This week we kept pretty busy and there were a number of events going on. Before I hit the major things, here is a summary of the things we did in between all the bigger things.
For RS I had a list of things I was working through all week--haven't finished all of them yet. I also did a food order, had a presidency meeting, checked on a sister who had surgery, and figured out visiting teaching changes.
I had lots of errands to run, took Jared to the orthodontist, and took a friend to lunch. I exercised, cleaned, did laundry, shopped, went to the library, gave the dog a bath (and gave him his monthly treatments for heart worm prevention and flea & ticks), and did some things to help Tanner with his mission papers.
The Elders came for dinner last night and Jared went over to a friend's house for the afternoon / evening. The boys got out of school two hours early yesterday.
Now on to the bigger events! (That didn't sound like enough, right?) Last Saturday we finally cut down the two trees in our front yard. I was nervous about Frank using the chain saw again, but no stitches this time, thankfully! Cutting the trees down didn't turn out to take too long, but combine that with hauling away all the wood afterwards, raking leaves, and weeding and it turned into a mostly all day event. At least the weather was perfectly beautiful, so it was a nice day to be out all day. Here are a bunch of pictures that I took during the process:
(Notice how different the two trees are. They used to be the same size, but the one on the right of the picture caught some kind of disease which really stunted its growth.)
First tree is down!
Seth was a great helper...helped me carry all the branches over to the curb so we could load them on a trailer later. (He has gardening gloves on.)
Both trees down!
Hey, there's a house behind those trees!
After we cut down the trees we noticed a lot of things...like the shutters need to be painted, the house needs to be washed, and the screens need to be replaced. Actually, we already knew about the screens. The birds liked to use pieces of them to build their nests. The two screens on the top right were practically all gone!
It took two trips to haul away all the branches.
This is how the house looked at the end of the day.
That evening, after getting cleaned up, Frank and I went out to dinner (we went to Noodle & Co...the first time I've been there; I liked it a lot) and we also went shopping and purchased a few things for the bathroom makeover. On the way to dinner, we stopped to take a picture of the airplane that crashed last week. They were actually in the process of removing it from the trees that it crashed into:
See the building behind the trees? That's where one of Frank's clients has their business.
On Monday Frank and I bought a few flowers and another pumpkin for the front of the house, which was looking a little bare:
(But overall, I like the way it looks without the trees much better.)
Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were also perfectly beautiful days. Sunny, warm, sparkly, fall days!:
Close up pictures of the flowers (well, closer anyway):
After Tuesday, it started to get cloudy and cool down. By Friday it definitely felt more like the end of October is supposed to feel, although it was not bad...chilly, not downright cold.
Tuesday was Jared's 16th birthday. These pictures were taken on the previous Friday, though...he had friends over for pizza and cake that evening:
On Tuesday morning we had a nice sunrise. Frank called me and told me to get some pictures. I was confused because I didn't think the sky was exceptionally beautiful but then I saw some of the pictures that Frank took at I understood...it was pretty spectacular where he was at! Here are some of the ones I took, though:
Jared opened his presents after Seth got home from school. We skyped Tanner so that he could participate also:
On Wednesday our ward had a Trunk or Treat. I talked Seth into being a Jedi this year because we already had an awesome Jedi cloak that Grandma made him (So easy! I didn't have to make or buy anything!) I totally forgot that we also had two Jedi costumes in our costume box, but Jared remembered and one of them fit Seth perfectly:
Frank wasn't feeling well at all on Wednesday. He actually took a sick day from work. His stomach really hurt all day. So I took the boys to the Trunk or Treat by myself.
I didn't get a very good picture of them, but this is one of my former Primary presidency counselors and her family. She always comes up with the cutest theme costumes for her whole family every year. This year, as you can hopefully see, they were all Winnie the Pooh characters. She is about 6 months pregnant so she was Kanga...so clever! She had a little stuffed kangaroo that she carried around to be Roo. Her husband is Eyeore, her oldest daughter is Tigger, her son is Owl, her next daughter is Winnie the Pooh, and her youngest daughter is Piglet. The costumes looked so professional, and then when you looked closer you realized they were really very simple; not even a lot of sewing involved. I wish my mind worked like that!
More Trunk or Treat pictures:
New Elders...we got both of them last week, plus a new Sister too.
Seth and his friend Camilla. They are two of kind...these two were made for each other! :)
The view out the back of our house is always beautiful, but especially in autumn...and in the morning:
Here it is again, in the evening this time. I loved the color of the blue / grey sky against the yellow / gold of the tree:
On Friday Seth had International Children's Day at his school. He had to do a small report on a country, create a costume representing that country (or its flag) and create a "culture box" with items representing that country. I spent quite a bit of time with him this week helping him get his report done and figuring out what to do for his costume and culture box. Seth chose England for his country. Here he is with his culture box and wearing his costume:
Did you know that England's flag is white with a red cross on it? I didn't know that until this week. I thought it was blue with an intersecting red & white cross and red & white X. It turns out that flag is the United Kingdom flag. See, I learned something new!
Anyway, the culture box was the most challenging because we haven't visited any foreign countries ourselves besides Canada. He was supposed to have things like money, clothing, toys, postcards, pictures, etc. Not easy to track down if you have not actually been to another country! Dan was going to send us some pictures from England, but I was trying to figure out what else to put in the box. Then I woke up in the middle of the night one night and remembered that I actually have a platter and a coaster set from England...Mom & Dad got them for me when they went there after Ben's mission. Can't believe I forgot that! I also decided to go to a party supply store to see if they would have a flag or something like that. They didn't...but I ran into a friend there and when I explained to her why I was there, she told me she'd been to England and she had postcards and money she could loan us! Total tender mercy!!! So it all worked out well. I went to the little program they had at the school that morning, which was very nice and Seth came home very happy saying that he had a great day.
Friday night he got back in his Jedi costume for trick or treating, of course. Frank took Seth out while I stayed home to answer the door. Frank definitely had that harder job; especially since we had very few trick or treaters come to our house. We didn't even go through a whole bowl of candy this year, and I was giving 3 or 4 pieces of candy to every one who came by. Thankfully, we did not buy a lot of candy this year so we don't have a huge amount left over, but still more than I would like to have lying around the house, tempting me to eat it.
Seth is my only child who doesn't care how much candy he gets. Every year he decides he doesn't want to walk very far so he doesn't even fill up his little pumpkin. It's strange, but I am not complaining! Here he is after trick or treating:
And that is all for this week, folks!
