Carmi Trip

Several months ago, we enjoyed a visit from Tyler's cousin Meredith. While in town, the brainstorming began for a fun-filled weekend trip to Carmi. Big plans were made and we were so glad that they came to fruition. We headed down on Friday after the kids got home from school and stayed through Monday. The entire weekend was jam-packed with family time, fun, and relaxation. There's something so great about staying in your pjs until noon, drinking coffee, eating (way too much) delicious food, and catching up with family and friends. We played games, went out to eat, saw a movie, ate more food, visited the farm, ate more food, and spent so much time laughing that our faces hurt! Everything about the trip was wonderful and we definitely hope to make it happen again soon.

Thankful

We had the joy of watching another fantastic school program put on by Leah's music teacher. The third graders sang songs and shared videos about what they're thankful for. Leah had been anxiously awaiting this performance for months (they started practicing the songs LAST Spring). She can be pretty shy in front of a crowd, but seems to love the idea of performing. Hopefully she will someday come out of her shell a bit and really dive into her passion for singing and dancing.

Waterpark Overnight Trip

For some annoying reason, our school district has no school on election days. It's because of the fact that several schools are polling places and they're just trying to keep the kids safe, but despite that, it's really weird to have a Tuesday off of school! This time around, we made the most of it and planned an overnight trip to a waterpark in Wisconsin. We've taken the kids there before, but when they were MUCH smaller. This time around, it was so nice to be able to enjoy the water without fearing that a kid would drown...not only because they are all good swimmers, but also because it was TOTALLY dead (who goes to a waterpark on a Monday night?!?). The kids did some swimming when we got there on Monday evening. We had a fun time watching a movie in our room that night and enjoyed a slow morning as we waited for the waterpark to open back up at 10am. Unfortunately, about a half hour before the park opened, we had a MAJOR catastrophe. Tyler and Leah were heading to the lobby to ask for a later check-out. As soon as they walked out of the door to our room, Leah bumped into Tyler (who was holding a full, freshly poured cup of coffee). It didn't end well, as you can tell from the picture. Sadly, Leah didn't get to swim that morning, but she was thankful for the chance to play in the arcade with just Mom. All in all, it wasn't the trip we were hoping for, but everyone managed to have fun despite the crazy turn of events.

Halloween 2018

We had a busy and fun Halloween season. It started with a trip to the "pumpkin patch" (Aldi) where we ran into two of our favorite people - Nana Pam and Ed. The kids had fun finding their pumpkins and we were happy to finally pay a lot less than what we usually pay at the real pumpkin patch!

The weekend before Halloween was packed with activities. Friday night, we went to a costume party (as Richard Simmons and an 80's workout girl). Tyler almost won the contest....he should've won for being brave enough to wear shorts as short at these:

There was a Harry Potter themed fundraiser for a local girl and it was the perfect excuse to take our Harry Potter fanatic out in his costume. He loved getting to go with his fellow Harry Potter fanatic friend, Micah.

We carved pumpkins with family and the kids had a lot of fun. Sadly, Joel was in the middle of a week-long sickness that night, so he wasn't his normal upbeat self. Regardless, we ended up with some great pumpkins. Joel decorated his with the face of one of his favorite stuffed animals, "Cowie". Leah made a princess crown. Caleb went with the theme of his costume this year and made a Harry Potter face.

Halloween was a busy day. I helped at Caleb and Leah's parties in the morning. Poor Joel was home sick and ended up at the doctor that afternoon. He had a temp that kept coming and going for several days, and we wanted to make sure it wasn't anything super contagious before letting him run around with friends while trick-or-treating.  Thankfully, he was just diagnosed with a plain old cough/cold. All sniffles aside, the evening was perfect for trick-or-treating and the kids had a ton of fun. We got WAY more candy than we could ever actually eat!