Septemeber

Oops. I hadn't realized that the entire month of September had gotten away from me! So let the usual massive update commence:


We went to our first steam punk ball. So of course we had to get outfitted. I made my own bustle:

 But I bought the vest for super cheap. It was that or a corsette, but since I'm not really corsette material.....

 And I fancied up my fascinator a bit with some buttons, ribbon and extra feathers. Tupp tried it on for me.

 The camels came to town for the annual camel races. The best part was seeing them early in the morning after they had escaped while we were doing our jog. Up close and personal!

 Homeschool has been going rather well. Cash does want to do more social things so we've reached out and joined a 4H club, gotten connected to some nearby homeschoolers and Cash wants to start a Lego club. We're going to do it informally because the official Jr.LegoTeam thing is just too expensive.

 We finally finished all our Free Friday Museum round-up. Our last couple were St. Mary's Art Center, the stamp mill and the Comstock History museum.

 I'm still doing my photo a day...on and off. This is Clay's new watch for the steam punk outfit. It's amazing the price you can get for Chinese cheap stuff.

 So, our water line sprung a leak. Apparently when they laid it they didn't put soft gravel around it so the rocks eventually cut through the line. We discovered it when our water bill sky rocketed to $100. Unfortunately it was an expensive fix, involving a digger and a bobcat. But the kids were thrilled.

 We headed out for a whirlwind trip to Santa Rosa for the opening of Aunt Cammie and Uncle JP's new store Shuffles Ice Cream Shoppe. Picked up our museum prize on the way out of town- VC sunglasses and chocolate rocks.

 Still in love with our boat. Now we are using it during singing time in the morning- "my paddle's clean and bright, flashing with silver, follow the wild goose flight, dip dip and swing."

 Fall colors hit Santa Rosa before us, but we definitely have the more fall like weather with low 70's during the day and nights around 35-40 degrees.

 On the way home from SR, Turbo Tank sprung a major leak and the antifreeze was flowing fast. Luckily we found a shop that was willing to McGueyvor a temporary fix until we got home. We have since bought the hoses, but have yet to fix her since we're not sure what we're going to do with her....

 Thanks to Clay's work we snagged free tickets to the air races. I've only ever been to airshows, but there is something so much more majestic about seeing airplanes race. And Pherse was in heaven.

 Finally the steam punk ball. I've decided we're not really cut out for the steam punk thing- we don't drink and not keen on contra dancing. But we liked the gypsy swing stuff later on in the night and impressed enough people that we passed out quite a few free passes to our swing night. So far we've had one couple come in. Our night really fluctuates- sometimes there are between -20-30 people and sometimes we're lucky if there are 2.

 The King fire smoke wafted over our way. I am so glad we don't live in Reno and Carson! They had some days that were so bad that residents were urged to stay in door. We went to the temple and I about nearly ran from the car to the doors. Up here it got a little hazy but we just closed up the windows until the morning when the wind blew it all away. But we were so glad when the rains came through and they got the fire contained.

 As part of our school we do community service. We've started taking care of two graves up in the Silver Terraces Cemetery. We have Mary who loved parades and died of appendicitis on the operating table. Our other is Little Marie who was the 8 month old daughter of Mackay (who's mansion we can see from our back window and became one of the wealthiest men of VC). So we're weeding them, scraping the paint and repainting and then planting authorized flowers.

 Aunt Cindy visited an we were so glad to have her! We took her on a tour of the town including St. Mary's Catholic church. We were lucky that the organ player was there and she got to talk with him. We only wish we could have contrived a way for her to stay permanently.

 My boys are at the age where they can now start roughhousing together. So sweet...until someone gets hurt. ;)

 With the rain brought the cold. It snowed high up in the Sierra's and luckily I had just gone through all the winter stuff and dug out our boots, jackets, hats, mittens, etc.

 At the end of the month we did the festival of Michaelmas. We tell the story of Sir George fighting the dragon and celebrate being brave, courageous and doing hard things. We also celebrate harvest and eat a harvest dinner, made a puppet show, made dragon cookies and talk about the changing of the season.

 We even picked more (and better) apples from St. Mary's Art Center. I've made cake, cobbler, applesauce and plan on juicing the rest.

 But our colors are finally starting to turn- it's feeling like fall!

 Learning to clean. We've upped the chores since Cash came up with a chart of the chores needing to be completed if one does a bad behavior like yelling, hitting, etc.All these little bumps of discovering what to help our home run more smoothly and with more love and happiness.

 A friend just leant us this book. I've been reading it to Cash and, while I think it's a bit above him, it is so good and so funny. I highly recommend it.

 Our latest field trip was to walk the Kit Carson trail in downtown Carson- the blue line. I would have liked to do more, but we invited a friend and then that put some additional constraints on our outing. Still fun though. We also learned that Carson was totally illiterate and could only write his name.

 This last weekend was the Reno Celtic Celebration. I haven't been to it since I was a little kid and they had a Highland dance competition where we danced in one of the casinos downtown. Now they have it at a park and it's quite a bit smaller but has a nice feel. The kids loved the kid area with the jumpy house and caber toss. And it was so nice that that area was right next to the area where I performed all day long- a total of 8 dances.

 During conference I recovered from the day before and the kids ran a muck playing dress up and stuff. Not my usual organization and activities to keep everyone engaged. Oh well, next spring.

 So this is Reddery the Red Wagon. We picked her up on our way home on Saturday. She's a Ford Taurus X with AWD and seats up to 6. We're ready for our trip to Utah to see Grant's baptism.

 Cash wanted to be the spookiest house on the block, but then our neighbor started decorating.... I think we'll have to settle for second spookiest. It's even better at night with glowing pumpkins and the graveyard lit up in green light.

So that's September and the first two weeks of October. We're headed out to Utah and  then we have birthday for Cash, Oma and Honey visiting, pumpkin patch trip  to Lattin farms and Halloween (with all souls week). I love this time of year! Today we're getting a new door (so that we won't have daylight peaking through any more) and we're trying to get the windows in before the snow so that our heater bill won't be so outrageous this time around.
Loves to you all and hope you enjoy the season as much as we do!