Boo! (right after I took this photo we had Colleen put on her Halloween costume too – tee hee hee)
Here’s the move I taught Colleen. She’s almost doing it the way I do it. With a little more practice she’ll get it to be perfect and not look so strained & uncomfortable! I think this may be the first costume that Megan actually likes a bit.
Christopher’s cub scout den got caught by the cops for causing some trouble at the mall. Here they are getting handcuffed and locked up. We let them all (including Megan) spend the night in jail to teach them a lesson!!!
I’ll let you add your own caption to this one. I did start locking the liquor cabinet after this one if that makes anyone feel better.
We got our first real snow of the season last week. Megan spent hours and hours outside in 20F weather – she is quite the trooper when she wants to be – and loving everything outside but mainly focusing on sledding, sledding, and more sledding.
Our kids are getting so smart. Megan’s latest learning from school is that she has started adding “pyramids” at the end of every sentence. Christopher’s flash of brilliance tonight was when we were working on his religious emblem award for scouts. I was trying to give him hints about who were the first people to visit Jesus. “They brought gifts and followed a star…”. Nope – no guesses. “The three…”. Nope – still no guesses. The “three wise…”. Pause, followed by this guess – “the three wise guys”? Goofball. Everybody got their report cards last week – lots of P’s, a few D’s, and I’m not sure if there were any B’s which is great for all of them. Does NH have P’s, D’s, and B’s? We made a quick trip and back to St. Louis this week – left on Tuesday and were back by Friday night. It was quick but a good time with lots of great food and seeing family. Our kids have fun playing with all of the cousins down there. We brought Orca – wow, she barely ever got a chance to rest – the kids in St. Louis love her and definitely are making up for not being allowed to have dogs of their own. Orca is always a great dog and thankfully deals very well with constantly being chased, grabbed, etc.
It’s a good day when we can get up for the early church service and do brunch afterwards. Today we tried Tilia. This place has been getting tons of rave reviews this past year and I’m glad I could finally sample it too (although I discovered that I need to go back and work my way through their outstanding tap beer selection). It was a hip place with fun food that you don’t see every day that tasted great (e.g., I had slow-poached eggs in parmesean cream with grilled bread and “three little pigs”; Beth had yogurt creme brulee; Megan had a peanut butter french toast waffle).
Tuesday of this week is the space derby for scouts and on Wednesday I make my first home visit to talk to a child about what wishes they want (for Make-A-Wish). I’m very excited to start participating in this program. I have a wish partner who is also new to this but this first time we will have an experienced wish granter going with us to mentor us. I’m really hoping this Wednesday goes well, and after this “interview” then we will focus on what wish we can deliver for this child.
I’ll close with this scanned homemade card that I think Katherine and Dan sent me just a year or two ago 😉 I found this card when I was looking through old photos that I’m trying to pull together for a calendar of my college roommates. It made my day to feel loved and handsome 🙂
Enjoyed the update. Halloween doesn’t seem that long ago. We finally got rid of most of the storm debris. I gave up on the city. They told me a week and a half ago that they’d be here in a week and a half. I called this week and they said they might be in our neighborhood to pick up limbs, etc., in 2 or 3 weeks unless it snows. I borrowed Daniel’s truck and took our pile out myself. My guess is that most of our neighbors will still be looking at their piles of brush next spring when the snow melts. Preston saw a mouse in our pile. I wanted to get rid of it before larger mammals decided it would make a nice winter home.
I’m glad you didn’t include a picture of you in your tutu with the girls. Ouch! – that makes me sore just thinking of trying to do that.
Maybe you locked the liquor cabinet too late. I think the cousins may have gotten into it also. Looks like everyone was having a good time. It was nice you could spend a few days in St. Louis with Beth’s family.
Did you keep the handcuffs? They might come in handy sometimes. At least you would know where your kids are.
That hill has certainly got some good use. Glad your kids, neighbor’s kids and you enjoy it so much. It’s nice you can enjoy it year-round; beauty in the summer and so much fun in the winter.
I’m not sure what P’s, D’s and B’s are, but I’m sure they are good. I’ll have to ask mom. We just had A’s to F’s.
Hope the space derby and your first Make-A-Wish meeting went well. We don’t know that much about the program. You’ll have to clue us in.
I didn’t spend that much time on the Tilia website. I’ll take your word that it was good. Food still doesn’t have a lot of appeal yet, but I am starting to eat more. This morning I had the opportunity to shave again. I no longer look at shaving as a chore, but something I look forward to. I don’t have to shave to often, but when I do I see it as a good sign that those cells are starting to recover.
You might want to check for a date on those cards. Not to doubt your time recollection, but my hunch is that there was a reason you found their cards with pictures of your college roommates. Anyway, I’m sure their sentiments remain the same.
Thanks for the update. We always enjoy them. You can keep the snow – we’re enjoying another sunny day in the 50s.
Love Dad & Grandpa T.
I’m not sure why I was speaking for the family back then… that is so funny. I’m pretty sure I wrote Daniel’s side too… the handwriting looks oddly similar to the one on the right. Your nice and handsome.