Parties, Rocks, Airplanes

Hola!
We just have one week left of October! Can you believe it!

Kara had her very well-planned-out Halloween party/sleepover last Friday. She invited 5 girls to come after school in costume, and had decorations, craft projects, snack food, dinner, and movies all planned out. Here are the girls in costume, with smileys since I didn't ask if I could post their photos...









Mini-Pumpkin faces...


and the cool Halloween tree decoration Kara made (OK, it's "supposed" to be a Christmas star tree. But why not use orange frosting for a Halloween tree?).


IN OTHER NEWS...

ROCKS. Teresa's new passion is (drumroll, please...) rocks. Her biology teacher grandmother will appreciate this. She collects, examines, and reads about all kinds of rocks. They have been spread out all over her floor for the past weeks and months. Major milestone: Today she organized them into drawers. (Can you hear that? It's her mom cheering!!) Here she is next to the drawers.

Here is a close-up of her favorite drawer: it has some geode samples.




F-15 SHOW. David got to go with the scouts on Saturday, to an Air Force Base where they got a tour and get inside the F-15 planes. Here is the link to some photos on Facebook. Frank and David are in a couple of them. They watched/listened to/FELT the RUMBLE as they took off. It was really cool.

Well, I better boogie. Have a great week! Kari

Autumn is Upon Us

Hello!

I find myself just blinking, and days and then weeks are gone. We are living (read: Kari has one hand clutching the back corner of the calendar, and it is galloping away at breakneck speed) the months of fall, and the days just fly by. Here are a few highlights:

SOCCER. Kara's team won their game yesterday! She always plays a part of the game in goal.

TURKEYS. I always see this group of 6 or 8 wild turkeys as I drive around, but of course I never have my camera. One morning they were just across the street from our house, so I could take a picture of them.

CROSS COUNTRY. Both David and Teresa are running this year for their respective schools: the high school and the middle school.

They are building a new high school, however, and with all the construction mess, they will not be hosting any home meets this season! (Hence, no photo ops of David running...) At any rate, you can believe that he runs, and he's also pretty good at it. Here is Teresa at one of her home meets.

WOMEN's RETREAT. Our women's group at church (Relief Society) got to spend a night at the awesome camp the church owns in New Hampshire. It is just beautiful, with cabins by a lake and a great dining hall facility. And I must say, we have some talented cooks in our group! Ribs for dinner, then homemade jellies and syrups on the pancakes the next morning. The girls go there for Young Women's Camp each year. Now I know where Teresa has had all her great activities for camp the last 2 summers!

It is such a scramble to get everyone situated at home, before Mom leaves for 24 hours. But well, well worth it. It poured on us for the first few hours, then Saturday it cleared and was beautiful for us to take our hike around the lake.

(My allotted 20 minutes for this is up.)

Have a great week! Love, Kari

Hamster with a Soccer Ball

Sunday again! If I blink just one more time, September may disappear.

SOCCER. Yesterday was filled with soccer and more soccer. Here is a Kara photo.

XC MEETS. Last week, Teresa and David both had cross-country meets, but they were "away" and I did not go to take pictures. Maybe next time will be "home."

DO-IT-YOURSELF. And of course, let's not forget house projects. Mowing, raking, painting a patch downstairs. Frank and Teresa removed the rest of the stump in the backyard, our poor tree taken over by carpenter ants and beetles.

RODENT ANTICS. Kara's hamster is the most tame creature I have ever seen. She lets any of Kara's friends hold her, and doesn't nip or complain about anything. Kara builds scenarios for her to participate in, then takes pictures of her. She takes her out all the time, lets her run in the ball around the house, and even puts doll clothes on her. Here is our soccer-playing hamster:

And the hamster on her way to getting married. (Thanks, Grammie D--this is actually the dress you made for Mia, her American Girl doll! Modified slightly, it can also be used to have a hamster get married.)

Here we go, jumping into the next week! Here's hoping you can find ways to enjoy yours to the fullest--:)

Kari

P.S. Just experimenting: here's my nephew Craig with his Homecoming date!

Autumn Arrives

Hola!

Another week gone by...all I have to do is blink, and the days keep zooming!

FOND FAREWELL. This is partly a "farewell" blog to one of my favorite pairs of shoes. Funny how if you wear shoes every day for a few seasons, they...wear out. I would have kept wearing them anyway, but then I noticed a crack in the bottom of the sole of one. In this wet region, that would spell out w-e-t-f-e-e-t-f-o-r-m-e a few times a week, I'm afraid. :(

So I skeptically went shopping and I tried the brand my mom swears by: Naturalizer. I always wonder just a little when she says it's the "only kind I buy," plus they are a tad more expensive. But I tried these on, and ----- my feet gave a very relieved and satisfied, "Aaaahhh!" They fit wonderfully and are SO comfortable. I can walk the halls at school all day on the 3 days a week I tutor at the elementary school, and my feet will be happy.

BIGGER IN TEXAS. I also tried a new grocery store this week, and my neighbor talked about "Texas donuts" from this store, only during the month of September.

So HERE are photos of a "Texas Donut!" (One will feed your whole family.) We got a good chuckle out of them.

I left out Teresa in the last blog since she was still deciding on a sport at school, and other activities. She settled on cross-country, so those practices started this week. (I don't know where my kids get that running gene; Frank and I are very much NOT runners!) In the music area, she is doing chorus this year instead of band. She also wants to audition next week for 'Select Chorus.' That's a special chorus that practices separately from regular chorus.

CLEAN STOVE. Now, the last piece of amazing news is that I cleaned the stove on Saturday...I mean, I really cleaned the outside, scrubbing those dumb burner covers, etc. for about 2 hours (Kara helped). Go ahead, "Ooohh" and "Aaahh," it won't be done again for months!

Have a fabulous week! Kari

Stuff this Week!

Hola!

Here are some thoughts about this past week:

TIME. I remember the story sent along to me via email, about each of us being given the exact same number of seconds and minutes and hours every day, to use as we choose. No one receives more, no one receives less, and when you go to bed at night, regardless of how you used them, you won't get those minutes back.

Then today in church, one of the speakers talked about "busyness" in our day-to-day lives, and that "busyness" often boils down to no more than mere "distraction." Our "busyness" does not help anyone or make a real difference, it simply passes the time. It brought to mind a phrase I heard in another talk, another year: that we are often caught up "in the thick of thin things."

I know I need to focus my time on the truly important things. I can recite to you exactly what those "truly important things" are. And yet, even with all that inspirational philosophizing, I look at the calendar and I know for a fact that I cannot keep up with it!

This year I still have 3 children attending 3 different schools (this is our last year of Elementary School--imagine that!). Each of these schools has a ridiculous number of meetings and clubs and parent groups, in addition to the after-school sports practices and games or meets. I receive 5-15 emails a week from each school. Add in music lessons and practices, church youth programs and activities, and also preparations for our own responsibilities in our congregation.

It's OK, though! Like everyone else, we continue our quest to be and do a little better today than we did yesterday.

SOCCER. Kara started soccer this week! Yes, we are going for it. She still limps a little when she runs. But it will get better with time.

STAIN the DECK. (Those 3 little words are now enough to make me sit down on the floor and cry.) What we thought would be a 1-day home project, (of course) turned into many, many more hours and evenings than that, and 3 members of our family working on different parts of it took up multiple days. You have heard me complain about home projects before. Let's all have a moment of silence for the untimely departure of Kari's sanity.




Here is David with the beginning part, weeks ago, cleaning it/scraping/treating it with some jug of something from Home Depot.


HYDRANGEA BUSH. We did plant a bush in the front yard Saturday! It looks nice enough: now, can we keep it alive?? :) Here is an Internet photo of one (NOT ours...)





NEW CLASS AT CHURCH. I have been asked to teach the adult Gospel Doctrine Sunday School class at church! This is a stretch for me. Don't those teachers know the scriptures backwards and forwards?? I do not. Send good vibes my direction, as I will have my nose buried in the Old Testament every possible moment in lesson preparation.



GOOD NEWS. I have to include at least one bit of good news. We ran out of baking powder this morning and I looked online: you can make a substitute for baking powder, including cream of tartar, baking soda and corn starch. No change in taste, as far as our family was concerned. Breakfast was saved!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great week! Kari

We Like Earl

Hola!

HURRICANE EARL. The title of this blog is to show gratitude for the change in weather. Last week was so hot and humid (95 degrees with 85% humidity=YUK), I was going to just melt. But "Hurricane Earl" came through, and for all the hype (you should have heard the drama, for Pete's sake), we only got a few hours of rain on Friday night. This is a cool Internet satellite image I found. It does look pretty intimidating. The coast and Cape Cod received more, but our storm was pretty mild.

What it did, however, was reduce the humidity and decrease our temps back down into the 70's. Whew! Thank you, Earl.

DAVID's BACK. Well! Cause for celebration at our house: David had his 6-month check with the orthopaedic surgeon, who did the spinal fusion last March. The biggest questions concerned what activities he could participate in: for the last 6 months, David has been limited on activities. And...

He is good to go! He wanted to participate in Cross-Country again this fall, and...he can!
He asked about rock-climbing and rapelling. Lifting weights as part of his sports workout. Climbing, jumping, etc., etc. It's all good.

The doctor DID recommend waiting a little on one request: the trampoline. Maybe he should take it slow on that, since he hasn't done any real exercise for 6 months. But his back looks great.

KARA's LEG. Kara also had her follow-up appointment, and her leg is healing very well. She is still going to physical therapy but can resume "normal activity" as she feels like she can. She is not quite back to "normal," of course. She limps some, and puts ice on her leg after she's been out playing for awhile, or walking a lot. She has been on her bicycle, inline skates, and she wants to be in soccer again...we'll see.

TUTORING. I started tutoring again, same Elementary Schools as last year. It will be 3 days a week, with the English Language Learners (ELL, an interchangable phrase with ESL, English as a Second Language).

BASEMENT. We are almost to the point of feeling like we have our house back. Just moving a few more things out to the garage, and of course labeling all those bins, so Mom is not the only one who knows where things are. Maybe I'll post some basement photos next time or so--then you can see results of a few of these looooooooooong projects we've plodded through.

Have a great week! Kari

Another House Saturday

Hola--

Another House Saturday. We made it through another Saturday. Yessssss! It's been all about the house lately, I'm sure you're getting tired of it. I know I am! Teresa, too: "I just wish all this house stuff would be over with..." (I feel your pain, Teresa!)

Loam and Gravel. Yesterday we spent our hours hauling loam (dirt) to one side of the house, and hauling gravel to the other side. Did you know they have "regular" gravel, and "rounded" gravel? We chose "rounded." It's not jagged or sharp, as the name implies. Fewer injuries that way. It also looks more "landscaped," in my opinion.

Cutting Shelves. We threw out all our particle board shelves that we had in the garage. Particle board grows mold very easily, and we'll have none of that, thank you very much!!! The experiment was to buy plywood, cut it and paint it: mold spores will not permeate the paint.

So, Frank cut shelves. The kids sanded and painted them. They are drying as I type this. Of course, it took longer than we thought. (No. Really??) We will cut and paint shelves for one more round, saving 4 shelving units (18 shelves total). Then we'll decide what makes sense from there.

Woodpecker Hole. Frank also patched a woodpecker hole: yes, a woodpecker tried to drill a hole in our house...sigh.

(My friend told me they're buying a house that "needs work." I did not say it out loud, but inside I screamed "RUN!! RUN AWAY FAST!!")

IN OTHER NEWS.

Kara had a good x-ray last Thursday! She can slowly use the boot less and less over the next 2 weeks. The bone is healing well and for that we are extremely grateful. She's still going to physical therapy and doing exercises to strengthen the muscles and increase flexibility.

Fisher Cat. Teresa and I saw a fisher cat in the backyard this week! Bigger than cats, kind of a weasel-y face, and furry. They really have no enemies except humans, and they're agressive: a little mean. You just leave them alone, and walk away slowly. Now we know what might have dug around the wasp nests we had, and possibly what brought about the demise of the neighbor's cat a couple of weeks ago. :(

That sums it up for the Boston Whitesells. May your week be full of productivity and progress! Kari