~Swap Meets and Flea Marktes~

I was happy racing season is over... but it really hasn't given back our Saturdays.  It seems as though there is a different Flea Market every weekend.  My guys love going and they often find great deals... and those deals help us keep racing.

They came back the other week after having a fun pit stop...

~Road Trip~

I was privileged to travel to a teaching conference with 13 others from church from Oct 31 to Nov 3.  The conference was for anyone leading, teaching or helping toddlers through teens.  I was so excited to be going!

Gregg sacrificed and took two days off of work and worked from home one day.  The day he worked from home a friend of mine watched our three youngest kids.  How spoiled am I!??!!?!?

Hurricane Sandy made a rough start to our trip.  I didn't want to leave my family if we lost power and thankfully we didn't.  We had rain (and some snow) all the way out to Ohio but the trip went fairly well.  We drove out in three vehicles.  My vehicle left around noon on Wednesday and stopped to see a friend on our way through the western part of the state.  We arrived at our destination at about 9:30 pm.  Some of our group was staying with a widow lady... the rest of us were staying in a house belonging to someone we knew but was not home during that time. 

We got breakfast groceries at 11 pm (my first visit to a Kroger) and finally found our home around midnight.  It was 50 degrees in the house!  We went to bed fairly quickly and enjoyed sleeping in a little Thursday morning.  We met the rest of our group and one of our college kids for lunch and then headed over to the conference.

Overwhelming!!!  We had 5 main sessions and 9 workshops in a little over two days.  There were 90 workshops to choose from!  I hit some really good ones and some really, really good ones!

The church holding the conference fed us a few meals... I enjoyed not cooking and  I also enjoyed my dessert :-)  oh, and they had sweet tea! YUM!!

The people teaching were master teachers! Like you didn't want to blink because you would miss something!  Storytellers, puppeteers, evangelists and pastors made up the group of teachers. 

Thursday night and Friday night we headed back to our house and did a bit of debriefing... what did you learn, here is what I learned kind of a thing.  I was with our Pastor's wife and three young people out of high school but still young... and they don't sleep!  Anyway, I loved hearing what they were learning and hearing how they were going to apply that to their teaching. 

The three "kids" want to serve God and now have a lot more tools to serve Him with.  We teach mostly in a way we have been taught... this really opened our eyes to other ways of teaching.  It takes a bit more work... but it is so worth it!

I came home very sleep deprived but very full.  I was privilege to give testimony at church and shared that I didn't want to necessarily tell them what I learned, but that they would see a difference in the way I minister and they would see what I learned!  I look forward to implementing some of these things in my personal life, my home life and in my out and about service.

While I would love to go again next year, I would also love to see Gregg have an opportunity to go!

~Fall Fellowship~

Oct 26 was our Fall Fellowship at church

We had two fires to cook our hot dogs and everyone brought some side dishes. 

There were some fun activities for the kids and a bake off for the ladies.  I happened to get two prizes for my Carmel Apple Cheesecake Bars... they were really yummy! 

 I was privileged to judge the teen entries... what a fun job!

  

~Our Grand Day Out~

Oct 24... I've almost caught up to current!

The weather was just beautiful and the teacher in me was silenced by the need for fresh air and sunshine!  We finished our morning work, ate lunch and headed outside.

 I decided to walk up the mill race... starting around the pond.

 Just beautiful!

We had to hop the fence and our neighbor's horse Ginger would be in the way.  She is a nice horse, but she is big and strong and I wanted to distract her.  I brought along an apple to share with her.  She knows I usually bring her one... worked like a charm!

 I noticed this hat on the fence post... made me smile.

 My gang... we made it to this bridge behind our other neighbors farm.  There was water and shade... and hot kids...

 off went the socks and shoes...

 in went the kids...

we even got the dogs a little wet.

I grabbed up all the shoes and the kids walked home in the race.  Jordan was so sweet to Kiersten.  I never asked him to help her and he never complained.  Makes my heart melt...

 She looked up at him and said "Jo den, you stepping on rocks" "yes" "day hurt you too?"

Such a lovey time!  I am so often all work and no play.  I should play more!

~Old Friends, New Memories~

We have a group of friends that we have known for between 10 and 14 years... we all went to church together and unfortunately we don't anymore.  We like to keep in touch and some got together to plan a camping trip.  My guys were racing the Friday night it was planned and it was really cold that weekend in Oct so I planned on going with the younger 3 kids for the day on Saturday.

We arrived before lunch and ended up staying until almost bed time.  It was cold, but the sun was warm and the fellowship was wonderful!

 The kids played at the playground, went on a hayride and went for a hike.  I was able to do a lot of visiting.

 Kiersten had a great time with some of the girls.

I love the old friends & the new memories:-)

~Monopoly~

Aaron was recently introduced to the game of Monopoly.  We got it out to play as a family one night after supper and, of course, it went til very late.

~Tutu~

Oh, what fun she is!

 We made this tutu together :-)  She helped me cut and tie... and she loves it!

 I see many more "together" projects in our future!