Courageous Joy

Saturday - another one DOWN!

The day began with Jamin running through the neighborhood. He loves to do this on Saturday and check out the garage sales. He found a set of weights that was on sale for $35.00. He only wanted the weights, but they said if he’d take the bench and bar they’d sell it for $20. He did. I drove him back to pick up his purchase. He asked about putting the bench in Nolan and Zander’s room. What a hit that is. I need to watch and see if this is going to work. {g} All day Zander has been saying,

“C’mon Nolan, C’mon Jamin – let’s WORK out!”.

Jamin and I had a bunch of checks we needed to cash at the BX. We’re allowed $100 a day. We took a jaunt to base to do this. Our plan was to meet up with some friends we’ve been missing all week. We weren’t able to pull that off….so we headed for a park in the area.

Big Brothers are so much fun!
Arielle, Nolan and Zander have been trying to learn how to skate. Our homeschool group has skate day on Thursdays – which is the same day that the big boys are at House of Faith. I’ve told them that we can’t go if I have to wear Stacia and try to teach 3 how to skate. We may be able to do this if they keep working at it. They would really like to, but I know my limitations. It’s really sort of sad because the older boys would love to come with us – the timing is simply off.

We were about to give up on making connections with our friends when they drove up. We brought Cian (Jared’s friend) home with us.

In AK many of the Harvest things are impossible. It’s hard to visit a pumpkin patch or an apple orchard, bob for apples or visit a farmers “hay maze”, when the ground is covered with snow and fall lasts 2 weeks in late August/ early September. I’ve been looking forward to these fall activities when we moved back to the lower 48….but guess what? My searching produced nothing! There are no pumpkin patches or apple orchards in W TX. Duh!!! :::snort::: We did the next best thing. Emily on SHS shared a cool object lesson that I want to do with the kids…..problem is that I don’t think I’ve EVER carved a pumpkin. We’ll figure it out.

Here’s the popular “pumpkin patch” at the Methodist church a mile from our home.

Nolan said he felt like he was "pregnant Mom" as he carried this one. :::snort:::

Of course, Zander had to carry a pumpkin if Nolan could. . .

Back at home, Nolan wanted a snack. We turned it into an impromptu “tea”. I went with manly mugs and fish platters that Bre had made. We had crackers, cheeses and halibut salad along with our tea/hot chocolate.

Stacia wants only the finest things in life….

Cian and Jared went off to play a game that Jared created. Nolan and I played Uno. After a few rounds I decided it would be fun to teach him the wild version that we used to play with college friends (ah the memories of being newly married couples in Eugene). This drew Arielle to our table. Then Cian and Jared joined us too.

We all had a lot of fun.

Arielle and I hung our Thanksgiving Tree. Years ago I decided that Thanksgiving is skipped by most to slide into Christmas. We decided to skip Halloween and focus on Thanksgiving. Fall/Harvest season naturally lends itself to this.

We hung a Thanksgiving Tree and it’s already beginning to fill with leaves.

On each leaf someone writes what they are thankful for and attaches it to the tree. It will be fun to watch the tree fill out as Thanksgiving draws closer.

Cian had to go home. We grabbed some dinner – Encore Presentation - and then settled in to watch *Iron Will*. This is another Netflix movie and was one recommended by TOG for school. It is a GREAT movie.

I had the start of another migraine today. Darshia, I remembered to start a log of these headaches. I noted the time I saw the floating dots and 30 minutes later I was home and noted the level of pain. I then followed Sgt. John’s neurologist’s advice and took 3 naproxen…since the Malox made me ill and didn’t work…AND I believe gave me the rebound headache I had on Wed. So far – so good. The pain was about 5 and now is about 2….I noted it all…..and will for a month and then will go back in again to visit the PCM.

I am hoping to get a co-op spice order together by the end of the weekend. We’ll see how that goes. I’m wondering if the essential oils they sell at Monterrey Bay Spice are the kinds that would be good for homemade cleaners.

**All the bold text goes with pictures…OK using BOTH IE and FF I was able to get all but one photo to load. {g}