Fall Frenziness & Fun

It's been a busy fall for us all... Laurie has started her heavy traveling period for the school, which makes for very long days for her, and not a lot of time at home. I'm in the middle of fall cleanup at all of my customer's houses. The kids are full swing in school now and all of their extra-curricular activities: swimming for both on Tuesday & Thursday, Savannah ballet Monday evenings, Andrew church choir on Wednesday evenings, Andrew taikwondo on Saturday mornings. Andrew has home work almost every weeknight and Savannah is just now beginning to get some once or twice a week (I might be wrong, but I don't think I had homework until I was in junior high).

Soccer is done until spring for Andrew, which helped our weekly schedules a little. But, soon he'll start Friday evening indoor soccer at the church... but, that's just for fun; no games and just once a week (needs that time since he can't run around outside like he does spring/summer/fall). And, since he's involved in swimming and taidwondo, we're not going to do basketball this year. That would be one more evening a week and about 6 games on Saturdays. TOO MUCH!!!!

Now some hilights from the last few weeks...

Here's our "white belt"...



Andrew LOVES his taikwondo!! He goes every Saturday morning for a class at Eastview (our church). It's taught by a 6th degree master black belt who owns Victory Academy (taikwondo, gymnastics, dance and cheerleading) here in Bloomington. After signing Andrew up and visiting the academy a couple of times, we decided to start Savannah in ballet there, too. Much smaller classes and very professional instruction. She loves it and is really looking forward to her winter recital on December 15 (I think that's the date).

And speaking of Savannah... Her first tooth came out this past week :) Laurie and I actually pinned her down one evening and tried to pull it, but... THAT wasn't going to happen!! She finally lost it at school on Thursday... and, if I have the story correct... it basically just fell out and it was rollin around on her tongue. And, of course, the Toothfairy visited that night and left $1 (I think I got 5-cents).

Kids and I went pumpkin huntin' a couple of weeks ago...

I've never seen two kids be so serious while picking out pumpkins... they both felt very overwhelmed at times (so did I!!) but, they picked the "perfect" pumpkins. We also picked up some "decorative" things, that the kids weren't all that thrilled about. Although, they did have a fun time going through all the funny looking gourds and choosing some for me.

I had the kids draw on a piece of paper the face that wanted carved into their pumpkin... the results were pretty close to what they had drawn:

It's a jungle in here...

Started moving the plants inside a few days ago when the temperatures started to dip down... Not keeping as many inside this winter, though. Here's a sample of what's been moved inside:

This alamanda is one of my favorite flowering tropicals... beautiful bright yellow trumpet-like flowers. Hopefully I'll be able to winter it over successfully inside. Although, it can be a hard one to keep full as it is right now.

The jasmine has been moved indside also and it was full of buds when I brought it in... a few days later the house was filled with the scent of jasmine. I enjoy it, but it can become a little overpowering at times. I prefer night bloomington jasmine (not really a jasmine), but it's very difficult to get to bloom indoors... I still have one of these and will be bringing it inside early this next week, as well as my firecracker plant and orange bird of paradise. All others that are sitting outside still will be going to Eastview for the winter.

I have a gorgeous Key Largo Chinese Evergreen on the front porch, but it's too big for our house. I'm afraid that I left it outside too long and the cold has gotten to it. Many tropicals will survivor with temps dipping to the high 30's for short periods of time like we've been receiving lately, but... the chinese evergreen isn't one. Hopefully it wasn't hurt.

One spindle palm and several phoenix roebelinii are still outside and are all be going to the church (although, the spindle is a little tall... not sure how it's getting there, still. We'll see... it might have to stay somehow (???????).

Halloween...

Andrew and Savannah LOVE to play dress-up, so needless to say THEY LOVE HALLOWEEN. If you know Andrew very well at all you'll be able to guess what he went as. Savannah was planning on dressing up as a princess, but... that was until she saw the Barbie Pet Doctor costume and realized she could use Mr Tumnus as a "prop" for her costume.

This was the first year we didn't drive anywhere... Laurie just walked them around the neighborhood for about 45-minutes. They collected enough candy to last them until Easter - we don't let them have it very often... and, we keep it up high in the kitchen :)

Nature walks at Funk's Grove...

Every fall we take a Sunday afternoon and go to Funk's Grove where there is an old chapel, cemetary and walking trails through some woods. We take a picnic lunch, walk the trails, take LOTS of pictures, look at the old (and this time new) cemetary stones and have lots of good talks. This is has become one of Laurie's and my favorite annual events for our family. We started when Andrew was just a baby. Here are a few of the MANY pictures we took that day...