Busy Life

Things have been busy this month.  I look forward to listening to General Conference this week end.  Then we will be in October!  It is feeling like fall today.  This week has been cooler and we have had a lot of rain.  Although the boys say it is still warm enough for shorts, they have been wearing their sweaters to school each morning.

We enjoyed having Erin and Ben and family over for dinner on the 18th.  They are a new family in the ward.  Ben and Neal made the connection a few weeks ago that they went to high school together.  Neal pulled out his year books and we even found that Ben had signed in it.  We enjoyed visiting with them and having them in our home.

We were worried about some pine trees in our yard.  They had some insect damage visible and we were concerned that it would get worse.  I called a tree company and they sent out an arborist to see the trees.  She was very kind and taught me things about pine trees.  They are better off than we thought.  She gave me her opinion of what they needed, some insecticide in the early spring, the insects have all gone dormant now and spraying now wont do anything.  I am glad that we got help.  She didn’t even charge for her advice, it was a free consultation.  She also gave me a tip that I want to try.  She said that if I plant garlic or onion around my peach tree it will keep bores away from it.  I want to do that and just see if it helps.

Ruth enjoyed going to a Mia Maid Stake activity.  The leaders showed pictures of what they looked like at 14-15 years old.  Ruth enjoyed visiting with others her age from the Stake.  When she came home and talked about the activity I decided to look up pictures of when I was that age.  I don’t have many good ones, just ones from my cheap 110 camera I had as teen ager.  I wish I had better pictures of my youth. It is nice we have digital pictures of the kids, they are so easy to take and store.  Ruth and I also enjoyed going to a Stake dinner on Saturday before the Women’s session of conference.  The Stake leaders had a nice dinner for all the women and we enjoyed eating it with friends and then listening to the broadcast at the church.  It was an excellent meeting. Ruth is finding that high school isn’t too bad.  Some nights she doesn’t have much home work and she has enjoyed spending time working on writing a novel.  She is gaining new friends and is a good friend to them by listening well.

Andrew and Spencer enjoyed going to a birthday party for Nathan from a neighboring ward.  The boys had fun playing the games they did outside and enjoyed doing a nerf gun war.  I am glad that they have friends.  Andrew received his Second Class Scout rank at the Court of Honor last week.  He is enjoying scouts.  He is very close to having his First Class rank, he only needs a couple more camping trips with his troop and he will have it.  Last week they went on a camping trip. Neal went with them. They went Friday after school and enjoyed getting out, even though it rained during the night, they said they were warm and dry.  I am glad that he can get out and have fun. Saturday afternoon Neal, Andrew and Spencer went to a train activity.  We have gone to this the last couple of years.  There is a big steam engine that is getting renovated and each year they have it out where people can see it and make donations to the work.  The model train club also had a layout out on display and the boys helped run it for a bit.

Saturday morning I took the kids over to clean the church.  Spencer likes doing the garbage.  He goes around to all the class rooms and empties the trash into a big can.  Caleb wanted to help him and a couple of other younger boys who were there with their dad.  Spencer didn’t mind the others helping.  Later that day when I was the Stake dinner Sister Hardy, who had been cleaning with us, told me what she had seen with the boys.  She said Spencer had so much patience with the younger boys.  And he was saying things like “good work men” and Sister Hardy thought it was cute. When Ben and Erin were over Spencer played with their toddler while the adults were visiting. Erin thought it was so nice of him.  Spencer is good with younger kids.  Spencer’s primary teachers like to give the kids challenges that go along with their lessons.  They had the challenge to go to the temple and find where it said “Holiness to the Lord” on it.  Yesterday we drove over to the temple after school and Spencer took a picture of it.  I am thankful we have a temple so close.  Spencer and Caleb enjoyed participating in their schools “Jog a Thon” to earn money for the school.  Caleb received an award for being the third fastest runner in his class.  They also enjoy participating in “Runners Club” the school does every week.  They keep track of how many laps they run and they can get awards for the five mile marks they pass.  They both enjoy running!

One more thing happened last Saturday, it was a busy day!  I took Caleb to the baptism of his friend Miles.  Miles had invited him to come and I am glad we did.  Caleb was so excited to go and said the last baptism he had seen was Spencer’s, two years ago.  I thought it was good for Caleb to go and see and be apart of a baptism since he will be baptized in about six months.  Miles' family invited friends and family over to their home for refreshments.  I took Caleb over to that too and he had fun playing with friends for a bit.  I enjoyed talking to some of the adults there.  Caleb has also enjoyed making new friends.  On our street is a little girl named Illy.  They met while Illy was walking the dog with her mom last spring.  Then we have seen them on occasion.  This last week Caleb and Illy have started riding their bikes around together.  Caleb has finally figured out how to ride a regular bike and is doing well with it.  He is so motivated with it right now and every day after school he wants to find Illy and go riding.  She sometimes comes to our house before he is done with his home work.  They are having fun together.  We have exchanged phone numbers with the parents, so it helps to call first to see if she is home.  Caleb has also made friends with Carson.  Carson is in my primary class and just started kindergarten.  Carson loves trains.  We invited him over last week and he came to play with Caleb and all the trains at our house.  Caleb has other friends in kindergarten from the ward and likes to see his little friends.  Carson's mom commented to me this morning, as we ran into each other walking to the school, that she is so impressed with my boys and how patient and kind they are to the younger kids.  I am glad they are well behavied.

Caleb and Spencer playing trains

I have been doing a lot of family history work.  I found a family that is being a bit complicated with relationships and information.  It is taking me some time to sort it out, it is like a mystery and I enjoy it. I always get excited when I find a new clue in a record.  I think I about have it all worked out.  I enjoy helping in the school library.  I went in twice last week to help, I substituted one morning, then I was there on my regular day of Tuesday.  I like helping the kids and also doing something useful for others.  Home life keeps me busy too.  I have done yard work and just maintenance of the house, and keeping up with the kids school work and activities, so I keep pretty busy.

I hope everyone can enjoy this pretty fall season.

I found some pictures I forgot to include last letter.

The boys at their train club leaders home playing with his trains.

Pictures of two of our biggest apples from our tree this year.  

Family Time

The month is half over.  I feel like time goes quickly.  The kids are staying busy with all their activities.

Ruth has enjoyed going to the youth Stake volley ball activities on Saturdays.  I am glad that she enjoys the church activities.  She likes going to seminary and thinks her teacher is great.  She is so good about getting up on her own and getting ready to go, then Neal or I drive her over to the church for her class at 6:00 am.  It is an early start to her day but she says it is worth it.  Last night I went to the church with Ruth for the young women New Beginnings activity.  Ruth was awarded with a ribbon for completing a value.  She enjoys her leaders and friends at church.

Andrew is busy with jazz band after school on Tuesday and Thursdays.  He likes playing the trombone.  He is doing well with his classes too.  He likes the train club.  They had their meeting last Saturday.  Andrew is also involved with boy scouts. Next week at the court of honor he will be awarded his 2nd class scout rank.  He only needs a few more nights of camping to get his 1st class rank.  Next Friday he will go camping with his troop.  Last week Andrew, Ruth and Neal went to the temple with a youth group to do baptisms.  It was Andrew’s first time.  He said it was a special place to be and was happy he could go inside the temple.

Spencer is very happy with the Lego he got for his birthday.  He even bought another set with money that had been given him.  He likes to play stories with the things he builds.  He has lots of police characters and enjoys doing stories with them. Spencer likes his school teacher.  He wanted to do something nice for her.  Last Monday he picked a bunch of cherry tomatoes and brought her a bag full.  She likes tomatoes he said.  She was pleased.  He told me this week that recess is getting boring.  I can tell he is growing up.  Last night Andrew and Spencer did a bike ride with the school.  They rode their bikes about four miles.  The school is going to sponsor bike rides this year to accumulate 2000 miles among all the students.  They are doing an activity with two other schools the PE teacher has put together.  Our kids will “ride their bikes” to New York City, kids at a school in NYC will “swim the miles” to Little Rock and kids at a school in Little Rock will “run the miles” to Albuquerque.  They are calling it a triathlon.

Caleb has enjoyed having friends come over to play.  He will ask me to call friends and invite them over.  My other kids don’t do that, I guess they are fine playing by themselves or with each other. Caleb has really gotten into studying about space.  He likes to watch little videos on the computer about it, check out books from the library and he talks about it a lot.  He enjoys playing “wall ball” at school.  I think it is fun that the school has a wall ball court, a big cement wall in the play ground.  I remember as a kid we just hit balls against the side of the school.  Caleb loves school. I figure that is the most important thing right now for him.  He is learning so much and figuring things out with things he does at home.  I am okay with his schooling right now, because he enjoys it.

I had fun going to the book club last week.  We had read “Gone with the Wind” over the summer time.  We had a nice discussion about it.  I enjoy that book.  I had read it before but read it again over the summer and enjoyed it again.  I have done yard work this month and bottled fruit.  Today I picked the golden delicious apples.  It is a very small tree so we only got about 40 apples off of it.  They are a bit small, I probably needed to thin them more that I did.  I will learn.  They taste good.  We are at the end of our pears.  They have been wonderful.  We have enjoyed eating as many as we want each day.  Which means we are doing through about 6-8 pears a day.  Last Saturday Neal and I went out to eat for a date time.  We decided to try a Greek restaurant. The food was excellent.  Neal tried lamb chops and enjoyed them.  I liked the appetizer we got that was some rice mixture wrapped in a cooked grape leaf.  It was really good. It was fun to try something new.

Monday we invited a family in our ward over.  We had dinner with them and an enjoyable evening of visiting.  It is nice to get to know people better by having them in our home.  Tuesday I attended  a Relief Society activity.  We had a pot luck dinner and a man in our ward who is a lawyer, talked about Estate planning, Wills, and Trusts.  It was informative.  I also enjoyed visiting with the other sisters.

This morning I found out my uncle Gene passed away yesterday.  He was my dad’s older sister’s husband.  Aunt Zelma passed away last year.  So now Gene went with her.  They were married for over 60 years and such a great example to me in love for one another and for their family.  My thoughts will be with their family this week.

Apples!

We had a great week.  I hope you did too. Last Friday Neal and Ruth went on the daddy daughter camping trip and enjoyed it.  They enjoyed being with friends and in a pretty camping place.  Neal enjoyed going with Ben looking for mushrooms. Ben enjoys eating them and has researched a lot about them and knows what ones are good to eat.  Ruth had fun just being with her girl friends.  I am glad they had some fun.

Friday evening I was invited to a girls night at Erin's home.  I found out afterwards it was her birthday and she probably didn’t want to be alone because her husband had gone with the girls camping.  There was about five other women who came to her home and we enjoyed sitting around the table talking.  It was so good to have some time to just visit with other women.  I am glad that I was able to go.  Andrew babysat the boys while I was gone.  When I got home they had gone to bed and were all asleep.  Andrew is being responsible with a lot of things lately.  Last night he even did all the dishes while I was at the school.  I came home to the kitchen clean and even all the pots cleaned.  I really appreciated it.

Andrew also likes his activities.  Last Saturday his friend Aiden invited him over to go to a fund raiser breakfast and then play time with friends.  Andrew enjoyed his time with the other boys.  After school Monday Andrew asked to go for a bike ride.  He was out having some fun in the open space, I could see him riding around from my bed room window.  Then the rain hit hard and fast.  He came home with a huge smile on his face and soaked to the skin and said how fun it was to ride in the rain.

Saturday I made another batch of dill pickles.  Our cucumber plants are dying back so I am not sure how many more I will get.  They have been good this year.  We have enjoyed eating them fresh too.  Our green beans are pretty much done.  I only picked a handful this week.  Our tomatoes are producing a lot right now and we all enjoy eating them. Saturday evening we all went outside and picked apples.  We picked most of the red apples from our tree.  We left a few that looked like they could ripen a bit more.  We got a large box full of apples.  I had a potato plant come up in the garden.  Probably from a potato piece from the compost pile that hadn’t decomposed.  I let the plant grow and this week I dug it up to see what I would find.  I had one small potato.  I couldn’t put dirt up around the plant, like you should with potatoes, because it was too close to the cucumbers.  I thought it was funny the only potato that grew was about a half inch in diameter.

The potato in Ruth's hand

This week has been busy for me.  I worked on the apples.  I did seven quarts of apple sauce and 12 quarts of apple pieces.  I am happy with our harvest.  We also have a big basket of the best looking ones to save to eat fresh.  Last year I only bottled 6 quarts or so, so this is a big increase.  They are good apples too.  Our pears are ripening too.  They are so good. The boys and I have been eating pears at breakfast all week.

On Tuesday I went to the band meeting at the middle school.  Andrew is excited to be involved in the concert and jazz bands this year.  He is enjoying learning about how to play jazz music.  He has really caught on to playing the trombone and enjoys it.  Wednesday evening I went to the open house at the high school.  I went around to all of Ruth’s classes, spending 10 minutes in each, and hearing a bit about each class and meeting the teachers.  It was really a nice way to do it.  They had bells ringing to say when it was time to go to the next period.  I did the same thing Thursday at the middle school for Andrew’s classes.  It was a lot of information, and a lot of people to meet, but I enjoyed meeting the teachers and seeing their classrooms.  It also gave me an appreciation that I am not the student. I hope that I can help my kids get through their education.

Spencer has enjoyed playing with Lego this week.  He likes to create things.  Caleb has enjoyed playing with the wooden trains.  They are both enjoying school.  This morning they went to the school early with Neal for a “Doughnuts with Dads” activity.  They were excited to go eat a doughnut.

I finished another puzzle recently.  The last 100 or so pieces always go in so quickly, there are fewer places to figure out where they go.  I always enjoy taking all those pieces and working through them to make a picture out of them.  It is like taking apples and cutting them up to put in jars.  It is a sense of accomplishment of taking things in chaos and making it beautiful. I am thankful for the beauty of life.