babies. Suzanne fed Penny some treats, then held her while she slept. I got to hold a sleeping Scottlynn. Oh, and the Chiefs won!

February 12 - Brian sent me this cute picture of our Scottlynn girl!

February 13 - I tried to put a bow in Penny's little hair. It looks pretty cute.

The Pony Express Car Wash is finally open in Blackfoot! It seems like we've been waiting forever!

February 15 - Oh how I love the antics of this little girl. She was kissing herself in the mirror and playing peek-a-boo.

Hallie and I got to go watch Ryder in his school patriotic program. He knew the songs very well! He even did his speaking part very well! I got all choked up as the whole 3rd grade sang the Star Bangled Banner. It was very touching.

February 16 - We got some more snow!

February 17 - Another ballgame for these three! They play hard and are getting better each time.

They had a lot of people to watch them play, Lynne, Rob and Samuel (my sister and Michael's Grandma) came, along with Jared and Nikelle and girls. It was fun.

February 18 - Blake and I left for Salt Lake in a huge snowstorm! It was not very fun driving. They have changed the Salt Lake airport so it includes a lot of walking. We decided to hop on this cart for a lift. We flew to Dallas to meet Blake's high school buddy Bruce Beardsley and his wife Connie so we could go on a cruise with them.

I asked Hallie to take care of my Valentine plant. She is very proud to do it!

February 19 - I only got these two pictures! We got up early and Bruce drove from Dallas to Galveston so we could board the Cruise Ship. We sailed on the Voyager of the Seas, from the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. Blake looked really cute wearing Connie's sunglasses in the car. The sunset from the deck of the ship was amazing!

February 20 - Here's a little tour of our cabin. Bruce suggested we get a cabin with a balcony. We were so glad we did! The cabin was more spacious than I thought it would be. The bathroom wasn't very big, reminded me of an RV bathroom, but it worked. I love the folded towel swans that were left on our bed.

Since it was an at sea day, Blake and I decided to take a behind the scenes tour of the ship. We saw the Engine Control Room, the laundry area, the Galley, the provision storage room, and the bridge. It was all quite interesting. We saw some potatoes from Aberdeen!

In the afternoon, Bruce, Connie, Blake and I did a cake decorating class. It was actually pretty fun! Blake and Bruce were really good sports.

It was dress up or formal night in the dining room. We weren't really formal, but I think we cleaned up pretty good.

February 21 - Look at this amazing sunrise! This was so fun to watch from our balcony.

As we docked in Costa Maya, we were amazed at the beautiful turquoise water!

We went ashore and saw the Chacchoben Ruins. It's amazing that they keep finding these ancient buildings. Bruce and Connie climbed up to the top, but Blake and I just watched. We saw a monkey in the tree, but I couldn't get a picture of it, it was too quick. Blake and Bruce had a little nap on the bus on the way back to the ship.

Here's the Voyager of the Seas. It was a very nice ship.

February 22 - Cozumel - We had a great experience! We went on a submarine tour! This is the sub coming out of the water, so we could get in it.

It really was a fun experience! We actually went down 109 feet. The bottom reminded us of the desert, with fish instead of rabbits. The rock formations were very intriguing, there wa even a sunken ship, or a playground for the fish.

We found a Kansas City Chief's hat in one of the little shops. The weather was beautiful!

We came back to our room to find a cute little bear on the bed.

We saw the submarine being towed back to shore as we were leaving the port.

We cleaned up good again for dinner.

February 23 - Another day at sea - We took a napkin folding class. We made envelopes, candles and roses. Bruce decided the candles were actually rabbit or donkey ears.

We went to a show every night, but this was our favorite. It was a great Ice Skating Show. It was amazing they could do the lifts and jumps on such a small rink.