Life Got in the Way

I apologize for the long wait between posts. The last month has seen two birthdays (and a third celebration!) in our household, as well as registration, my annual physical, parent weekend guests, a Thanksgiving visit from my mom, Christmas shopping, and school demands. It's been busy!

What I've been reading and watching....

If you're a fan of Jan Karon and her Mitford series, her new book, Home to Holly Springs, is a keeper. It seemed to be slow in starting, but it all comes together if you stick with it.

When my mom was here for Thanksgiving, we watched the movie, Miss Potter. Another keeper. What a charming movie. It's PG; nothing objectionable, though there is a thematic element which may upset young children. If you haven't seen it, it is the story of the life of Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit stories. Abby was off doing other things and didn't watch it with us, but I wouldn't hesitate allowing her to watch it.

In terms of the children watching and reading lately.... Abby has been reading the Mandie and Young Mandie books, and quite enjoying them. For films... Ratatouille and The Incredibles have been on the video lately. Believe it or not, we had not seen The Incredibles all the way through until last night!

We celebrated Andrew's birthday on Thanksgiving. Andrew's birthday is Christmas day; after Abby, Steve and I all celebrated our birthdays between October 19 and November 15, Andrew was feeling a bit left out. Andrew also noted that on each of our birthday only the celebrant receives gifts, but on Andrew's birthday everyone receives gifts. So we decided to set aside Thanksgiving day to celebrate Andrew. It worked well, as our family is small and it gave the children new things to play with and keep them entertained while the adults visited on the holiday.

We are now approaching Christmas, and I'm terribly behind. Still have to do the photo for the card. Hopefully, that will happen in the next week or so. The tree is up.... Abby and Andrew insisted upon doing it the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We have an artificial tree due to my allergies; however when we got our well-worn tree down from the attic, it seemed to be missing some branches. So we purchased a new one this year... now they even come pre-strung with lights!

May you and yours have a wonderful advent!

P * A * R * T * Y

After our trip to Utica earlier this month, Abby decided she wanted to take some friends riding for her birthday. We had such a good time at Cedar Creek Ranch, and felt so good about what we had experienced that we decided that's where we would head, despite the distance.

Abby and three friends, along with another mom and me left at about 11:00 am. We got some McD's on the way, and made it down to Cedar Point around 1:00 pm.

It was a beautiful 70+ degree October day with the trees just beginning to turn. We enjoyed it as much as we did the last time. For two of the girls it was their first time on horseback. They did great and really seemed to enjoy it!

Here are some photos of our day....



























We arrived back at about 4:45 in the afternoon. And if we hadn't enough fun... then it was time to go to the roller rink for the School Skating party. Abby has been to an ice rink on many occasions, but this was her first time at the roller rink. She skated on in-line skates, and she loved it!

By the way, after driving and riding, and running all day and falling earlier in the week... today I felt like I was hit by a truck!

Double digits!

Abby turned ten today! She's now in double digits!

It's hard to imagine that my baby is ten years old.

This photo was taken in Nanchang, China at 11 months.

So what does a 10 year old want for her birthday? Her big gift was a new bicycle, which she got back in June. The other items that have been mentioned in the last month or so include:
1. A makeover for her bedroom...
2. A new pair of black velvet pants
3. A karaoke machine
4. Items to decorate her school locker, including a dry erase white board, mirror, and locker shelf.
5. Earrings
6. Webkinz
.... and the one thing that she wanted above all else...
7. HOT ROLLERS!

We'll have to see if we can get a posted photo of the ten year old with curls!

SPLAT!

Zuzu LOVES to go for walks. It's her favorite thing on the planet. I'm supposed to exercise. So each night, after supper, Zuzu and I go for a walk. When she sees her leash, she dances.

On Wednesday night, I took her out late--about 9:15--after Abby and I had finished studying for her science test. It was dark and overcast. On the west end of our street, the sidewalks are quite uneven. We were strolling at a good clip-- when SPLAT. I didn't even know what happened, except I was flying through the air and came down HARD.

In an instant, I realized I am getting old. It took me a couple of minutes to get my bearings and to take inventory that all parts were intact. Although my arms are still sore and my knee is still skinned, I managed to walk away and get home on my own. And Zuzu? When I was face down on the pavement and dropped her leash, she stayed right with me. What a great dog!

Another Busy Weekend...

Whew... what a weekend!

Friday night I received a phone call, offering us 4 tickets to the Artist Series at the College. It was an event entitled Dance from the Caucuses. While I expected it to be almost the same as a Russian dance event Abby and I saw a few years ago, it was quite different. This troupe was from Southern Russia/Georgia, near the border of Afghanistan and Turkey, and the dance had much more of an middle-Eastern influence. There were also twice as many men in the troupe as women!

Andrew has been to two dance events prior to this one--Irish Step Dancing and Traditional Chinese dance. He managed to fall asleep after about 5 minutes of both performances. He managed to stay awake through all of this.... I think it was the Russian dances with swords and knives that kept his interest!
Saturday, Andrew had his last soccer game. His team went undefeated for the season! Steve had a Kung fu tournament at a church about 10 miles west, so he dropped off Andrew and headed to the tournament. Though he was placed in the wrong grouping--he was incorrectly put in the "under 45" grouping rather than the "45 and older" group---he did manage to earn a first in weapons and a second in hand set. Two more trophies to add to the case!

Then, in the afternoon, we all decided to head west to go apple picking. Growing up in Cornwall, we had a local farm, Jones Farm, where we could go purchase local apples. In Quincy, there was an orchard just north of town. Apples don't grow in Texas, and here in suburbia the cost of land is too dear to devote to orchards. So we headed about 40 miles west out near DeKalb and found an orchard. The children got to pick some red delicious and jonagolds, and I bought some fujis. We also stopped at the local Jewel and purchased caramel, so we'll be making caramel apples.


We arrived back at 4:30, and headed for 5:00 pm church since I was asked to teach the 2 year old Sunday school class on Sunday morning. We were then thinking of heading to the 6:00 pm college game--but enough is enough! We went home and watched it on local cable instead. It was a great game, with the victor being decided with 7 seconds remaining! And we won!

Fall Break

It's fall break at the Grammar School. Each year we try to do something special. One year we went to the Shedd Aquarium. Last year, we went down to the newly opened indoor waterpark at Starved Rock State Park. We decided to repeat that trip this year...we went down Thursday and returned on Friday. It was a short trip, but we beat the crowds and got the 'bargain' weekday rates.

So what did we do on our trip? We first went to the state park. The lodge there was built in 1933 by the CCC. We had lunch, then hiked to the top of Starved Rock.

We then checked into our digs at Grand Bear Lodge. In addition to the water park, we got a room with bunk beds--a big deal in our house!--and played miniature golf.





On Friday morning, Steve and Andrew swam while Abby and I went to Cedar Point to go horseback riding. While she was a little scared in the beginning, within a few minutes she was totally in love with riding and her horse, Buckaroo, a former barrel racer. We rode a three mile trail, some of which was along an old rail line for the D & O (Danville and Oglesby) railroad and learned alot about Cedar Point history--in the mid 1800's it was a major coal mining town, with 10,000 men and boys working in the mines. Cedar Point now has 300 residents and is mainly a corn farming town.

Abby's first words when she got off the horse...."When can we come back?"

All I Want for Christmas....

A picture is worth a thousand words!