It's HALLOWEEN!!

It rained most of Thursday night, but come Friday morning, it was just damp and cool. By one o'clock (parade time) it was cloudy and breezy, but no rain so the parade was on! It was fun to watch Joshua march in the same parade I had marched in for several years.

He made a wonderful Harry Potter...even with blond hair! And Nathaniel made a cute little Spidey.

After the parade it was time for the class party. They played some games - which Nathaniel joined in on. Brian manned the bean bag toss and Nathaniel had fun with him.

We trick-or-treated for a couple of hours. It sprinkled on us briefly, but not too badly. It did start to get cold and windy as we finished up. We went to many of the same houses I trick-or-treated at growing up. The last time I'd trick-or-treated had been when I was a senior in high school and took Carrie, who was in kindergarten at the time! That was 18 years ago!

Both boys made sure to say Thank You at every house...and Nathaniel charmed people with his cute little Tickorteet. We were all exhausted by the time we got home.

Carving Pumpkins!!

Last night we finally got around to carving the jack o'lanterns...not quite the last minute. Nathaniel had a lot of fun with it. I ended up carving his two pumpkins and Joshua's one. So I didn't get too many pictures taken.

This afternoon I took pictures of Nathaniel with his pumpkins before we headed to the elementary school for the parade (yay, the rain held off!) and Joshua's party. When we got home, I took pictures of Joshua with his.

And here they are by candlelight when we got home from trick-or-treating tonight. The candle in Nathaniel's little one didn't stay lit, but the big ones looked pretty cool. Mom and Dad said several people commented on our cute pumpkins :) Joshua's glowing eyed frog was pretty cool!

Field Trip!!!

Last Thursday, Nathaniel and I got to accompany Joshua's class (as well as the kindergarten class and kinder/1st combo from his school and the kinder class from the school in Fort Jones) on a field trip to a pumpkin patch and orchard. It was about 45 minutes away. Nathaniel and I opted to drive ourselves instead of riding on the school bus.

We got to walk through a bit of an apple orchard (slightly reminiscent of Joshua's first kindergarten field trip to a walnut farm in Winters) and learn how apples grow and how the fallen apples become part of the soil that nourishes the apple trees.

Then it was on to the pumpkin patch. The kids paid $3 each and could get a pumpkin as big as an adult's head. Some kids got tinier pumpkins than that and others got away with one that were a little bigger. There were some huge pumpkins...some had holes in them where they'd rotted out - the kids thought that was great! Nathaniel had a blast just getting to run around with the big kids and loved trying to pick up pumpkins. He didn't get one there - we waited and bought one at Grandma 'Rayne's store that cost less than big brother's, but was bigger.

Then it was time for the hay bale maze, stories and a visit from a special guest - SMOKEY THE BEAR!!! Nathaniel looked at Smokey and told me, several times, "I like bears. I like bears." But kept edging further and further away from him and would not let me get "ni cerca" (nowhere near) that big bear in a hat.

After all of this, it was game time...they kids played Duck, Duck, Goose and other games. Then they loaded back up on the bus and we headed back to Yreka where they had lunch on at a park and played on the playground. Nathaniel and I hung for a little bit there and then headed home. A fun day, but Nathaniel was tired!

Fall in the Valley

between Fort Jones & Greenview

A totally gorgeous fall plus a new camera equals fun for me :) We've needed a new camera since January when Brian took the boys up to the snow in the Sierras and our camera decided to play in the snow also. It continued to take pictures, but nothing that needed to be zoomed for - those turned a funky color. We were just able to get a new one last week and it ZOOMS!!!! I'm so excited. And it zooms wonderfully! For those familiar with our area...these following pictures were taken from the middle of the high school baseball field (where Joshua's soccer games were played) and I zoomed into the mountains across the valley (I can't remember how many miles across it is...not too many).

Anyway, I'm loving fall up here. I don't remember fall colors like this from growing up, but maybe I just never noticed because they were here all the time and after being away from so many years and not having colors quite like this in Winters, I'm just super-concious of them.

Also this weekend, we finished the apple "harvest" Mom, Dad, Brian and Joshua cleaned out the tree. Nathaniel had to come in as he 1) wouldn't stay out of the street and 2) decided to pick up the nice shiny black "pebbles" that the deer leave in little piles.

Yep, it was time to come inside and help Mommy make applesauce! He couldn't figure out why I grabbed his hand so quickly and drug him into the house so I could scrub it. He didn't see what was dirty :)

Fun times with cars...

Sunday, while taking some stuff down to Grandma Darlene's to store, Brian noticed that the Explorer was making a strange squealing, screeching sound...not a good sign. Sunday afternoon was kind of crazy with Carrie and Ben here and the boys excited because Daddy was home again and homework, so the first I heard about this was a text message that Brian sent me Monday afternoon when he went to pick up Joshua after school. Tuesday morning a friend from the ward who is a mechanic of sorts came over and listened to it and told Brian that it didn't sound like a belt, but more like something in the motor/engine somewhere. That's what Brian had feared. So this morning we took it to Yreka and dropped it off at the Ford dealership. The girl that drove it around the back told Brian that it sounded like a belt to her. Well, it's a good thing they don't base decisions on her hearing. A few hours later they called Brian and told him that it wasn't a belt (geez, we knew that, thanks for charging $80 to tell us that), and that they needed to take apart the engine - which would take a couple of hours - and if the problem was what they thought it was, they'd have to order the part and it wouldn't be here until Thursday or Friday, but they'd have no time in their schedule to put it in the car until next Wednesday. Now, not only does Brian need to drive back to Davis for work tomorrow, but he's also got to return the trailer that he borrowed from someone in our old ward down there. And since he's not going down there to work next week (yay, Halloween), he'd have to make a special trip down there next week just to drop off the darn trailer. Well, Dad was home today because of a funeral, so he and Brian talked about it and then went to the Napa store in Fort Jones and got their Mountaineer hooked up for towing and he'll be driving that tomorrow and towing the empty trailer. And he'll be bringing back every last little bit of odds and ends from our house in Winters. Then we'll be truly moved.

On top of that craziness for the day, there was funeral that we (Dad, Nathaniel and I) went to this morning - right after getting back from picking up Brian in Yreka after dropping off the car. The grandfather of some friends of mine passed away last week at the age of 88. Their grandpa had always had a pocketful of peppermints that he'd handed out to us kids after Sacrament meeting. Since Brian had to study and Mom had to work, just Dad and I went. And Nathaniel. I didn't want to leave him home with Brian since he needed to study. So I figured that we'd hang out in the nursery and help with the little great-grandchildren that were there. Nathaniel had fun...there were half a dozen or so little kids, most around his age. All together I think there are over 50 great-grandchildren, but not all came. I think there were 27 grandkids. One family alone had 11 kids (several of which I grew up with or my sisters grew up with...and the oldest two even babysat us once upon a time). I saw a couple of friends that I haven't seen in YEARS! That will be a nice thing (not for funerals, of course, more for holidays) about living here...getting to catch up with friends I haven't seen in ages.

Fall is harvest time...even here in town. We finished the garden a few weeks ago. Last week & today, Brian has taken study breaks to pick apples from the apple tree in the front yard. And one moring last week, he, Nathaniel and I picked grapes. Brian fought the raspberries and picked the overhanging grapes from the neighbors vines (they didn't want them) and got a decent sized boxful (those still need to be juiced). Nathaniel "helped" me with the vines in our backyard that grow along the patio/deck. We almost filled a large box (Brian did climb up on the roof of the deck and get all the ones up there). On Saturday Mom juiced all of those and got 8 quarts of grape juice. She said that they've never gotten this many grapes off of their vines before.

Joshua has only one more soccer game to go - YAY!! He enjoys playing goalie and throwing the ball in from the sidelines when it goes out. But he gets tired out by the end of the game and doesn't really care who gets the ball. And for some reason, they're team has way less players than the other 3 teams that they play. This past Monday night two kids from his team were gone, so there were only 6 players...and the opposing team had 8 or 9. Usually they lend a kid to the team with less players or they rotate in, but not this past week. Joshua's poor team was run ragged. Their coach is nice, but only a senior in high school, and doesn't "coach" them that much, not like the other coaches do, by giving them pointers while they play. It was an experience - we'll see if we do it again next fall or not. I think he'll like Little League better. We're still waiting for the soccer pictures to come...not sure how long they take. School pictures should be coming pretty soon...retakes are in two weeks.

Well, this is the only chance I've had to go online on our computer since last Wednesday, so I'd better hurry and enjoy it before Brian gets home to do more homework and then packs up the connection thingie to go with him.

More Soccer Fun...

Throwing in from the sidelines - he's always the first to volunteer to do that...though playing goalie is his favorite position!
We're over half way through soccer...just three games to go. This week our games are in Fort Jones - which means leaving a little earlier to hopefully get there on time. Fort Jones is only 12 miles away, but we've found out that the coach is having the kids practice if they get there early. Since they don't have practices, just games, we're really trying to get there early.

We weren't too successful on Monday, so hopefully we have better luck on Thursday. Great-Grandma is going to come and watch his game, so Joshua's excited about that.

Nathaniel and Daddy at Joshua's game in Fort Jones


Well, we've almost got everything moved up from Winters. If we'd rented a larger UHaul, we'd have gotten everything, but we didn't have room for a few things. Hopefully, Brian will be able to borrow a trailer and get the rest in the next couple of weekends. Nathaniel was a help for the most part while I finished the packing. This is where I found him Saturday morning...on our headboard. He thought he was so funny! Now we just have to work at getting everything in our storage organized...that'll be as much work as packing and moving.

Leaf Fun

This afternoon Nathaniel wanted to go outside (what else is new). To use my time productively, I decided to rake the leaves in the backyard while he and Shadow played. Of course, a pile of leaves is like a magnet, so pretty soon, Nathaniel was kicking them and throwing them. I ran inside and grabbed my camera and then raked the piles back up.

He needed no encouragment to play more. Shadow preferred to just sniff at the leaves - no jumping or frolicking for her.