Another Year, Another Snowfall

So, today is Jeff’s birthday.  It also happens to be the day of our first snowfall.  I’m not sure why this happens, but these two events seem to correlate every year that we’ve been here!

The thermometer says that the temperature is in the lower 30’s, but it surely feels colder than that to me.  It has been a blustery, gray day, and the snow is trying accumulate.  I suppose that I must accept that winter is finally here.

I’m struggling with dressing a baby in this type of weather.  We lived in Tennessee and Mississippi when the other two were that age, and, while it did get cold there, the weather was nothing like the bitter stuff that we get here.  I can’t really put him in bulky stuff because he’s not safe in his car seat.  I also don’t want to underdress him, so I’ve been making do with layers, a hat, and a blanket.  We’ll see how that goes!

While today is Jeff’s birthday, we can’t do that much to celebrate, as he and Charlotte have basketball practice tonight.  But Charlotte and I did make brownies with a “secret ingredient,” as Charlotte likes to say:  crushed candy canes.  She can’t wait to see how long it takes Jeff to figure out that there is something extra special about his birthday brownies!  We will go out to eat tomorrow night to the restaurant of Jeff’s choice and settle for a simple spaghetti supper tonight.  (It’s the end of the month, and I am very low on food.)

In other news, Jeff and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie on Sunday afternoon.  I thought it was OK and was surprised to see how far in the book the movie had gotten.  Jeff thinks they should have just made Titanic and gotten the whole thing done at once.  I am looking forward to the final battle at the end of the final movie; it should be worth the price of admission.

Can you believe that this past Sunday was already time to start the Advent candles?  Four Sundays before Christmas…wow!

I’ll end this post with more photos of our naughty baby.  He’s gotten quite skilled at climbing; the getting down is not so great yet, but he can get up!

I helped him down off the dishwasher yesterday, but I didn’t get to him in time when he got up on the hearth.  He tried to get off by himself and managed to land on his back on the hardwood floor.  Ouch.

He also got into the trim Jeff bought to do some work in Charlotte’s room and tried to eat coffee.  Yikes.

But he does love his siblings, especially when one has a balloon that she keeps blowing up and letting go.  Hours of entertainment right there!

Have a good one!  Next time, we should be back in Branson.

Hard Work U

Before we left for Branson, we had several people give us some really good advice on places to visit that didn’t involve shows, high-pressure salespeople, or lots of money.  On Monday, we decided to visit one of those places that nearly everyone to whom we had spoken about Branson said we shouldn’t miss.

As we were on vacation, we slept in a bit on Monday morning, and, shortly before lunch time, drove 20 minutes over to the College of the Ozarks. 

Yep, you read it correctly.  We visited a college campus on our vacation!

In case you’ve never heard of this school, it is one of the very few free universities in the United States.  Every single student here attends college on a work-study program.  Most students are from the area, and I think that over three-quarters of them exhibit financial need.  In return for a four-year college degree, these young people work 15 hours a week when school is in session and two 40-hour work weeks when school is not in session.  There are something like 80 different work stations across the campus, ranging from the computer center to the on-campus dairy to landscaping maintenance.  The College of the Ozarks is nicknamed Hard Work U.

We had been told that the College of the Ozarks also had a fabulous restaurant, also completely staffed from the kitchen to the waiters by students, so that is where we were headed.  And we definitely had an excellent meal here.  Here are some pictures of the kids in the classily rustic Dobyns Dining Room.

After lunch, we took a self-guided tour of the campus.  Places to visit included a tractor museum…

…a dairy during milking time…

…and the original mill that has been converted into a gift shop and also houses the student weavers and basket makers.  Charlotte bought one of the baskets for sale here.

After touring these places, we headed over to the kitchen where students make the famous College of the Ozarks fruitcakes, apple butter, and pies.  We got to sample the fruitcake.  I’m not a fan.  We ended our time here with a walk out to a scenic overlook at the edge of the campus.  Beautiful!

After our visit, we headed back to the resort, ate a sandwich supper, and then left to see our second show in Branson.  After our Kirby Van Burch experience, we were a little leery of what this night held.  As Jeff’s parents were going to their own choice of show that night, Jeremy was attending this one with us, and the show started right about at his bedtime.

However, we were very pleasantly surprised by this show, performed by a group named Six.  Six is an a capella group consisting of (wouldn’t you know it) six brothers from a family of ten brothers.  Their vocal ability is absolutely amazing.  The show started with a vocal rendition of the sounds that you hear in a theater when it is demonstrating the surround sound.  It continued with a variety of songs from a variety of genres, interspersed with hysterical conversations among the brothers, with all of the instruments in a band brought to life with voices.

In addition, the theater in which Six performed was beautiful, and I think the only empty seat was the one that they gave us for Jeremy, as he was too little to use it.  It was night and day from the first show.  Jeremy actually listened to the music until intermission and then managed to sleep through a good portion of the second act.  What a great evening!

Thus well entertained, we returned to Still Waters, ready for bed.

Next time…playing at the resort and in Branson.

Back to Branson

As I am going to have to write and post our yearly Christmas update soon, I really have to get this Branson vacation finished.  No more excuses!

So, we arrived in Branson late Sunday afternoon.  Jeremy actually traveled very well…except for the last 20 minutes.  He was hungry and tired of being in his car seat, so he commenced with screaming.  Elijah tried screaming back at him to get him to stop, and even Charlotte, who is usually quite patient, was asking him to stop it. 

At least, it was only 20 minutes!

We arrived at Still Waters Resort and got checked in.  As it was late in the season, the place was nearly empty, but it was quite beautiful there.  Our two-bedroom condo overlooked Table Rock Lake, and the leaves were beautifully colored.  We were pretty pleased with our vacation accommodations!

For some reason, I took zero pictures of our condo or of our view, save this one of Jeremy being naughty.  He was after the power cords that were under this side table.

Jeff’s parents were joining us here from Tennessee and arrived shortly after we did.  Their condo was right above ours, which was nice and convenient!  We ate supper at the Bayside Market, a small shop and carry-out restaurant right on site at the resort.  Elijah wanted pizza, so that’s what we had for supper!

While Jeff’s parents babysat Jeremy, the rest of us spent the evening attending the first of two shows that we had booked in Branson, the Kirby Van Burch Magic Show.  This theater was WAY off the beaten path, and I think that it must have originally housed some sort of Arabian Adventure show, as we entered the theater underneath a spire straight out of Aladdin.  The paint was peeling, the carpet was threadbare, and the whole thing looked kind of shabby.

“What are we doing here?”  Jeff and I asked each other.

We took our seats shortly before the show started and were treated to an older gentlemen who tried to convince us that the Sunday night show was the smallest of the week (the seats were maybe one-fourth filled) and then gave us a hard sell on Kirby Van Burch memorabilia.  “This stuff is going for at least $70 on eBay right now,”  he informed us with a straight face.  “It’s an amazing bargain at $25!”

This probably wasn’t the best thing to be saying with an audience containing Jeff and his iPhone (the only KVB thing on eBay at the time was a secret to a magic trick being auctioned for thousands of dollars), and we managed to resist the limited edition stuffed tiger and signed photograph.

However, in spite of the rundown theater and snake-oil salesman who kicked things off, the show itself was really quite entertaining.  Kirby Van Burch uses lions and tigers in his show, and they are beautiful, magnificent animals.  In fact, he’s probably operating out of this particular theater because the cost of keeping the cats forces him to do so.  Kirby himself is a pretty small man with a very strange, nasally voice, but he is a good showman, and he has some very cool tricks!

And, fortunately, our children just aren’t as jaded as we are!  They enjoyed the show very, very much.  And, honestly, Jeff and I did, as well.  We saw David Copperfield perform at a casino hotel in Mississippi some years back, and Kirby Van Burch’s show was probably just as good as Copperfield’s.

Of course, photos during the show were not allowed, so I don’t have much interesting to look at for this night.

And that is the end of our first day in Branson.  Next time: a slightly more educational pursuit!

Shopping and Baking and Running, Oh, My!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We did something a little different around here this year, namely, we stayed at home.  Aside from the two Thanksgivings that we spent in France, we have only stayed home one other time in our 15 years of marriage.  That was the year that my brother got married the weekend after Thanksgiving, and we couldn’t really travel that far two weekends in a row.

I bought a turkey breast and fixed an otherwise traditional meal, minus the dressing, as no one in the family likes it very well.  We joined some friends for dessert later on the afternoon, which means I got to try a taste of pumpkin pie without making one myself or having most of it left over.  (I like pumpkin pie in very small doses but have texture issues with it after a couple of bites.)  It was a very laid-back, enjoyable, restful day.

Charlotte and I went for a run on Thanksgiving morning, her first since she broke her leg.  We ran a bit over a mile-and-a-quarter, and she did pretty well.  She is actually eager to get back to running so she can enter some more races, although winter in Illinois might not be the best time to start running!

As far as the Black Friday festivities…we thought that we might go to Toys’r’Us on 10:00 Thanksgiving night, as it had a few things on sale from the kids’ Christmas list.  We quickly discovered that we are NOT hardcore Black Friday shoppers.  Jeff actually drove into Peoria to the store, as he wasn’t comfortable with my going out that time of night to shop.  He found a completely full parking lot and about a thousand people lined up to get into the store.  (I am not exaggerating.)

Jeff took a couple of videos on his iPhone of the madness, got back in the car, and came home.  The staff was letting in 300 people at a time, and 50 had to leave before they’d let anymore in.

As Jeff said, “There is nothing I want bad enough to wait in a line like that in weather like that.”  (It was well below freezing on Thursday night.)

So, we slept in until the baby got up around 7:30 on Friday morning, and I decided to head back in to Toys’r’Us to see if it was any better or if there was anything left.  It wasn’t bad, but I only ended up buying ONE measly item!  I left Toys’r’Us and went to Walmart, where I found a few more things, but lots of stuff was already gone.

You have to get up way before 7:30 on Black Friday to get the big bargains!  (However, I did go to another Walmart later on that evening, and it still had lots of the stuff that was sold out at the first Walmart.)

Now, we’re waiting for Cyber Monday to finish up our shopping.  I must say, I greatly prefer shopping in the comfort of my own home to the crowds and craziness of Black Friday shopping!

I spent yesterday afternoon and part of this afternoon getting a jump start on my Christmas baking.  Homeschool co-op finishes up a week from Monday, and there are 20 adults who interact with my children each time we attend!  I am making snack boxes for each of them, and next weekend is nearly booked, with very little time for baking.  So, I’m starting this weekend while I have time.  So far, the Chex mix, the puppy chow, and the Hershey kiss cookies are done.  The first round of sugar cookies should be done by evening.  I’m on a roll!

This morning, I ran the four-mile River Trail Race in East Peoria with a couple of women from my women’s group at church.  We started a running/Bible study group in September, and we meet bi-weekly to discuss Francis Chan’s Crazy Love and to run together.  This was our first official race, and we had a good run, actually finishing in under 40 minutes.  Jeff and the kids were cheering us on near the finish line.  Very cool!

Tomorrow, I’ve lined up a babysitter, and Jeff and I are planning to go see the new Harry Potter movie.  As he will be traveling for part of December, I’m looking forward to spending some time with him!

And that’s our Thanksgiving weekend!  I hope that yours has been just as good!

Boys and Weapons

School is done.  The baby is napping.  The older two kids are playing downstairs.  We have freezing rain outside.

This sounds like the perfect time to blog.  I might even write several and just post them over the next few days.  Or I might write one and take a nap myself.

Before I get back to blogging about our long-past vacation, I wanted to write a bit about Jeremy.

After weeks and weeks of gnawing on anything that he could fit in his mouth (the kids’ tae kwon do belts were a particular favorite, if he could get away with it), Jeremy finally had a tiny little tooth pop through last night.  He doesn’t much like showing it to people, but he doesn’t seem to mind if we want to stick our finger in his mouth and feel the tooth.  As he has been gumming my shoulder with his previously toothless mouth, I’m sure it’s a just a matter of time before I feel that exquisitely painful chomp of little teeth!  My other ones did that to me…once.

Jeremy has also learned to climb, and he frequently forgets that he can’t yet walk, so he let go of things and falls down.  Sometimes, he lands on his bottom, but he mostly lands on his face.  Ouch.  His stockinged feet slipped this morning while he was holding on to the dishwasher, and he managed to hit his head once on the way down and again on the floor.  Poor little guy!

But the funniest thing I’ve found lately with him is his affinity for weapons.  He got a hold of one of Elijah’s many light sabers the other day and was actually swinging it around and trying to hit things with it, including his sister, who was holding him.

Another time, he found a metal rod that goes in his portable crib and, after banging it into the mirror a few times, managed to crawl out of his room holding on to it.  This thing is almost as long as he is and makes a really loud clanking sound when it hits the floor.  He was very proud of himself.

What is it about little boys and weapons?!

Here are a final few pictures of our demolition baby.  Yeah, I do take pictures instead of stopping him sometimes.  Well, I did for awhile.  When he started getting out my cookbooks, I quit that!

Such an innocent expression! I’m waiting for the “keeping me young” part of having a mid-life baby.  Mostly, I’m just worn out from running around after him!

But he is pretty cute.

Have a great Thanksgiving Eve!

Vacation…At Long Last

Well, no more excuses.  It is finally time to blog about our vacation from back at the end of October.  Better late than never, I guess.

(In case you are wondering why I find it so important to blog about these things…if and when I ever get around to scrapbooking all of the pictures from the last three years, inclusive of our time in France, I will rely heavily on my blogs.  I do label my pictures as I upload them to the computer, but, if I don’t blog, I find that many of my best memories, which may or may not have pictorial evidence, disappear!)

My original plan for our October family vacation was pretty grandiose.  As we are studying American history once again this year, I thought it would be really neat to visit the Williamsburg, Virginia, area.  We visited Washington D.C. last winter, so I thought that another history-themed, yet fun, vacation would a great idea.  We would drive out to and back from Virginia, making interesting stops along the way, and just have us a grand old time.

Then, reality started sinking in.  We would be traveling with a six-month-old baby who would still need to eat every four hours.  The drive, one way, is fifteen hours.  When I started crunching the numbers, we would take three days to drive out, three days to drive back, and have maybe two days at our destination.

Then, Charlotte broke her leg, and that ended all delusions about a car trip to Virginia.  As I started to think about alternatives, I remembered that a friend had mentioned that she and her family had spent a week in the Branson, Missouri, area in September and had had a really good, relaxing time.  I ran the idea by Jeff, and it sounded good to him.

Voila.  Our new vacation plans!  I reserved a condo at Still Waters Resort on Table Rock Lake, close to Branson, and we were on.

So, on Saturday, 23 October, we headed south.  As it was late afternoon before we could leave that day, we decided to break up the seven-hour drive down there by spending the night in St. Louis.  The kids were still interested in going to the zoo, so we found a hotel about fifteen minutes away from there.

We arrived at the Hampton Inn around 9:30, and Jeff went inside to check in.  We had reserved a non-smoking room with two queen beds and actually had the reservation paperwork to prove our request.

No matter.  The clerk told Jeff that we had not specified a room type.  When Jeff told her that we had, indeed, specified a non-smoking room, she told him that the hotel no longer had any non-smoking rooms available.  However, she would upgrade us to a smoking suite.

While the suite was very nice and roomy, it reeked of smoke, as most hotel smoking rooms do.  However, given the hour, we decided to just take it.  This was not such a good call, as all three children, especially Jeremy, coughed all night.  Grrrr.

However, Jeremy was just getting good at pulling up during this trip, so I snapped this picture of him at the hotel!

The next morning, we packed up as quickly as we could, ate breakfast, and got out of there, adding the Hampton Inn to our list of hotels that would not likely get our patronage again.  (It joins the Baymont Inn and Suites, in case you  are interested!)  We headed to the zoo.

The cool thing about the St. Louis Zoo is that it is free.  It does charge $11.00 to park, but only if you can’t find a free spot in the huge park that surrounds the zoo.  We had found out on the website the previous night that, during the first hour that the zoo is open, the carousel and the children’s zoo are free.  So, we drove in a little before the 9:00 opening time and found a free spot within sight of the zoo entrance.

We loaded Jeremy into the backpack and hoofed it over to the zoo.  Our first stop was the carousel.  I’m not sure how old kids get before they don’t want to ride carousels anymore, but ours are not there yet!   We were the second batch of people to ride, so Charlotte and Elijah eagerly scoped out their animal of choice.  I scoped out the animals that didn’t move for Jeremy’s first carousel ride!

After that, we headed for the children’s zoo, where the kids mostly petted goats that were trying their hardest to escape.  The zoo docent who was stationed there told me, “Yeah, I’m pretty much here to make sure the goats don’t leave when the visitors do.”

We also managed to get Jeremy to look through this thing, which was pretty funny!

Our need for thriftiness satisfied (we managed to get out of here without spending a dime), we meandered through the rest of the zoo for a couple more hours.  It was standard zoo fare, although very well laid out and nice.  (I think we’ve just been to a lot of zoos.)  Jeremy managed to take a nap in the backpack, and then I took a turn with him.  Boy, is he heavy!

By lunch time, we were zooed out, so we headed back to the car.  We stopped at Steak’n’Shake to feed Jeremy and us and then hit the road.  We had another four hours to Branson.

And I’ll pick it up there next time!

Customer Service

I had something so outrageous happen to me today that I feel the need to share it.

Jeff and I have been considering adding a third cell phone to our family for quite some time.  I like to have a phone with me and a phone to leave at home, in case I go out for a run or for a quick trip to the grocery store and the older kids stay at home.  Up to this point, I’ve been leaving the phone at home, but that’s not a great long-term plan.

So, a couple of days ago, Jeff got online, ordered an additional phone, and set up a third line on our family plan.  This morning, I received at email from AT&T stating that they could not confirm our mailing address and to please call them ASAP to straighten it out.  If they didn’t hear from me in seven days, they would cancel our order.

I called this morning, thinking that all I would have to do is confirm the address that they already have on file for us and that would be that.  After waiting on hold for about 10 minutes, a “customer service” representative answered and asked me for some basic information.  I provided that and told her that I needed to confirm my address.

She proceeded to inform me that our account had originally been set up in Minnesota and that I needed to provide AT&T with a Minnesota mailing address.

I’ll provide a bit of background here.  When we ordered Jeff’s iPhone and my regular phone upon returning from France, AT&T assigned us phone numbers with a Minnesota area code.  We immediately called and told them that this was not acceptable, as we lived in Illinois, not Minnesota.  AT&T told us that there weren’t any numbers left in our town, so Jeff told them to at least find us numbers in our area code, which they did.

Problem solved. The numbers have worked just fine.

I explained this to the rep, and she informed me, “That’s fine.  But I still need a Minnesota address to add this line to your account.”

I said, “We have never lived in Minnesota; we have only ever lived in Illinois.”

She said, “Well, that doesn’t change the fact that I need a Minnesota mailing address or I cannot add this line to your account.”

I said, “How do you suggest that I provide a Minnesota address when I DON’T LIVE IN MINNESOTA?!”

She said, “Most people just use Google.”

Stunned silence from me.

I said, “I’m supposed to look up a Minnesota address on Google.”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “You are telling me that I am supposed to get on Google and then provide you with a FAKE ADDRESS from Minnesota?!?!”

She said, “Yes.”

At this point, I demanded to speak to her manager.  I could almost hear her shrugging over the phone line as she said, “OK.”  Then, she put me on hold. 

I hung up and then pulled out an old AT&T bill that had a different phone number on it for customer service.  Since Jeff works for Caterpillar and AT&T has a special rate for CAT employees, I was dealing with “Premier” at AT&T.  I called regular old AT&T, stayed on the line until I got a real person, told my story, and asked what was going on because I was pretty sure it was ILLEGAL to submit a false address in order to get a service.

To make the rest of this story short, I was on the phone for another 45 minutes, most of the time on hold, while they “straightened this out.”  After about 35 minutes, I was transferred back the Premier people, where this time I spoke to a different person.  She also put me on hold, and my connection degenerated into static.  (I suspect that they transferred me to an overseas customer service place, as the woman to whom I spoke had a definite accent.)

I hung up again, having lost an hour of my life that I can never get back.

This is the same company who, when the bill we set up to pay didn’t go through, informed me that the “confirmation of payment” email that I received wasn’t really a “confirmation of payment,” despite its title.

I don’t know if the first rep was playing a misguided joke or taking out a previous bad call on me or just having a really bad day, but I have never been so flabbergasted by “customer service” in my life.

Jeff got online when he got home and double checked everything, since I hadn’t technically been able to finish the call from earlier.  Apparently, the phone will be shipped soon, and, I’m assuming, it will have a number attached to it.

Holy smokes.

In other news…the kids and I took a field trip yesterday morning to a hockey game.  It was the Peoria Rivermen Inaugural Field Trip Faceoff, a game specially geared toward students.  We got free tickets from a homeschooling acquaintance and sat next to a high school group from Canton, Illinois.  During breaks in the game, the kids had a special game program that had math problems (adding up players’ goals and assists), geography (where the Canadian guys on the roster are from), and social studies (interesting facts about Canada).  As always, it was entertaining, although Peoria lost to the San Antonio Rampage 3-1.

Tomorrow, we have our next-to-last fall co-op meeting, and then we’ll be coasting into Thanksgiving, which we will be spending at home this year.

Whew.

Getting It Done

All in all, I must say, this was a very productive weekend.  If nothing else, I’ve managed to post twice to my much-neglected blog.  But that’s certainly not all!

Jeff spent most of yesterday framing up a friend’s basement, with the help of several others in our various small groups.  This family had some damage to the drywall in their basement and tore all of it out some months back; as this area is, or was, their family room, they’ve really been at loose ends with the space not livable.  The wife is dealing with a health crisis right now, and the project was moved to the back burner.  There is still a lot of work left to do, but the guys made a good start yesterday.

While Jeff was gone, I finished up a project that I started last week, which was doing a major clean out of everyone’s closet.  By the time I finished, over half of my current clothing was bagged and ready to go to Goodwill.  It’s almost embarrassing what I finally managed to purge…skirts and dresses from when we last attended a church that required them, t-shirts from high school and college, stuff that I haven’t worn in YEARS. 

Both older kids’ closets and dressers got similar treatment, and Jeff got rid of enough stuff that he had to go shopping for new work shirts!  Jeremy, who is now wearing 12-month clothing, also had bags coming out of his room, along with baby equipment that he’s already outgrown.  Now, it’s all piled up near the front door, waiting to be loaded up and shipped out.

There is something very liberating about getting rid of stuff.  I always wonder why I don’t do it more often!  Of course, I gave the kids the opportunity to get rid of any toys that they might not be playing with anymore.  They both got panicky expressions on their faces and said that there weren’t any of those. 

They know me well.  They’ve often come home to one of my cleaning binges and have pulled stuff out of the trash can that I hadn’t buried deeply enough.  So, the toys were spared…this time. 

Today, we stayed after second service at church to help sort Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.  This is one of my very favorite mission projects sponsored by one of my very favorite charities, and I was thrilled to sign up to help this year.  Richwoods had a goal of sending 500 boxes this year, and we managed to surpass that with the 518!

Jeff, Elijah, and I, along with seven others, went through every single box to pull out the shipping money and make sure that all items inside were legal, while Charlotte had play practice.  She got done in time to sort through a few herself, so she was pretty excited.  We have been sending shoeboxes since she was a baby, and a highlight of her Christmas season is filling one.

When we got home, Jeff and I finished a project that we had started before church that morning:  hanging the Christmas lights.  Lest you think we are getting started way too early, I’ll just tell you.  Waiting until the day after Thanksgiving to hang lights in central Illinois is a dicey proposition.  Since it was sunny and relatively un-windy today, we decided to just get it done.  The temperatures have already dropped into the upper 40’s for highs, and we definitely didn’t want to be hanging lights in the snow!  I think I saw two other families getting their lights up today, too.

And now, we all go back to school and work tomorrow to get some rest.  Hope that your Sunday was good!

Enjoying Fall

Well, we enjoyed it yesterday anyway.  This morning, when I went running, it was 57 degrees.  It is now 44 and falling.  I think that we said goodbye to the last of our Illinois fall weather yesterday!

The kids have been playing outside all week, no coats, even in short-sleeved shirts!  Today, they are in winter jackets, hats, and gloves.  I guess it is that time of year.

Yesterday, I finally got around to taking the kids to Tanner’s Orchard, a yearly fall highlight.  However, we usually go in October because that’s when the place is decorated and has lots of critters to feed and pet.  In November, this isn’t so much the case.  Not only was much of the playground equipment put up, but also some people were literally loading up one of the pens of goats to take away to market!

Of course, part of this process is tagging the goats’ ear, so Charlotte and Elijah were feeding the remaining goats and llamas to the sound of angry goat screams as ears were pierced.  (It sounds kind of like a really mad baby.)  When we meandered over the playground, the first thing Charlotte cried was, “Where is the school bus?!” 

Every other time we’ve visited, there has been an old school bus with a crank handle door opener into which kids can crawl and pretend to drive.  No such thing this year.  Nor was there a hay maze, which the kids always enjoy.  Since Tanner’s was still someplace more interesting than being at home, the kids wanted to stay and play, but, when we left, Elijah said, “Usually, when we leave, we say how awesome this place was.  But it just wasn’t this year.”

Lesson learned…it’s probably a good idea to go to Tanner’s in October, during peak season!  While a broken leg and crazy schedule didn’t allow an earlier visit this year, I’ll definitely make an effort to schedule one next year.

In any case, I wish I had taken my camera, as it was the baby’s first visit, but I forgot in the mad rush to get to co-op that morning.  I did get to buy my yearly gallon of unpasteurized and yummy apple cider and dozen apple cider donuts.  The kids picked a bag of kettle corn for their Tanner’s treat this year, and we got to sample all kinds of things.  (The kids especially liked the fudge.)  Maybe I’ll do a bit better next year!

Now, I’ll hop back to a little bit earlier this fall…Halloween!

We started Halloween weekend with what has become a yearly tradition for one or more members of our family:  the Germantown Hills Fire Department 5K.  I ran it last year, and Jeff and I both ran this year.  Charlotte would like to run it next year.  It was pretty chilly that morning, in the upper 40’s with a brisk breeze, but I guess I always prefer that type of weather to hot!  Here we are before the race started.

I ran the race in 28:19, a full minute slower than last year, so we didn’t bother sticking around for the awards ceremony.  Besides, the kids had to be a Christmas play practice by 10:00, so we really didn’t have much time to spare. 

Imagine my surprise when I came home to a message that I had finished second in my age group and that there was a trophy waiting for me at the firehouse!  Here it is.  We keep it in a good place in case we need a weapon handy.

However, lest you think that I am the Speedy Gonzales of the 30-39- year-old women, we found out when the official results posted what had happened.  As with last year, I again finished fourth in my age group.  However, the first two finishers in my age group finished first and second overall, and the fire department only lets people take home one trophy at a time.  Voila!  I got a second place trophy.

I still think it’s pretty cool.

The fun continued that afternoon when we finally got around to carving our 2010 pumpkins.  (Better late than never, eh?)  The kids picked patterns out of a book that my mom had given them, and Charlotte actually carved her own this year!  Elijah still served in a more advisory position to Jeff, who is the pumpkin maestro.

And here are the finished products.  Charlotte did the spider, and Elijah picked the dragon.

Then came actual Halloween day.  Our village doesn’t have designated days or hours for trick-or-treating, so the Halloween festivities started at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, when the first ambitious trick-or-treaters rang our doorbell!  Our kids were already in costume, but we had told them that we weren’t leaving until closer to 5:30.  Jeff, again, walked the ‘hood with Charlotte, Elijah, and Jeremy, while I stayed home and passed out candy.

Here is my family, all ready to go!  We had a detective/secret agent, a ninja, and a grumpy baby elephant!

It was a nice evening, so we had lots of trick-or-treaters and lots of people passing out candy.  The kids cleaned up, and I tried something new this year.  I told Charlotte and Elijah that they could eat as much candy as they wanted on Halloween night.

So, they did.  Poor Charlotte was sick to her stomach that night and part of the next day, but both kids claim it was well worth it!

Here’s a quick Halloween side note.  We did dress Jeremy up in his bumblebee costume for our small group party.  Here he is, coming and going.  Too cute!

And I think that takes care of Halloween!  Next up, if all goes well:  our vacation to Branson.  Have a great weekend!

Just Do It

I think this needs to be my new philosophy of blogging.  I have become truly pitiful at it.  I always seem to hit bedtime each night, not having sat down to write.

So, I’m just going to do it tonight.  I’m just going to blog about something and hope that it gets me back into the discipline.  After all, it’s pretty sad that I don’t even blog when I actually have some interesting things to say!

I think that I’ll start with the most current news and work my way backwards.  Maybe by January, I will have told you about our vacation in Branson.

Maybe.

Anyway…

Here’s what Jeremy is up to these days.

If you think that he is mostly up to no good, you would be correct.  I like to tell people that he moves from one life-threatening situation to another.  He’s mostly trained to respond to “no” when it involves electrical cords or outlets, but we’re still working on most other things.  He is a big, strong kid, and he can scoot FAST.  He is pulling up on everything and cruising around like mad.  He’s already pulled a vacuum cleaner and his bouncy seat over on top of himself because he doesn’t quite have the wisdom yet to know what will hold him and what won’t.

We were in Buffalo Wild Wings the other night, and the waitress kept asking us if she could bring Jeremy any food or drinks.  I wanted to laugh, but she was sweetly serious.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was only seven months and didn’t have any teeth.  I think she assumed that he would be eating off of our plates.

I guess between his length and his hair, people think he’s at least a year old.  Sigh.

In other kid news, Charlotte tested for her brown belt in tae kwon do this past Friday night.  Master Kurtz allowed her to do a hand board break for this test, instead of a kicking board break.  She has been a purple belt for a long time, and it could be after the first of the year before her leg strength is back up to par, so he felt that she should go ahead and test.

As usual, Charlotte looked great, especially for having just had her cast off a few days.  She is not yet walking correctly on her left leg; the bone doesn’t hurt, but her ankle is locked up from being immobilized for seven weeks, and it hurts when she walks normally, as the muscles and tendons need to be stretched back out.  Dr. Maxey will put her in physical therapy if she can’t straighten herself out, so we’ll see if she can get walking herself in the next couple of weeks.

Here is Charlotte at her test.  Pretty cool!

It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner!  The busy season is upon us.  The kids have started practice for the church Christmas play, and both will be participating in our homeschool co-op’s Christmas program, as well.  Charlotte has also started basketball practice, albeit on a limited level.  Jeff is coaching her team this year, so hopefully that will be a good time for them!

Next time, I plan on getting back to Halloween…promises, promises!

The Quick Rundown

Well, I had hoped to get a real blog up yesterday or today, but that has just not happened.  So, instead, I guess I’ll give a preview of what I hope to blog about in the next several days!

1.  We went on vacation last week in the Branson, Missouri, area.  We managed to hit Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas in the process and had a lovely, relaxing-for-the-most-part time.  I have lots of pictures and lots of quirky things to tell you about, so, hopefully, I’ll get around to that sooner rather than later. 

2.  Halloween weekend was busy.  We started with a small-group gathering on Friday night, where the kids got to wear their costumes.  Saturday brought the Germantown Hills Fire Department 5K, and someone brought home a cool trophy!  (Exactly how is kind of funny.)  The kids had their first church Christmas play practice later that morning; they both got the parts they wanted, so this should be a lot of fun for them.  All three kids trick-or-treated with Jeff on Sunday night, while I stayed home and passed out candy.  More pictures and info to follow.

3.  Yesterday, Charlotte had an appointment with the orthopedist, and she is now boot-free!  She is still on restricted activity, and we will go back the Tuesday before Thanksgiving for one more checkup.  She has the OK to participate in basketball and limited tae kwon do, but she can’t run in a pack (basketball scrimmage) or make contact with her leg (target kicking) for at least another three weeks.

Those are the highlights.  Stay tuned for more details…as soon as I get a few minutes!