Happy Halloween!

Today Papa got the job of carving our two pumpkins. I was so glad he did, because it is a pretty yuky job. The pumpkins smell and are very messy. Tanek gave instructions on how he wanted the pumpkins to look. He watched and advised papa as he was doing the carving.
He thought they smelled pretty bad too!

Getting all the gunk out

Sticking close to papa to make sure he was doing it right.

This is what it looks like in the inside.

All cleaned out

This is Tanek's pumpkin and this is just what he wanted him to look like.

Both pumpkins all finished.

We went to Keystone for trick or treating and also to the Fall Festival at First Baptist in Keystone. Tanek got lots of candy and had a great time.

Tanek and Seth. "Batman & Obi-Wan"

Tanek had so much fun this Halloween and was very excited about it. I am really glad that the town of Keystone and First Baptist give the kids a safe place to celebrate and get candy. There were tons of kids out tonight. We only had 4 come to our house. It seems that most kids these days are going to festivals and trick or treating in town where it is safer.

Halloween at the Lirbary & a visit to the Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday at the Library for Story Time they had their Halloween party. Tanek was Obi Wan Kenobi. He is really into the Star Wars and knows everything you ever needed to know and more about them. It was a fun morning and fun to see the kids dressed in costumes.

Tanek with Buzz aka Mrs. Kris. She is great with the kids and Tanek loves going to story time.
She also bakes very yummy cookies for the kids (and parents...grand-parents).

Doing the "hookie spookie"

Enjoying the refreshments

Today we went to the Pumpkin Patch at the Methodist Church in Keystone. We got a pumpkin and put a funny face with stickers on it until it is time to cut him open to make a Jack-o-lantern

Obi Wan Kenobi went with us to the Pumpkin Patch too.

Yesterday we had a little rain and today it is very nippy out. Only 64 degrees and windy equals C O L D!!! So Obi had to wear a jacket for the first time.

Every year the Methodist church puts on this pumpkin patch and we certainly do enjoy it. The two ladies that were working there today were so nice and helped Tanek pick out a pumpkin.

They have pumpkins of all sizes and shapes. Some very strange looking ones too. And some weird looking gourds. Tanek enjoyed getting into this little car for a picture.

I love this picture of him. I managed to get him to put down his light saber for a picture.

We are certainly enjoying fall. It seems like it came so fast and already we are almost to the end of October. Hard to believe time is going by so fast. It is already time for me to be working on my Christmas lights and I am just not really in the mood to do that, but I am trying too. It won't be long until it is time to turn them on and I have a few to put up so will have to get started. But for yesterday and today we enjoyed "fall" things. Actually the whole week-end and this week have been filled with fall activities and the weather certainly says fall too!

Beautiful North Carolina

Sunday morning Gary and I drove up to Asheville, NC to visit my brother who is in a nursing home there. It was his birthday and we wanted to go up and surprise him and have a little celebration for his birthday. It just so happened that it was also the peak week-end for the leaves. We took a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway and the sights were breath taking. It is just so colorful and beautiful that you just can hardly believe that the leaves are in the process of dying. How can anything dying be so beautiful? God in all His Majesty has a wonderful way of doing things.

When you are looking at all the beauty and you know that only God could do something this beautiful, yet that same Awesome God knows our name and how many hairs are on our head, and He wants a relationship with each of us. It is mind boggeling. It gives you a different perspective on life. It was hard to see my brother in the condition he is in. He has bone cancer and lots of other health issues and we don't know how much longer he will be with us. We do know he will live forever and one day we will be together again, but it is still very hard to see him in the condition he is in now. So we had sights of some of the most beautiful life has to offer and sights of some of the hardest parts of life. A nursing home regardless of how good it is (and this one is quite nice) and takes good care of their patients. However, you see some of the saddest situations in there. Very hard to see. We were hoping to be able to take my brother out for a drive so he could see the beautiful leaves, but he just was not able to go. I did bring him some leaves back so he could see them. Of course they have trees around the home that are beautiful too.

I felt like we brought a little joy to his life by coming up for a surprise visit and having a small birthday celebration for him. He still has his sense of humor. He told me I should have let him know we were coming because what if he wasn't there? I told him I wasn't too concerned that he wouldn't be there. I was able to re-arrange his room a little for him to make it work better for him. It was good to be able to visit him and I am hoping we will be able to go see him again soon.

After we left to come back home, as we were coming into Florida we were greeted by this sunset. It really was quite pretty and this picture taken through the front windshield as I was driving doesn't do it justice. We had been talking on the way home how we wish Florida had a little more color. We don't have it in our leaves, but the sky has some very pretty sunsets.

It was good to be back home again.

My favorite ball player

Fall ball is in full swing. I love watching Tanek play ball or actually any sport he does. It is just fun to watch. I love watching the kids at this age. They are just too cute. They played a Starke team and I think the oldest child must have been only 5. They were all so small and just beginning. Some of them didn't even know which base to run too. One ran from home plate to 2nd, another from 1st to 3rd. But everyone cheered for the little guys anyway. It is nice when the coaches and parents watch for fun and not act like it is a world series game. I think most of you know what I mean. It can get that way at times even at this young level and that is pretty sad for the kids.
I like to watch Tanek play catcher. And if you are a coach or umpire you better watch him too. He is likely to throw the ball at you when you least expect it. His goal is to get that ball back to the pitcher as quick as possible.

At least this year the catcher's equipment doesn't come below his knees and he can actually bend over in it now.

And you can even see his eyes under the helmet this season.

He is doing so much better this year at the game and really enjoying it.

School Days!

A few weeks ago I got this little school desk out of the attic. This had been Stephanie's desk when she was in the first grade so it is a few years old. Since it had been in the attic for many years the desk top had pretty much been ruined and it needed a lot of cleaning up. The hubs had his friend Doug make a new top for it and then he cleaned it up and repainted it. Today was the first day Tanek used it for school and he loved it. It is just his size and he really enjoyed doing school in his bedroom using his new desk.

It really worked well for him to do his handwriting on and we decided the new desk helped him to do really good handwriting today.

It was a very nice morning with a cool breeze coming through the open window.

He has his easel to work on and usually writes words that have to do with Star Wars. He enjoys the easel quite a bit. Behind the easel is a world map. I love these big maps as it is so easy to find the places we are studying about.

This side of his room has the TV and map of the USA. After school (since swimming season is over) we sometimes watch a good movie. Today we got to watch the new movie "Spooky Buddies".
You can see he is very much into cars in his room. We are anxiously awaiting the release of Cars 2 on DVD.

These are the books we work out of everyday.

We never run out of good books to read.