October happenings

October started with the first ever Lego Derby for our cub scouts!  Danny's car won "Most Creative" and he also did super well in the races.  He didn't place in the top three but I think he was 4th or 5th - OH SO CLOSE!  His car has an elephant on it...

I loved seeing these little boys huddled together to watch the races - Corban, Chase, Skyler, Griff, and Danny.  (Skyler's posse)

Got our house all decked out for the month of Halloween

Our newest and best improvement for this year...

Devri made these books for us - aren't they awesome!?!?!  

I took Skyler and Danny with their best friends to Cornbelly's.   This is now my favorite way to take my kids to this fun place - with a best friend along, they were good for HOURS and HOURS of playtime! 

"It is called Cornbelly's mom"

This is a random pic - but Shayne, myself, Hunter and Carson went to a scary haunted house.  You could pick levels of scariness - Hunter and I decided to go down one notch from the scariest.  Carson got separated from us in EVERY SINGLE ROOM by the workers and he was tormented.  It was hilarious.

Maybe someday, Cole will understand that pictures are faster when you just smile and let them happen.  He is such a STINKER!

Here we are with Great Grandma on her 95th birthday.

Some serious gaming (Shayne & Curtis)

Skyler - my little monkey

While I was paying for the climbing place (in a matter of 5 minutes) someone broke the window of my car and stole my purse.  Fortunately, there wasn't anything of great value in my purse - I had taken my wallet inside with me.  I knew better than to leave my purse - but I also thought I am at a window-store front business, it won't happen here.  Lesson learned.  They are quick and efficient.  They hit another car in the same lot - neither of us had been away from our cars for 5 minutes.

Skyler is now talking about robbers all the time.  He is always relieved when we get to our car and no robbers have come again.  He asks me all sorts of questions about robbers and makes comments like - they must not have kids and robbers always wear black.  I felt violated and vulnerable - and ANGRY.   Apparently there has been a huge increase of such robberies in our area and it's been linked to a national chain that moves from one city to the next.  I'm grateful they didn't get my wallet and I'm grateful nothing happened to my family.  There is a silver lining... right?!!

BEST SURPRISE EVER!!

About 1 week before this happened, my sweet husband said, 

"By the way, you are going to visit Lara on these dates and I wanted to surprise you the morning of - but you keep filling up your calendar.  So now you know"

I don't know if I was very fun to surprise - but really, I WAS SHOCKED!  No - he has not done this before and no, it was not on my radar, AT ALL!!  He had arranged to work from home while I was gone and had taken care of all necessary arrangements for me to go and have a girls weekend with my sis!  Once I knew about it - Lara wanted to know what we should do - have I been to Savannah?  Nope - never heard of it!  So - it was decided to visit historic Savannah!

day 1 - long drive and a couple hours on the beach.

sans kids - just talking - and well - it was RELAXING!

We found a local must eat-at crab shack near the beach... the decor was so quaint and great!

Ghost tour in Savannah - very interesting and fun!

The next day we did a trolley tour of the town - so I could see it all!  We could get off and see spots and just hop on another trolley - it was a great way to see the city.  

A candy shop - and making taffy (my favorite)

While admiring the Cotton-Exchange building - a tour walked out and asked if we were there for the tour - YES!!  It is now a Masonic temple and the history of the cotton exchange was fascinating and being inside a Masonic Temple was super interesting in its own right.

We drove back to Lara's and I had Sunday/Monday to hang out with her family.  Of course - that included a golf-cart ride.

I got to check out their new "WHEELS!" 

Sunday evening walk with the princesses and Superman.

On Monday morning, the kids went to school and Lara and I went on a little hike (minutes from her house) and it was a great morning.  I almost felt like I caught up on conversation after 3 straight days of talking! ha!

Thanks Shayne - for this gift.  And thank you Greg for also sacrificing your wife so we could go to Savannah.  And thank you Lara for being my blister.  (yes that's what I meant to type)

;-)

MT TIMP

I have wanted to hike Timp with my friend Julie every fall for the past 3 years.  Somehow, I never can go when she does it and I was determined to make it happen this year.  I asked Chanin to join me and she asked her friend, Julie (different Julie!) and we met WAY BEFORE dawn at the mouth of the canyon.  That's when I got the call from Julie and she was sick, sick, sick and not going to be able to come.  So, the three of us, still feeling committed and adventurous, decided to just do it.  I haven't hiked it since college and I don't think Chanin or Julie had done this - but we didn't want our 4 am alarm to be for nothing!

We found the trailhead and hoped we stayed on it in the dark.

Sunrise 

We ran into a little snow before the basin - but once we got to the basin - LOTS OF SNOW.

We ate our lunch and decided this was the end of our hike - a couple of guys had passed us and said the snow was really deep up to the saddle and not worth it.  We believed them....

until we met some other girls who convinced us we had to at least TRY to get to the saddle.  Off we go - through the snow.  They were in sneakers - we had hiking boots and Chanin and I were sharing snow spikes (LOL we each got 1 to fit over one foot, since we were short a pair!)  We decided it didn't hurt to try.

We got to the point - only one last stretch over to the saddle - this is the point that you can look into the valley on the other side of the mountain - and it was scary.  We were all feeling a bit overwhelmed with the snow and the fact that the trail really wasn't packed down.  We watched three other hikers go ahead of us and when one kept slipping and falling a bit down the slope, I quickly decided my goals did not include a life-flight back home.  I just wanted to get down safely and I'll do this hike again next year!  We turned around and it was a slow and difficult process to get back down the slope we had climbed - but thankfully, we did it without incident.

The views on the way down 

Once again, another day full of adventure, sunshine, and great conversation.  We made some new friends en-route and I'm excited to do this next year without snow!