Just a Note

For all of my avid blog readers out there, I have just updated my blog. I know with me it isn't a steady stream of blogs, but I did try to catch up here. So read on down and you'll get filled in on what's happened the last few weeks. By the way, the gas prices are around $1.68 and the temperature's supposed to be about 45 today, so those things have changed as well.

We're going to Neenah, Wisconsin to spend Thanksgiving with Robert's sister Kelli. We're leaving tomorrow morning around 4:00. We're stopping in Madison to visit a lot of friends from when we lived there. We're really looking forward to the trip and I'll fill you in. You might get lucky and I'll blog about it while we're gone, but no promises. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and thanks for reading!

A New Blog is Born

I have asked Laura to post this, simply to let people know I am starting a different blog. I will gear it towards my spiritual beliefs. I simply can't talk about what I feel most passionately about in Sunday School. It just isn't the right setting, but there is sooo much I want to share. A good portion of this is simply for my own benefit. It is a way for me to sort out what I believe. So if you are interested, then take a peek. If it is not funny enough, too long winded or preachy, has bad spelling and grammar, then tough... get over it... (insert a tune in the background...) "It's my blog and I can write what I waaant to... ". http://lightsandperfections.blogspot.com.

Someone Turned 40!

Hmmmm....I wonder who that could be. Well maybe this picture will give it away.

It's sometimes difficult to get older, and I think 40 can be a tough birthday. Robert's had a kind of mid-life crisis. He felt the need to buy a good gun. That qualifies as a crisis to me, but he's having a lot of fun with it. We had a surprise birthday party for him with a lot of our friends. Thanks guys for coming and helping so much! He also got to have a homemade Olive Garden meal, which was by his special request. The food turned out really good. I hope he enjoyed his birthday, and doesn't feel too bad about his age. Everyone still loves him anyway!

Riley's Last Soccer Game

Riley plays soccer and really enjoys it. He does well at soccer and it's fun to watch him play. Here are some pictures of him just after his last game of the season. I couldn't get any good ones of him actually playing because it was pretty dark. The game was played at 6:30 pm on Monday, November 10th. It was a make up game and it was very cold and rained a little during the game. It had rained all day and we thought they might cancel, but there wasn't any lightning, so it was on!

I was glad they played anyway since they probably wouldn't reschedule the game again. Riley's team had a rough season. It started out with them getting beat pretty badly the first several games. I mean like 10-0. In soccer that's a huge score for the other team. They did have a few games in the middle of the season that they won, which was encouraging. Then they started losing pretty bad again. So they had this game and I was hopeful that they could finish the season with a win.

Riley usually plays center or midfield. It requires a lot of running, which he doesn't do much unless he's in a soccer game. There were only 11 boys at this game and that's how many play on the field at a time, so there were no subs. It was a long game, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Riley hadn't had a chance to score all season. The kids played their hearts out and pulled it off! They won 2-1! But this is the best part. Riley scored both of the goals! I was so happy and so was he. It was a perfect way to end a difficult season.

Halloween

Here are some pictures of the kids at Halloween, finally.
Jared is a Jedi (not sure which one). Sarah is a bat, who apparently likes to curtsy for pictures.

Riley is a hippie. I love the wig! It makes the whole outfit.

Nicole is also a hippie. Her hair just naturally fits.

The kids each wore their costumes three or four times. I like it when they use their costumes more than once. Thank goodness there wasn't any makeup involved.

Storm

On November 6th we had a storm. It came up pretty fast and was pounding rain super hard. You can see how big the raindrops were in this picture: Oh yeah. Look closely at that picture. Do you see anything strange? Like maybe a whole bunch of metal posts sticking out in weird directions. Well if you can't see it in that picture, have a look at the next one:I trust you can all see what happened. No, we don't have two trampolines. Several of our neighbors have trampolines and one of them decided to jump over the fence and join ours. Seriously, it had to climb over the fence and the neighbor's yard has a fence too. Somehow a big gust of wind got in there and swept it up and over. We're lucky a pole didn't fly through the boys' window. One of the poles was thrown and stuck into our trampoline mat.

This particular neighbor happens to be Jared's teacher at school and we've had a few laughs over it, since there wasn't any serious damage done. We needed to replace our trampoline anyway because my kids have worn it out. A few of the welds on the legs are broken and it's cheaper to buy a new one. I offered parts of ours to fix up theirs since they happen to be the same kind. Needless to say, it was quite a surprise to see that scene.

Uncommon

Here's a picture of what my car said the outside temperature was on November 3, 2008. It's usually very accurate when I compare it to what the weather reports say. So, I have no need to think it's not accurate this time. It's supposed to be about the same temperature today and who knows how much longer. It is wonderful when the weather is less humid and cooler, but not cold. I love it! Here's another picture I took within a minute of the previous picture. This was more common about three or four years ago. About three weeks ago I told Robert that it would be so great if gas cost less than $2 per gallon again, but I doubt it will. Surprise! Something actually went my way (along with millions of other people). I've heard we have some of the lowest prices in the nation, and I know Oklahoma City is even cheaper. Janine, what does a gallon of gas go for over there these days?

Fall Break Camping Trip

Since there isn't much good weather for camping in Oklahoma, we haven't done much of it this year. You're usually okay if you camp in April, May, September, and October. It's just too humid or cold the rest of the time. The schools have Fall Break in mid October, and my friend Janine and I thought it would be a great time to get together for a trip.

They had recently gone to Red Rock Canyon State Park and enjoyed it, so we tried it again. This picture is of us about 75 feet above the road and camping area. It was a fairly steep climb on slippery red sandy rocks to get up.

The way we decided to get down, was by climbing along a rock wall with a few hand and foot holds. It was only about 10 feet down, but it would hurt to jump, so we had to scale the wall over to a narrow ramp to walk down. Rocky went first and then stood below to catch people in case they fell. Riley was the next one to go. No one fell except for Oreo, the dog. I was trying to get him to go to Riley who was standing on the ground and could almost reach him. Instead of sliding a few inches to Riley's hand, he decided to make a flying leap to the ground. He hit pretty hard, but because he's under 10 pounds, he was okay. Silly dog!

This is how Julia got down and it's kind of similar to how I was trying to help Oreo get down. Thank goodness she didn't try to jump.

Here's Jared, the monkey. He had no problem scaling the wall and promptly climbed pretty high up a tree. He's my child with very little fear.

Here I am scaling the wall. It was easy except when I had to change my foot placement or try to fit both feet in one hold. It wasn't bad at all.

We cooked using dutch ovens a lot and the food was delicious! Janine found all of the recipes and none of us had ever tried them before. We made stew, cornbread, and french toast. They all were perfectly cooked and tasted great! We even talked about entering a dutch oven cooking contest next year.

The boys went fishing, but no fish were caught. Only this frog was snagged. I don't even think it was alive. It was a huge frog though. It looks really yucky to me!

Here is Nicole helping Julia. It's nice to have the older ones around to help with the little ones. Nicole is a great helper and babysitter.

We all had a really great time on the campout. I would recommend making sure you bring enough blankets to have at least two nice ones on during nights in October. Once we got Jared onto the air mattress and used his sleeping bag as an extra blanket, we were very comfortable. Janine isn't really fond of camping, so she says, but she said she really enjoyed it. She's a great camper and our families had lots of fun together!