Snow Days

 

Snow! It's been in the forecast for a while and Monday it  finally arrived.  The kids are beyond excited.  Snow!   Miriam and Savannah went right out in it, trying to play in snow that was just dusting the ground.  For once, they actually stayed outside for a longer amount of time than it took to find snow clothes and get them dressed.  After they were cold (it's in the 20's out there), they warmed up in the hot tub.  They enjoyed getting out of the tub and standing in the snow.  It was quite a sight to see the steam coming off their little bodies.

getting towed around on sleds behind the lawn mower

warming up

Dode was released from work early Monday and it's a good thing.  Although it was snowing most of the day, the flakes really started accumulating as he was driving home.  He was driving the pick up since the weathermen had said we had no chance of snow.  It's not very good in the snow and I'm glad he got home before most of the accumulation.  Some people ended up stuck on the freeway for hours trying to get home.

It's pretty nice working for the tribes.  They cancelled work on Tuesday and Wednesday due to the snow but Dode will still get paid for those days.  So, we get an extra long Thanksgiving vacation.  I'd done a child swap with Lisa where I took Savannah and Jared and she took Anastaya and Elizabeth.  I'd been hesitant to do it since the girls would miss school but it ended up that they only missed Monday since school was closed Tuesday and Wednesday due to the weather.  The cousins have had a great time playing together.  Even if they'd missed school, it would have been worth it!

Savannah and Miriam had a very fun time playing together

It's quite cold outside but the kids keep going out and playing.  Isaac and Jared enjoy driving the lawn mower around while pulling the little ones in the sleds behind it.  They also tried some sledding on the hill.  It was really windy as it was snowing and a lot of snow blew right over the hill into the lawn.  So, the hill doesn't quite have enough for good sledding.  But, the lawn mower worked just fine.  William is fascinated by the icicles that are hanging from things.  He calls them his "crystals" and gets quite upset when they melt away in his hands.  As the snow started melting off, the kids went out and made a few snow men.  The snow men are melting away right out of the coats, scarves, and mittens the kids decorated them with.

a perfect treat for a cold day, rich hot chocolate and moist yam cake

Dode and I got to go out and deliver newspapers in the 17 degree weather.  We drove over to where our route begins and discovered the window of the van was frozen in the closed position.  That makes it a bit difficult to throw papers!  Dode had to work at it for quite some time before he was able to get it to open.  The heater in our van doesn't work very well.  It's our 3rd mini van by the same manufacturer and they all have had wimpy heaters.  We were bundled up in thick coats, hats, and gloves and managed to stay warm.  We had the road to ourselves as one of the few brave (or foolish) enough to venture out.

We're toasty warm inside with our two wood stoves running but it doesn't do a very good job of reaching upstairs into the bedrooms.  It also doesn't keep us warm all night.  The mornings are pretty cold inside and I worry that Jared and Savannah will tell their parents they never want to stay at Uncle Dode's again in the winter because it's so cold in the house.  The master bedroom door is closed all day so it stays the coldest.  I brought the thermometer upstairs and it showed our bedroom at 53 degrees.  We have three thick blankets on the bed and stay warm all night.  It makes exercising quite comfortable, no need for a fan!  (But it's pretty cold getting dressed after taking a shower!)

I bought a case of pie pumpkins and have been roasting them and turning them into pumpkin puree for the freezer.  We aren't above a little child labor around here!

The girls had a fun time taking turns cranking the handle and pushing down the pumpkins

11/14-11/20

Monday
Monday we had a big storm and the portable garage survived.  Dode ended up getting out of bed and using tie down straps to attach the garage to the mini van.  That thing was not going anywhere!   The storm really revealed the different personalities of the children.  There was lots of lightening and thunder.  Elizabeth found a blanket and snuggled up next to me for the rest of the evening.  She was worried.  Miriam just asked that the curtains be closed so she could not see the lightening (out of sight - out of mind).

Tuesday 
The young women had a mother/daughter activity so Anastaya and I spent our evening at the church.  One of the gardeners from the Seattle Temple came and talked about how they design and maintain the landscaping.  I'm usually delivering newspapers during that time but Dode and Isaac ended up taking that on.


Wednesday
Our 15th anniversary.

There wasn't much "home" in the schooling today.  I started the day bright (actually dark) and early leaving at 5:30 for newspaper delivery with Isaac.  I have to say, delivering the newspapers with power steering is a whole new experience!  The van is so responsive now!  After newspapers, it was rush rush rush, get everyone ready for the day.  William missed his bus with a last minute potty stop so I had to drop him off at school before taking Elizabeth and Isaac up for their first speech therapy appointment.  Leaving the appointment, already late for their first class at SVS, we drove across town to Stillaguamish Valley School.  We left school at lunch time to come home and eat (we had run out of time to pack lunches in the morning), stopped off the library, and went back up to the school for another class.  During class, I met with the IEP team to go over the goals for Elizabeth's speech therapy.  Then, already late, we picked up Anastaya at the library and I took her and Isaac to piano.  Elizabeth and I finished delivering the newspapers to the vendors in town, I dropped her off at home and was home long enough (10 minutes) for Sheri to call and see if I could babysit (I said yes).  Finally, after picking up the kids from piano, at 4:15 I was home for the day.  Dode and I spent the evening trying to do accounting work for the produce co-op.  He was on one computer trying to get a spreadsheet to sort correctly.  I was on another computer trying to figure out the money end of things.  After struggling with it for hours, Dode finally realized there was a flaw in the program. 

When we'd come home for lunch, I'd complained to Jacob that he was home but hadn't bothered lighting a fire.  The house was 63 degrees.  Well, by the time I got home at 4:00, he had the house up to 82.  It's like walking into a heat wave.  Outside today it's nasty rainy where you can't even walk without stepping in puddles.  It was nice to have a warm house to come home to but I try not to think about how much firewood he went through!

Jacob entertained the little ones with an impromptu puppet show.  He set up the puppet stage, turned two socks into puppets, and did an improv show for them.  They loved it.

Friday

The big news of Friday was Sharon and Lynn getting home from their mission.  The kids were so excited to see them!  Sharon and Lynn got home in the early afternoon and we didn't let them rest much before they were over at our house for dinner.  We had the family that lives in the area over as well (about 25 people for dinner).  We lit up our big heart in the tree to welcome them home.  It was a great night of kids hugging grandma and grandpa over and over.  Isaac missed out because he had a scout camp out. 

Saturday

After helping to get the produce moved from the street to the house (only a couple of tons of food this week), Dode took off to meet Isaac at the camp out.  Dode picked up Jared from Lynn and Sharon's on the way and the two of them hiked in and met up with Isaac.  Isaac's troop was camping at the Bat Caves in Skagit County. It was a cold camp out with a mix of rain and snow.  They spent a few hours exploring the "caves" (it's a large boulder field and the spaces between the boulders form the caves) and hiked to the top of Oyster Dome where they had a commanding view of the San Jaun Islands.  I had the girl cousins over to play.  Then, my Dad and Cheryl came over for dinner.  We haven't seen them in a long time, it was nice to catch up.  Elizabeth sure had a stellar weekend with getting to see both sets of grandparents that she's been missing.

15 years

November 17, 1995

wedding day lunch

our most important wedding guest

15 years ago, Dode and I were sealed in the Seattle Temple.  If feels both like yesterday and forever ago. 

What has changed in 15 years?

We've gone from 1 child to six.

We've lived in three homes, all in Arlington

(an apartment in town over the tanning salon, a farm house off Hwy 530, and our current house)

Dode's held three jobs (Summit Timber, Downing & Assoc., Tulalip Tribes)

We've gone through three Dodge Caravans

Dode has endured me being hospitalized for pregnancy complications (twice), an appendectomy and meningitis.

We've held numerous church callings

We've endured sorrow and have experienced joy

What hasn't changed in 15 years?

We both still fit in our wedding clothes, and even still wear them

We still have my Toyota Pick up, over 200,000 miles and counting

We still stay up way too late at night talking

We still consider that each of us got the better catch

We each still get that jumpy heart feeling when seeing the other unexpectedly

We wouldn't want to take this journey with anyone else

November 8-14

Monday/Tuesday
Poor Dode, he had the day off, but he (and Isaac and Joel for part of the time) spent the entire day and evening Monday working on the mini van.  There was lots of time spent trouble shooting and finally an answer to what was wrong, an out of time timing belt.  Our car has a nice oil leak so everything is absolutely covered in oil.  Dode looks like he's wearing a pair of black leather gloves each time he comes in.  There isn't a speck of skin on his hands that's clean.  I watched Seth and Ellie for Sheri so she could get some painting done without the assistance of two little helpers.   I'm getting pretty accustomed to having eight kids running around.  Maybe having more wouldn't be so hard...

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday.  I watched Seth and Ellie and Dode worked on the van after work.

Wednesday
Hooray!  The car is done.  Dode spent yet another evening out in the cold under the car and it's now done.  And as a bonus, I now have power steering again.  (The power steering pump gave up years ago but it's down so far inside the hood that it's really hard to get to.  The timing belt was right beside it.)  Now I'll have to find a new way to tone my arms since I won't be manhandling my van around anymore.

William lost his first tooth today!  Following in the tradition of his siblings, he swallowed it before he realized what had happened!  What a fun milestone.  Miriam is really mad and is tugging at her teeth like crazy to get one to fall out.  I told her it would happen eventually.  William informed her that he lost his tooth because he's grown up and she is not.

(Yes, there's a gap for two teeth.  He knocked one out when he was a baby.  This was the first one to volunteer to come out.)

Thursday 
Another day of Dickson day care.  It was Veteran's Day so Randy and Lisa came down to work on Sharon and Lynn's house and I took care of the children.  Seth and Ellie came to join in the fun.  The cousins had lots of fun playing together, baking, watching Toy Story 3, hot tubbing, and trashing the house.  In my spare moments, I worked on the produce order and turned a case of apples into apple sauce.  Ginger Gold apples make THE BEST applesauce.  I don't know if you can associate the word "rich" with applesauce but those apples made a rich tasty sauce.

Seth pouting over being told, "No, you cannot rip up Miriam's drawing"

He probably stayed under that table for 30 minutes

(surrounded by the evidence)

Jenna and Elizabeth worked together to bake a cake

A photo of Seth smiling?  Priceless!

Savannah loves bouncing around on Miriam's horse

Since it was Veteran's Day and Dode works for a government, he got the day off.  Hooray!  While I was inside doing my best to keep up on the dirty diapers (6 total) and keep everyone fed and happy, Dode was out in the rain working on projects.  He doesn't help with the front line work of the co-op, but he's a great behind the scenes worker.  After seeing the ladies struggling in the dark last time,  he decided that they needed  more light.  We now have two bright lights shining down on the staging area.  He's going to add one more light on the barn.  He also fixed, reassembled and secured the portable garage to the ground.  Hopefully it will stand up to the wind better.

Not fancy, but we can't believe how light it is outside with two of these on

Friday

It's a small world after all...

Friday, Elizabeth had a speech therapy evaluation.  (She qualifies.)  16 years ago when I was going to college up in Bellingham (an hour away), I had speech therapy to correct some mis-articulations.  At the age of 22, I was finally able to say my name correctly.  (I used to say "th" for "s")  I used the speech pathology department which used student interns to give the therapy.  Well, the very same student who taught me speak correctly was the one who evaluated Elizabeth.  Once we realized our connection, I sure becamee conscious of how I was speaking.  I couldn't say anything without thinking it through first and felt my jam go all tight!  What are the odds?

"Not tired at the right time"
The other night, Miriam was still going strong at 10:00 pm and I told her she needed to get to sleep because she had school the next day.  She told me, "I try but I'm just not tired at the right time.  I try to keep my eyes closed but they just won't stay that way"  Was she ever correct!  She's up late but has no interest in getting up for school.   And, she's not our only child with that problem.   That same night, my sleep was disturbed by Isaac rambling around the house.  He'd been reading late into the night and was getting a drink.  (It's hard to believe this was a child I despaired of ever learning to read.)  Jacob is another nocturnal child who happily stays up until 3:00 am and thinks he'll be able to get up for seminary at 5:30 am.  He can't.

Never Enough!

When I think back to how much experience I had with children when I became a mother (not much), I'm amazed at how much I enjoy having a house full of children.  Saturday we had the following friends over:   Isaac Colson, Douglas Colburn, Nathan Colburn, Colleen Colburn.  10 kids total!  Then, Jacob's friend Shamois came over as well.  He's the only one left at home after his two brothers grew up.  He was a bit goggle eyed at all the energy in the house.  There were kids everywhere and I thought to myself, "I need to get Seth and Ellie over here too."  I absolutely love having kids around and over.  That's one reason I keep Dode busy adding fun things to our house.  I want our house to be THE place to play. 

William is making progress in school!!!
William's parent/teacher conference was last week and his teacher was so excited that she's found something that helps with his learning.  You might have heard about the different types of intelligences (visual, spatial, etc).  Well, William has finally been able to learn a few of his colors, a few letters of the alphabet, and some numbers by learning modified sign language.  When the teacher makes the sign for orange (it looks like squeezing an orange in your hand) and points at something orange, William can say, "orange".  She's working to do as much as instruction as possible in her room using visual cues.  He's in a small classroom of eight students with two para-educators and a certified teacher so they're really able to tailor the instruction to the students.  His siblings are excited about his progress and enjoy drilling him at home.  Three years of specialized one on one instruction from highly educated professionals and he now knows a couple of letters and colors.  It does not sound like much progress but everyone is celebrating ... parents, siblings (even the teenagers are impressed), all of his teachers all the way up to the Principal.  We could not walk into the school without one of the employees asking if we had heard the good news that William had learned two colors.  The Principal said it gave her goose bumps.  Having William in our lives helps us all remember that what may seem like a little thing can actually be a huge accomplishment.

Miriam and Dad Day

Saturday was Miriam and Dad Day.  Part of the fun for Miriam is getting to ride in Dode's truck.  They started off with a trip to McDonald's.

She kept telling Dode, "Isn't this a great toy!  What do you think it is?"

They took a ferry out to Bainbridge Island.

That's Grandpa Greg's fire boat in the background.

They spent about four hours at the Children's Museum in Winslow.  Miriam wanted photos taken of everything she did. 

After the museum, they went to a candy store where Miriam was too busy deciding on what kind of candy to remember to ask for a photo. 

They took the ferry home in the dark.  Miriam loved looking at the lights of Seattle.



A trip to Eastern Washington

 Dode had a surveying class he wanted to attend in the Tri-Cities and since it wouldn't cost anything extra at the hotel for me to go along, I did! Working for the tribes is pretty cushy. They gave Dode Thursday off to drive there and paid for his hotel. His class was Friday and since it went all day, they payed for a 2nd night. Then, since he was driving home on Saturday, they gave him Monday off. Nice! Sheri did the babysitting for us while we were gone. I googled around the Tri-Cities and managed to come up with some things to explore while he was in class.

Dode received this machete as a door prize at his class. It's too big to carry around in a pocket but too small for doing the kind of machete work Dode does while surveying.

(apple shown for idea of size)

Thursday we drove over and stayed at the Holiday Inn in Richland. Apparently they're trying to capitalize on the nearby Hanford Nuclear Reservation (which I really want to tour someday, but no tours were offered at this time). We received this bag at check in with a "spent fuel rod" (light stick) and "spent fuel rod storage container" (mug), and a paper badge from every one's favorite nuclear power plant employee (Homer Simpson). The hotel had a pool the kids would have loved. It was small but was in a glass solarium with a fountain in the corner.

We started off with dinner Thursday night at Fiesta Mexican Restaurant in Pasco. Apparently, Pasco is known for its Mexican restaurants and this one did not disappoint. I had the chicken chipotle which was rich and tasty. Dode got his usual: ground beef taco and enchilada combo. They had a salsa bar with fresh tortillas and a variety of salsas (I'm addicted to green salsas) to snack on while we waited for our entrees.

                                                           Look at this ice cream dessert!
A deep fried flour tortilla shell with vanilla ice cream, peanuts, oreo crumbs, caramel, hot fudge, strawberry sauce, and whipped cream. (We shared it.)

Once again proving the "it's a small world" theory, we walked into the restaurant and were seated at a table beside a land developer Dode worked with back at Downing. He lives over in the Tri-Cities now. They had a nice short catching up visit.

Friday, I started my day off at with a nutritious breakfast, a donut from Spudnut. These potato dough doughnuts are famous around here. When I think potato dough, I think dense and heavy but my doughnut was light and airy. Yum!

Next I was off to the Columbia River Exhibition of History. They have a rather large sign on the freeway telling you when to turn to find this rather small museum. But, I spent two hours immersing myself in the history of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the local area.

model of the Hanford reactor

Apparently, members of the church have had a strong presence for a long time in the Tri-Cities.  A church building was up before the grocery store!

Then, on the reviews of tripadvisor, I went to Phucket Thai (I'm not sure the correct way is to pronounce that, I'm not even going to try!) in Kennewick. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Thai food. They really believe in spicing their food. My one star phaid thai was so hot, both my tongue and lips were burning and sweat was beading up on my forehead. That's a bit hotter than I like it!

After stuffing my belly full of noodle goodness, I went to the East Benton County Historical Society Museum. For the 2nd time in a day, I had a quiet museum all to myself. This museum had information about "Kennewick Man" (a 9,000 year old skeleton found at the shore of the Columbia in the 90's) as well as assorted artifacts from the last 100 years that were donated by local families. No photographs were allowed inside the museum, so here's one of the sign!

After a short break back at the hotel, (researching ice cream establishments in the area), I was off to NW Country Mercantile in Pasco for some ice cream. They had 30 homemade flavors to choose from. Tough choice! They had free samples but each sample was at least a tablespoon of ice cream. I was getting full just on samples. I chose killer brownie (caramel ice cream with brownie chunks) and malted chocolate (chocolate ice cream, crushed milk duds, caramel swirl, white chocolate). I also found some yummy tomatilla salsa, and a few other jarred tasties. They have their own chocolate shop their too, so what's a foodie to do? Buy some of course!

Eating my ice cream as I drove, (dessert before dinner is always welcome) I went to pick up Dode from his training meeting. Then, we were off to dinner at another highly recommended Mexican restaurant in Pasco, Garibaldi's. Dode got his usual and I choose bacon wrapped prawns. They came with sauteed vegetables (peppers, onions, and mushrooms) in addition to beans/rice and tortillas. It was delicious.  And their chips?  Absolutely addictive!

Saturday, we visited the Washington State Railroad Historical Society Museum in Pasco.  Once again, it was a private tour of an empty museum.  The collectors who contributed to the museum definitely had a love for steam engines.  They left out a lot of Washington Rail history we're interested in, like the electric railroad that used to stretch across Washington, Tommy Thompson's narrow gauge railroad in Anacortes, and information about building the tunnels that go through the Cascades.  But, we did get to see a lot of photos of steam engines!

After lunch, we went to our last Pasco Mexican restaurant.  They also had a salsa bar with fresh tortillas.  Of the three restaurants we ate ate, I think the first, Fiesta, was my favorite.  Things are really close together in the Tri-Cities. There are three towns: Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and although my day took me though all three of them, I never went more than 10 miles. And, if you go more than a mile from the freeway/highways in most areas, you're back to sagebrush.

Driving home, I wanted to see the murals that are painted on many buildings in Toppenish.  We were about half way between the freeway and town when a bad noise under the hood signaled our serpentine belt self destructing.  We pulled over and Dode figured we'd soon be back on the road after a "10 minute fix".  He pulled all the pieces of the belt away from all the pulleys but the car refused to start.  After trouble shooting on it for over an hour, with only his pocket knife and mini leatherman (nail clippers) as tools, he gave up.  Everything seemed to be working perfect.  We had spark and fuel pressure, the engine was turning over properly but it would not start.  He even checked the timing belt by checking each of the cams to confirm they were rotating.  Stumped, we called a tow truck for the car and Greg for us. 

Dode even checked the fuel pump.

We could not afford to have the car towed home (over 200 miles) so we had the van towed to an auto parts store in Yakima where Dode could borrow the code reader and see if it gave him any new information.  Nope!  The car's computer thought everything was working perfect!  Greg, my step-father, was nice enough to drive over from Edmonds (a 3 hour one way drive) to pick us up and bring us home.  When I called Elizabeth to check in on the kids, she was absolutely astonished when I told her Dode couldn't fix the van.  She has such faith in his abilities!  Greg stopped and bought us dinner on the way home at the Riverside Cafe in North Bend.  It was a great place to eat and relax on the long drive.

Sunday:  Dode and Isaac went back to Yakima to retrieve our poor little van and tow it home.

Monday:  Luckily Dode had Monday off because he spent the entire day working on the van. After trouble shooting lots of different things, he finally found a problem with the timing belt. Somehow when the serpentine belt self destructed, a piece of the belt shrapnel made its way inside the protective covers for the timing belt and got bound up inside.  The shrapnel had rapped itself around the crakshaft pully forcing the timing belt to ride on top of the shrapnel.  This made the cams and crankshaft spine at different rates making everything appear to be working right but it was impossible for it to run.  This is about the same as all the chambers of your heart ignoring each other and doing their own thing (it's just not going to work).  I am so thankful to have a husband who can fix things. I can't begin to estimate how much it would have cost us to have the car fixed by a mechanic. It was painful enough to pay for the gas to send the big van over and back and the rental on the trailer to tow the van home with.

 

our problem, those pieces of the belt in Dode's hand are not part of the timing belt

how it's supposed to look

November 1-7

Oops!
Well, remember how I said Dode hadn't anchored the new portable garage down yet?  Monday was pretty windy and what do you know?  The garage did a cartwheel in the driveway.  I was coming back from driving Jacob to the school when I got a frantic phone call from Elizabeth that Isaac was outside trying to keep it from blowing away.  I arrived home to find Isaac desperately trying to keep it from breaking any more and we managed to wrestle the covering off in the pouring rain, getting drenched in the process.  (We had over an inch of rain on Monday and it felt like most of it fell on us!)  Now Dode gets the fun of trying to straighten out the pipes and figuring out how to anchor it down.

Dickson Daycare

a group of loving cousins

funny faces everyone!

Tuesday I had Seth, Ellie, Jenna, Savanah and Darcy over while Sheri, Joel, Janice, Lisa, Isaac, Alyson and  Lainey worked on getting Sharon and Lynn's house ready for their return.  At first, I was tempted to make Elizabeth and Isaac keep going with their school work because it feels like so much can get in the way of a full day of school but then I looked at the big picture and decided, let them play/work with their cousins.  And, I'm so glad I did.  They had a fun day of make believe, dress up, chasing each other around and working together.


Misc.
Jacob rented a fun game for the Wii, Just Dance, and we had a great time grooving to the music.  It had mostly 80's songs I know and love.  It was great to see Jacob and Anastaya doing something together and actually getting along.

10/25-10/31

Stomach Flu
Time it takes a child to throw up on the carpet: 10 seconds
Time it takes to clean up the mess: +45 minutes

My kids can never tell the difference between a stomach that hurts because it's sick and a stomach that hurts because it's hungry.  For dinner one night, we had sweet and sour meatballs, one of Elizabeth's favorite meals.  She had about 10 meatballs.  I got to clean them up the next morning off the carpet, fun!

I'm so glad I have this Spot Bot.  I can set it over the mess, hit the button, and come back in a few minutes when it's done.  Of course, it took a while to move it around and get the whole stain but it really helps keep out carpets looking nice.

Elizabeth/Mom day

Elizabeth has been waiting anxiously for her special day with mom ever since I wrote it on the calendar, over a month ago.  She planned half the day and wanted me to plan the other.  Once we put William on the bus, we were ready to go.  She wanted my half of the day to be a surprise.

We started by going to 3rd Place Books in Lake Forest Park to browse for a new book.   It's a really nice book store.  Elizabeth selected three Magic Tree house books, her favorite series.  I spent my time writing down the names of books I want to check out from the library.  Cheap, cheap, cheap!

Then, we had a treat at the Honeybear Bakery.  The bakery is located in the same building as the book store.  See the size of that cake?  She ended up bringing most of it home.  Elizabeth got chocolate mint and I had lemon cream.

While I was sitting by Elizabeth, I noticed she has quite a selection of silly bandz.  She's always on the lookout for someone to trade with.  That was the end of my part of the planning.  Next came Elizabeth's plans.

She wanted to have lunch at Taco Bell.  We ate at an Elizabeth pace.  We were there for almost an hour eating even though we got our food within five minutes!  She kept telling me what a great day she was having.  Then we were off to....

the Woodland Park Zoo!

 Elizabeth and I have come to the zoo together quite a few times on our special day.  She loves watching the animals.  This time we spent a long time at the hippo pool, penguins, and in the bird area of the rain forest exhibit.

It was an overcast day and a lot of the animals were hiding in their enclosures.  She was starting to get discouraged that we wouldn't see anything.  We found these lions enjoying a sunny break in the clouds on their rock.  I think they heat it to encourage them to spend time there.

 This time we had a fun treat.  The musical group Stomp put on a preview show.  They are an band that use household materials (cookie sheets, garbage cans, the rack from a dishwasher) to make music.

They invited the children to make shakers and help with the music. 

Elizabeth really enjoyed her day.  She thanked me over and over again for spending the day with her.

Firewood
This week we got the firewood out of the driveway and put away!  When we got wood from Aunt Morlan's, Dode split it on site and we had to get it out of the trailer and in the garage in order to use the trailer again the next day.  We were able to get wood from Aunt Morlan's three days in a row.  When we got wood from up the road, we just dumped a bunch of rounds in the driveway and Dode got to it as he could.  We put it away as we could.  Which means, it sat out there forever!  Well, this week Dode finished splitting it and we got it put away which means the wood splitter could be put away for the winter.  The bark could be cleaned up.  The driveway could be clean (cleaner).  Hooray!  Not that I would turn down more wood but it's nice to have the wood we did have put away.

Halloween
Saturday, this pirate showed up to whisk Miriam and Anastaya off for trick or treating in town.

Isn't that a great costume!

Thanks for taking them Janice.

George Washington

my inspiration

Mermaid Miriam

William is a friendly, and warm, lion

                                                            Anastaya the black cat

Crazy hair day Isaac 

cool dude Jacob 

(Jacob dressed up for a party we went to on Saturday but did not go trick or treating)

Indiana Sparrow Isaac Colson

Elizabeth is in Gryfendor house

We started our night over at Grandma and Grandpa Dickson's where the kids sang for their candy and enjoyed watching Harry the dog do tricks for turkey.  The trick or treating this year ended up being pretty much a repeat of last year.  Miriam ran from house to house while the bigger kids yelled at her and told her to walk.  We tell them that if they can't keep up with her, they have to skip houses in order to catch up.  One of the houses was handing out hot apple cider.  Miriam was disgusted.  She wanted COLD water after all that running!  William was a little too toasty warm in his lion costume.  By the end of the night, the hood was off and the front was unzipped.    When we got home, everyone dumped out their candy and got to work on the sorting.  We don't allow any trading in order to protect the little ones from unfair trades but we do allow them to place any candy they don't want into a pile that anyone is free to take from.  There are always lots of hot tamales left in the pile.  Why do people buy them?  Every one's favorite is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  Why can't I convince the kids those hot tamales are great and save the peanut butter cups for me?

We must have gotten a lot of candy because 3/4 of the way through the night, Miriam's dollar store pumpkin bag suddenly had the bottom give way.  She was running at the time so candy flew everywhere.  There was a young man near us and he was nice enough to stop and help us gather up her candy.  Luckily a friend of ours lived across the street and she was able to give us another bag.  We were walking along trick-or-treating when ran into some of the Downings who Dode worked with for over 10 years.  It was fun to spend a few minutes visiting before the kids said "enough already" and were racing off to the next house.  The Downings were on a slower speed than us and were soon far behind.

Misc.

The produce co-op is going strong.  (Almost too strong.  I feel bad telling my friends we're sold out.)  We distributed over 6,000 pounds of produce this time.  That's a lot of healthy eating!  We bought a portable garage from Costco that Dode thinks is the ugliest thing ever.  But, loving husband that he is, he put it up for me.  Dode still has to anchor the garage down but I'm wondering if that's a project he's put off hoping for a gust of wind to carry the garage away. 

I figure it has at least three uses.  1:  It's a place to divide out the "specialty pack" produce baskets on rainy mornings.  (This week was an Italian theme.  I had escarole for the first time and really liked it)  Dode was even kind enough to install florescent lights inside so the ladies working in there can see since it's still dark when we divide out the produce.  2:  It'll be a great rain shelter for the tag-a-longs at day camp.  3:  I have this irrational idea that it should be Dode's job to scrape the ice off my van windows in the morning when he does the windows on his truck.   How many times has that happened?  It hasn't, but it hasn't stopped me from believing it should.  Now, I can park under the cover, my windows will be ice free, and in a way it's all because of Dode. 

Dode had his annual eye check up this week.  He uses the Costco eye doctor and since he needed his eyes dilated, I was his driver.  William and I got our shopping done and when we checked back in with Dode, we found out the doctor was running late.  So, we went back to shopping and his eye appointment ended up costing me another $100 on impulse buys.  Do you think I can submit the receipt for my medical flexible spending account?  Such is the Costco treasure hunt!  But, I got some Christmas shopping done so I guess it turned out OK.  I found a really cool trike that you can put into a 360 degree spin.  Now I just have to figure out which child to give the Razor Rip Rider Trike to.  I wish I could fit on it!