October 2011

 What a month we've had. It has been full to capacity with fun and visitors. The weather has been warm and beautiful. Our garden is just wrapping up it's growing season, and Tanner's pumpkins have been growing like champions and we harvested 17 in time for Halloween.

 Our family enjoyed hosting the Seattle Hartley clan. Clark and his family came through our area and stayed overnight en route to Disney Land. We had fun visiting with them for a short few minutes on their return trip when their time overlapped with Brad and Ky's trip out to see us. Ky's birthday is in October, so they came flying out to see us and visit the bay area. We had fun picking them up in Oakland, then playing at McDonalds on the way back to Elk Grove. Then we visited Fairytale town and rode all the rides several times. On a beautiful Saturday, we went to Auburn to visit on of Brad's friends from his mission. His friend's parents built some rope bridges up in the trees with platforms between them, it looks like an Ewok village. Tanner had so much fun climbing all over the trees and swinging from the giant rope swing. They also had a small pond with a row boat. Darryl took the boys out for a little paddle around, and shooting rifles in the mountains. We stayed much of the day, it was beautiful.
 In Young Women's we prepared for Young Women in Excellence. It was a great night to showcase all of the talents of the youth. I was really impressed with Gemma Allen's display. She created a power point show about how to ride a horse in shows. She spoke more that night than I have heard her speak before. The boys and I got to see one of her shows a week later.

 Another wonderful surprise was a visit from the Weston kids. Janine and the kids came to Sacramento for a homeschooling conference. Janine had to be gone, so the kids came with me to a pumpkin patch. We tagged along with a preschool group and had a great time. Each of the kids got to pick out a pumpkin, we played on the haystacks, and learned about the animals. Alyssa especially liked the rabbits and was very gentle touching their soft fur.
 We had lots of fun attending the fall festival at Castello Elementary. There was a fantastic clown there that did balloon swords with balloon sheaths. The kids were running around playing swords all evening. The Ryan family came with us and we ate treats and walked around. It was lots of fun. Most of the evening was spent dancing with the DJ music, or playing chase all over the courtyard of the school.
 For Halloween this year we planned a family costume of all spiders, but then Tanner vetoed the idea and Parker was still on board. Tanner then determined that he wanted to be a ghost. I decided to stretch my sewing skills just a little and make a costume for Tanner. It was a lot of fun. I found just the right crushed organza fabric and plastic chain to make him look like Jacob Marley from "A Christmas Carol". Parker's spider costume was also really fun. Finding black hoodies aren't too hard, so I made 4 extra legs with black fabric then took interfacing and designed a web and glued it on the front and painted it with glow in the dark fabric paint. We glued googly eyes on the top and strung the legs together so that when his arms were raised all of his legs would show. Alyssa was a cute little lady bug, with black shiny shoes and black tights. She was often so cozy she would fall asleep. Nana came to visit for Halloween. It was so fun to have her with us. We handed out candy and enjoyed seeing all the kids coming and going from our neighborhood. Our neighbor did a general head count and we got up to 450 kids this year.
 One other piece of big news this month was the day I took my performance test for the NIC exam. That is the national exam for interpreters. If I pass, then I will be certified nationally for the rest of my life as long as I maintain the certificate. I felt pretty good about it, but only time will tell.

A rare shot of the kids together after church and still smiling.