Halloween 2019

This year was the first year where I wasn't sure if Wesley would be too cool to trick-or-treat. He wasn't sure he was going to dress up but I talked him into a caveman wig and beard to hide his face. We decided he could either be the Geico caveman or Forrest Gump on his infamous run. Either way he was fully covered and not embarrassed (even though we saw several other classmates out trick-or-treating). Greta was my sweet butterfly.

Kid Achievements

The kids have been doing well in school and activities. Wesley has been playing the alto saxophone (my old sax) since 5th grade and started marching band this year. He has marched in two parades now and they sound great! I'm very proud of him.

Wesley & Alex

Every fall the elementary school has a race that is part of their fundraiser.  Greta decided she was really going to run this year and try and win it. There were 150 kids running and she came in 7th. She did great!

My 4th grader is now wearing my size shoes. Yikes!

Wesley has routinely done well in school with all A's. He's a very good student and was rewarded by being asked to be part of the "Students with Honors" program. They get to do fun things and help out with events. It's quite the honor. They had the induction and breakfast ceremony that was really well done. Good job Wesley!

Hot Tub

When we moved into this house there was a cement slab on the west side off the deck that we knew was used for a hot tub by the previous owners. It sat unused for a few years until we turned it into a giant sandbox for the kids. Here is a link to that post, you really should go look at it, the tiny children are adorable. Well fast forward nearly eight years and it's been sitting unused...except perhaps by the cats as a litter box. We decided it was time to clean it off and get a used hot tub to put on it.

We found one on Craigslist for $700. The hard part was trying to figure out how to move an empty 900 pound hot tub. Youtube had many good tutorials, so we loaded up the truck with all the possible tools we thought we would need and a tilting trailer my parents let us use. Sean and I have moved several 6000lb+ milling machines by hand so a 900lb hot tub seemed like childs play. It actually went smoothly. Sean knew what he was doing. We used pvc pipe and a winch and rolled it up onto the trailer (that had plywood attached to it). You'd have thought we knew what we were doing. It helped that the tub owner was a muscular guy that had his grown son there to help.

The hot tub was full and working when we went to pick it up from the previous owners. It had not been winterized and water blown out of the pipes so it was a race to get it home, placed, wired up and filled up before the next freezing night. Turns out we had about eight days to do everything. Sean rented a trencher and trenched a new line out to the pole (there was old wiring from the previous owners hot tub but it was old and questionable). Sean laid new wiring in pvc pipes and got it all wired up.

I'm sure I'm making this all sound easy but it was a ton of work for Sean. He did it all (except the loading and unloading). He's awesome and only complained a little bit. The wiring was time consuming, he spent three solid weekends finishing this project. I don't think either of us knew what was involved in getting a hot tub installed. I'm thinking paying someone might have been a better idea (at least the moving it part). But oh well, it's finished now and full of hot bubbly water which has been divine on these 25 degree days. The kids thoroughly enjoy it as well. We were in it the other night while it was snowing and Wesley said "I will remember this forever!" Which made me smile.

I wrapped the trunk of the tree in Christmas lights, adds a nice ambiance.

Goodbyes

When we first joined our church there was one lady in particular that made us feel welcome and really embraced my kids into the church. She made us want to return so we did. It became our church. Angela was in charge of the kids Sunday school classes and my kids were pretty small at the time and religion was something they hadn't been introduced to. She made it fun to learn.

I started helping her out on the Wednesday night classes they had for the kids. I enjoyed helping out and watching as she played games and did crafts with the kids.My kids really enjoyed it too.

Angela recently moved away and before she left she took all the kids to go bowling as a final fun activity. We are going to miss Angela!

She never lets people photograph her, so I'm grateful to get this shot.