Thanksgiving break

I took the week off for Thanksgiving. People at work asked me where I was going and I said, "Home!" It was a nice break.

I relaxed the first couple of days. We redboxed some movies, and I went on a bike ride with Carmen to return one of them the next day. Another day I took Olivia and Carmen to go see Fantastic Beasts, which we all enjoyed. One of those days I took the kids to the park to fly kites.

After a couple days of relaxation, I got restless and started fixing things. Carmen had moved up a bike size, so I switched over her kickstand, license plate, and bell. In the process I got annoyed by the pile of bike paraphernalia and organized that, which led to cleaning out the laundry room closet where we keep all our outdoors games, camping gear, balls, etc. It was very satisfying.

On Wednesday we went to the Humble city museum with a friend in the morning, then came home and tackled the attic. It had been accumulating for several years now and was overdue for a purge and reorganization. I wore myself out, but it looks so much better. There is now room to walk in and get to the things we need.

Amber spent time on and off all week creating shelves for the guest bathroom and the girls' room. She wanted to round the edges, so we got her a router table as an early Christmas present (I didn't need much convincing). She's not done yet, but painting is next and is the most tedious part.

We did Thanksgiving at a friend's house this year. The food was delicious and the company was fun. And since it was at their house, we don't have a ton of leftovers to deal with!

Black Friday is our traditional Christmas decorating day. We got out the Christmas toys, and did the indoor decorations first. The kids found some small Christmas trees we got for a party last year, and wanted to each have their own tree.

After getting the trees trimmed and setting up nativity sets, I headed outside in my shorts and t-shirt to hang Christmas lights. It doesn't seem quite right to get a mosquito bite while hanging up Christmas lights, but I suppose it's better than numb fingers. The final step was to set up the train. It's been a hit with the kids, as usual.

On Saturday we had more nice weather, so the whole family went out on a bike ride to the elementary school playground for one last hurrah before school started again on Monday.

Helping Mom

My mom recently had her hip replaced. Jason and his family had already been generous enough to move in with her to help take care of her, but already had a month-long vacation planned, so they were looking for volunteers to cover some of that time. I obtained permission to work remotely and flew to Virginia for a week to help out.

My main tasks were making sure she got her pills, got good meals, and got around all right, which I think I successfully accomplished.

There were also some unexpected curveballs, like fixing both cars, taking her to the doctor, and dealing with car/home insurance, but we successfully navigated them.

I was there during the election, so we spent a lot of time watching election coverage, but we managed to have a little fun along the way, too. We watched some movies, played Upwords and Rummikub, and went out to eat a couple times.

I wish I'd had more time for sightseeing, but I made it over to Heather's house to see Richard's new workshop, and I spent some time down in the woods behind the house, where I used to play as a kid.

It was gorgeous weather, and the leaves were starting to change colors.

It brought back lots of good memories. I wish my kids could have been there. We'll have to make the trek again sometime.

It was fun to spend time with my mom, and I'm glad I was able to help out!

Halloween

We carved our pumpkins only a couple days before Halloween, so they wouldn't rot in the heat.

We had a ward Halloween party that night, so the kids got to try on their costumes. Damon and Miles had been wearing theirs already. Theirs were store-bought, since it's easier to buy superhero costumes than to make them.

Olivia also wanted to be a superhero, but nothing fits her, so Amber made this Supergirl outfit. Carmen wanted to be a Christmas elf, so Amber whipped this one up as well.

The Halloween party was a lot of fun, and we even decorated our trunk this year for the trunk-or-treat. The Flash and Batman enjoyed showing off their running skills on the costume runway.

On Halloween night, Amber and the kids went trick-or-treating with some friends from the ward, while I stayed and manned the candy bowl.

 Everyone seemed very pleased with their haul when they got back.

Wings over Houston

Continuing our tradition, we went to the Wings over Houston air show this year.

We got there and set up some chairs, then took turns checking out the exhibits while the first flying acts got started.

The show hasn't changed much over the years, but it was impressive as always. There were some stunt flyers, and vintage aircraft.

The kids liked the P-40 with the painted-on mouth.

Finally it was time for the modern fighters.

After a long day, the kids were ready for the grand finale.

The final act was the Navy's Blue Angels. We saw them two and four years ago, too, so I'll keep the pictures to a minimum.

As always, they did some very impressive formation flying and different tricks and passes.

It's hard to capture in pictures, but very fun to watch.

Eventually, it was time to fly off into the sunset. Until next time.

Miles videos

Miles loves to read books, and if nobody is reading to him, he will pretend to read them himself.

He also loves being The Flash.

Bingo

Saturday night was the elementary school's annual bingo fundraiser. They held it at the high school this year to give everyone more room, and it's a good thing they did because this was the first year I brought three kids.

It took a while, but eventually everyone got a bingo and won baked goods, except for me (but I got to shout "bingo" for Damon who won while he was in the bathroom). We didn't win any raffle baskets, but the kids had a good time.

Damon's soccer game

A while back, Damon saw some kids practicing soccer and decided he wanted to do that, too, so Amber signed him up for a local league. There was apparently a misunderstanding between one of the parents and the league, and Damon's team ended up without a coach. An email went out asking for volunteers and after days of silence, Amber volunteered to coach the team.

His first game was rained out, so he played for the first time on Saturday. Amber had a previous church responsibility that day, so another parent substitute coached, and I brought Damon and the kids. Carmen made a sign to cheer Damon on.

There are a couple of really good players on Damon's team and the game was embarrassingly lopsided. I wasn't keeping track, but it must have been at least 15-0 before the other team scored their one and only goal towards the end.

Damon, bless his heart, was not one of the really good players. He either slowly shuffled towards the ball, reluctant to confront anyone who had control of it, or found something else more interesting to look at.

Despite this, he managed to get into the thick of things a couple of times.

He didn't score any goals, but he seemed to enjoy himself.

Beach

It almost didn't happen, but we decided at the last minute to do our traditional end-of-summer Galveston beach trip. We couldn't leave Saturday because of Damon's soccer game. The game ended up getting rained out, but we would have been rained out on the beach, too, so it turned out all right. We drove down Sunday morning, and had church in Galveston.

Then headed to the beach.

The weather was nice and warm, and as usual, since we went after Labor Day (and during school) we pretty much had the beach to ourselves.

The kids knew exactly what to do, and we soon had sand castles and seaweed collections, toilets and sea creatures.

Amber even found a phone someone had lost in the ocean! (I checked when we got home, and it has a sim card, but no memory card.)

We stayed until Tuesday evening, and by then everyone was a little sun-burned and tired out.

Labor Day

I spent the Labor Day weekend doing something I'd been meaning to do for years. Back in 2008, I put a few drywall hooks in the garage to hang various tools out of the way. They were a step up from having everything on the floor, but over the years they started loosening and falling out.

This time I got a rail/hook system. The rails are attached to the studs and the hooks are movable. It's much sturdier and I found I could even fit a few things I wasn't expecting to hang, like the tricycle and scooters. I cleaned out the shelves while I was at it, and now it looks great!

Miles was my helper at Lowe's while looking for the hooks. He came dressed up as Batman, mask and all, and got lots of comments. The best was one of the employees, who saw Miles going by and said, "Hey Batman, it's me, Robin!"

Sure enough, her name was Robin!

Baton Rouge flood cleanup

I got an email from the church mid-week requesting volunteers to help people affected by the floods in Baton Rouge, LA. I didn't have any good reasons not to go, so I signed up. About a dozen of us from our ward left at 4 AM Saturday morning and drove to the Baton Rouge Temple where we picked up supplies and got our assignment.

After milling around there for a while, we headed out to work. The first home we went to had the most damage. The water level was well over 5 feet in the house, which you can see on this door.

The homeowner had already removed most of the drywall, but needed help with the fixtures like the kitchen cabinets and built-in entertainment center.

Pretty much everything in the house was ruined, including the SUV out front. A few mementos were saved, like these pictures drying on a table in the backyard.

We did another house after lunch. Every house was different, but most involved ripping out drywall, insulation, paneling, flooring, furniture, appliances, and anything else that was wet, moldy, and/or broken, and making huge piles of garbage out front.

And this was happening in every house in the entire neighborhood we were in.

To add insult to injury, it rained in the afternoon and during the night. Thankfully, we had former ward friends who live in the area who allowed us to stay in their unflooded home so we didn't have to camp in the rain like some of the other volunteers did.

On Sunday morning we attended a sacrament meeting at the stake center adjacent to the temple. To my surprise, the speakers included the mayor of Baton Rouge and the governor of Louisiana. They said that there were over 4000 Mormon Helping Hands this weekend and at least as many coming next weekend. The state may be able to help bring homes to livable condition if the price is below a certain amount, so the work we did may be the difference for some homeowners to get assistance. The vast majority of people affected had no flood insurance, so they're relying on whatever help the city/state/feds can give them.

After church it was back to work. We did three more houses on Sunday, much of the same.

It was hot and humid, and hard work, but the homeowners were very grateful and although I felt like we weren't able to accomplish a lot (those homeowners have a LOT of work left), we got the time-sensitive work done for a handful of homes. Multiply that by hundreds of other teams there and it made a pretty significant impact.

I got home Sunday night just in time to say good night to the kids, take a long shower, and try to get some sleep before heading back to work in the morning.

First day of school

Summer is officially over. School has started. The kids were ready and "super" excited to go.

It seems like not very long ago we were taking Olivia on this walk for her first day of Kindergarten. This time it was for Damon.

He wasn't nervous at all and I think he'll have lots of fun. He has Carmen's kindergarten teacher, and we tried to let her know that his reading level is off the charts, but I'm sure she'll figure that out.

Miles is now our only kid at home during the day, but he will have a preschool group and some other activities to keep him busy (when he's not fighting crime).