Fall

It’s been quite a while… I have definitely gotten out of the swing of things with the blog. But it’s good to take a minute to post something.

We have had an eventful year. We have really had three big trips that have broken up our year. We drove to Arizona, with time in Texas. We drove to New York, with a visit in Virginia. AND we flew to California. We also had Tropical Storm Helene hit here in September. We are fine, but some of our neighbors and others in the community will be dealing with the effects for a long time still.

I think I’ll skip all the details of our trips and the storm, and maybe include it in the Christmas Blog, and just talk about what we are doing now. Zach’s parents were just out here for their usual Fall visit. We had a great time. Alex had her first competition type event for Gymnastics, a “Mock-Meet”, while they were here. She was very glad to have everyone come watch her. She did well, and it was a great introduction to what she will do for a real Meet in January. We also enjoyed a colorful drive through the Smokey Mt Park (since the I-40 is still closed) to Gatlinburg for a trip to the Aquarium. They have a nice one there and we all enjoyed it. It was a great “Field Trip” for school as well, since we just finished our Science Unit on Fish.

For Halloween, our town hosts a big event for the kids downtown. We went a couple of years ago and decided that would be fun to do again this year. Alex was dressed up as Cinderella and David was the Hulk. They got quite the haul of candy in a short time. The kids also liked seeing the other funny costumes around town.

It was great to visit with Steven and Lynn. David is already trying to get us to go visit them. He says we could go by plane, car, or even helicopter :)

We are back to regular school days with them gone. Alex is about half-way through her new Reading Curriculum that we am trying this year. I really like it. She is happy to do the reviewing part everyday because she gets to do it while also on her gymnastics bar. She reads some words and then gets do do a “move” on her bar. We are also adding Spelling this week, which uses the same company’s curriculum, so I think she will enjoy it as well. She is plugging along through First Grade. Things are much smoother this year. She still dawdles through Math, but doesn’t fight Handwriting anymore. She actually finished her book early so she could start learning cursive, like a friend at church.

David has been doing some school as well. He often wants to sit at the table and work while Alex is working. I got him a big preschool activity book a the beginning of the year. He got really into it, and finished in record time. Now we are getting a little more focused on his letter sounds and number sense. He is eager to learn, so he is also moving right along with this as well.

That’s about all the time I have today. We need to get school going this morning, and then this evening is the Community Band’s dress rehearsal for our Veteren’s Day concert. We like to stay busy around here :)