It's Fall on our street.

 Looking Up

 Looking down

Up, farther back

 Down, farther back

Morning shot, with a boy in it.

The famous Luna

 And some leaves I found at work.

I was thinking about interior decorators,

and about who must be the finest Exterior Decorator

It's been absolutely beautiful this Fall.

As the rain falls on the just and the unjust,

So, too, the beauty of the Earth and the skies surround all of us,

Ever bearing witness of the love and the majesty of a Supreme Creator,

Bending our minds, if we will let it, upward toward Him.

Sticking Out at Weston Bend

 So we went camping at Weston Bend State Park in Missouri.  Very beautiful place. . .

 

. . .although the only campsite we could get was in the "electric" area, so a lot of campers and "house-cars", as Eli calls them, and not a lot of space.

Our make-shift lantern used to eat our delicious foil dinners by.

 We did go on a lovely hike.  Luna was in the lead most of the time.

 When we had some downtime, we sat and smoked.  

. . .Marshmallow sticks, that is.

 

Of course we don't smoke tobacco or anything else like that because

 It's a strict no-no.

Which helps keep us healthy.

 

And happy.

Very happy.

Most of the time I think we just stuck out.

Ears holed

Owa has been begging me to get her ears "holed" since she was three. I held her off for the last four years but finally relented when all she wanted for Christmas was her ears pierced. I figured she was not going to give up on this and now was good timing (between soccer seasons). Ever reluctant Addi wanted to get her ears pierced too, so we set the date for a couple days before Christmas.

I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 22 years old! I was SUCH a tomboy and never even had a desire to pierce my ears. I had returned from my mission and one of my best college girlfriends was getting married. She gave all the bridesmaids a pair of pearl earrings and gave me a pair with the condition that I get my ears pierced, and I did.


All the pictures I have of Addi trying something new her
face looks like this!


(before)

miss priss "during" (she didn't take after me!)


After


And now Addi's turn..... Owa hid behind a rack of earrings
because she was afraid Addi would cry. And she did. But
Not to much. I kept telling her she didn't have to go through
with it but she insisted!

before


Eli helps Addi put a smile on



After

The More I Learn

I had to state my "educational philosophy" on an online application recently.  Really--it was a required field.  When I applied as an undergraduate to BYU I had to do an essay on education and the first thing that came out was this poem.  I chickened out of actually submitting it as my essay back then, but I've basically remembered it to this day and I used it for my statement of educational philosophy for this app yesterday:


The more I learn
The more I know
The more I see
The more I grow

The more I grow
The taller I stand
The farther I reach
My doing hand

The more I do
The happier I am
The more I help
The more I can

And when I can
Do so many things
There's a word for me
"Freedom" rings.

The teaching job, by the way, is as an adjunct professor of Multimedia Production in the Music Technology department at Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC).  I'm excited about the class.  It's basically about creating content for the web, namely websites, graphics, and video.

'Tis the Season

Christmas is definitely coming. 

On a less shameless-commercialization-of-Christmas-y note, We put up our tree much to the excitement of the kids and at their insistent votes and pleadings.  And they even decorated it all by themselves (the day after we got it--it was late at night and we made them go to bed).  They did the lights and all, basically before I or Amy had a chance to put our stuff from work down and oversee anything.  You've never seen a tree get all decorated up so fast.  But it doesn't look half bad.  And it smells good!

With some extra strings of Christmas lights, the kids also decorated their own rooms.

Thanksgiving Vokis

Addi's class created Thanksgiving vokis and our family followed suit last night for family home evening. Clayton let the kids design his and I love the fro!

Eli's Veterans Day Card

I just loved Eli's heartfelt card he made for our neighbor across the street who fought in World War II. He's a very sweet man and gives them ice cream and stuff all the time. He's 85. He loves them and they love him. We've talked about what he did in the war and it's wonderful to see they understand something of the meaning of what he did.