Happy Thanksgiving

What could be better than a long holiday weekend when you don't have much to do but hang out together and be lazy? 

On Wednesday Jared and Ruth helped me with our Thanksgiving food assignments.  Ruth made most of a very complicated apple pie recipe and Jared made the majority of a pumpkin roll.  Both were a big hit at Thanksgiving.

Chuck came home from work early on Wednesday feeling crummy and felt no better on Thursday. It's been one sickness/health thing after another for him the past couple of months.  So he opted to stay home and sleep all day while the rest of us went to grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner, which was very nice (the dinner and visit, not Chuck being sick).

cousin's table

The rest of the holiday we just basically hung out.  I kept checking the black friday deals, but there just wasn't anything I needed to buy so we didn't do shopping or anything.

We did spend the day on Friday setting up the tree and all the Christmas decorations.  That is a big project, but with so many helping hands it wasn't too bad.  So now we have all the halls decked and we are fully immersed in Christmas spirit.

Another Quiet Week

Jared doesn't like posing for pics.

Another quiet week has come and gone for our family.  I can't believe it's already almost Thanksgiving!  Time just seems to move faster and faster.   I just have a few miscellaneous things to report:

•  First quarter has ended and Jared got all A's and Ruth got all A's and a B (chemistry).  
• For Family Home Evening we made a family Chirstmas video for Kaitlin. It turned out pretty cute. Maybe I'll post it closer to chirstmas time.
• I got Kaitlin's Christmas package out in the mail last week and have enjoyed following it across the world. As of yesterday it was in Miami.   She asked for socks, a rain coat, and poptarts and lucky charms. 
• Ruth's high school football team won the state champtionship in a real nail-biter and Ruth was able to go to the game. She said she didn't really know what was going on but it was still exciting.
• Chuck's back has been acting up and it laid him out for a day or two. He got some new meds from the doctor that have really helped.  
• I've been doing NaNoWriMo, and wow has it been a lot of work!  But I'm right on target, as of yesterday I had 35,000 words written.  What am I writing?  A dark and depressing Frozen fanfiction where Anna is killed and Elsa goes off the deep-end.  As of yesterday Elsa was stabbed through the chest and bleeding to death. Hopefully I'll be able to save her today. 
• Jared found out his first percussion assignment in band and he was assigned the jingle bells.  He's hoping for timbales for the other song and doesn't want the cowbell. I'm just happy that he has an opinion at all about what he plays. Maybe he'll start to like it enough to stay with it.

Quiet is Good

Life is quiet and life is good.  I drive carpool, the kids go to school, Chuck rides the train, I might have lunch with a friend, and then at the end of the day we all come home again and sit down together for dinner. Then sometimes someone goes out again, Chuck to a church meeting, or Jared to scouts, or Ruth with friends; or maybe we all sit down together in the living room and watch a TV show while on our respective screens. Before bed we gather again and read from the scriptures and pray and that's it. It's quiet. That's our life.

One thing of note that went on this week is that Ruth went on her first date. She went to the school play and while she didn't like the play much she enjoyed the company of her date.

Ruth: Debate Queen

Ruth's team took 3rd overall

Ruth had another debate tournament this weekend, and I went to serve as a judge.  It was really fun and interesting to judge debate events.  Here is a group of smart, articulate, well dressed teens who are quick and deep thinkers. I was so impressed by all of them.  I confess that I giggled to myself a few times at the leaps of logic that were taken, but at least they were trying; they are looking at the world and at issues and trying to make sense of them. So what if one girl's #1 argument about why we should colonize Mars was that Earth is getting too polluted and Mars would give humans a "fresh start;"  so what if another boy referred to flip phones as "old fashioned phones?"  It's just amazing that they are talking and thinking about this stuff at all.

Ruth got first place in her category at this tournament. It was a combined level, both novice and varsity.  She really loves it and I expect you'll see more of this sort of post in the future.  Thank you so much for supporting her!

Kaitlin  is Doing Well

I assume, when writing this blog, that most of my readers are keeping up with Kaitlin on her missionary blog, but if you are not, know that she is doing great. She hasn't been sick, and she has been managing her anxiety very well, no problems at all.  She has faced some of her greatest fears (parasites and dogs) with determination and a "can do" attitude.  She had the first person she's been teaching get baptized last week and she was very excited about that.  She has asked for handwritten letters and cards for Christmas.

How to send a letter to Kaitlin: Letters go to Paraguay with $1.20 in US postage.  Or you can use the LDS churches Pouch System.  What that means is that you send a letter to the church with a normal stamp, and they put it in a pouch that is then delivered weekly to Kaitlin's mission.  It takes about the same amount of time to get to her but saves you some $.   To send a letter through the pouch system it has to be one piece of paper (I use thick paper like card stock), folded in 3rds and taped closed. You write the address right on the outside of the paper like you would an envelope.   This is so that all the pouch letters can get through customs quickly (they see there are no valuable in the envelopes - there are no envelopes - get me?).

Both Kaitlin's pouch address  and Paraguay address are on her missionary blog.  Email me if you'd like that information.  If you want to send a package know that it's like $80 to send even a very small package.  There is a different address for packages that I can give you.

Halloween in Pictures 

I've already posted several pictures on Facebook, so for the blog I've tried to find other pictures for your entertainment.

On Monday we decorated sugar cookies with pumpkin faces.

On Friday Ruth and Jared didn't have any school because it was the end of the quarter.  We carved pumpkins and Ruth went and worked at a neighborhood spook ally for a few hours.

On Saturday Ruth and I went to compete at a huge local corn maze/fall fair costume contest.  The Cyberman is not an easy costume to get on, especially in a parking lot.

Here we are waiting for the contest to begin.  To our left is the Charlie Brown family that ultimately won. Ironically, the same family competed in the Pumpkin Festival that I won two weeks ago.    And there is Jared. Jared didn't want to dress up and wasn't thrilled with sitting through an hour long costume contest, but I think he had some fun at the corn maze- he smiled a few times at least.

Ruth as Astrid. She wore this costume to school on Thursday as well.

Here I'm being interviewed by the host.  I decided to take off the helmet to add a "human" element to my entry.

The corn maze has a lot of activities, including a huge corn pit. The corn pit is my favorite. There is nothing like siting in and sinking your feet into 24 inches of corn.

Ruth dressed as a pirate for Halloween eve.

Chuck and I dressed as The Doctor from the TV show Doctor Who. I'm the Twelfth Doctor and he is the Eleventh Doctor.  It wasn't lost on me that dressing up as the same person was kind of weird for a married couple.

I put the cyberman out for Halloween. Most of the people coming to the house said it was a nice 'robot' but there were a few Who fans that were impressed. The cyberman has been in the front room ever since and it freaks me out just a little every time I walk past it.