BIRTHDAY BUDDIES

 We celebrated another birth-day last week!

12 and 10 for our birthday buddies

These guys pretty much do everything together and are really big helpers.

We hope you guys had a great birthday!

ZOO DAY

 We recently visited the zoo!!

It was a BEAUTIFUL day in November.

I was rather amused, watching zoo employees put up Christmas decor while sweating in the 80 degree weather.

Otters

Penguins

We got to watch the penguin feeding and learn a bit about them

Everyone wanted to just reach out and touch this guy

Pretty cool that we have the same amount of vertebrae in our necks..

Old-school and SO much fun was had..

all 9 were on the merry-go-round.

ta-ta for now!

A HUNTING WE WILL GO

 We also have a new hunter!

This guy passed his written test with a 99% and did a great job on the field test.

He went out this week for the first time, saw some birds (pheasants) but no shots.

YET.

Happy Hunting!

LIBRARY

 

Our local library is getting a facelift.  

And a substantial addition.

Super exciting..however, in the meantime, it has been shut down for nearly a year already.

They do have a little service point where we can drop off and pick up books requested, and a very small selection that can be browsed, which we are very thankful for!!

It is nothing like the real deal though.

Over the summer we would rotate different branches of our library so the kids could physically pick out items..

The other branches are not close though, so it is hard to get there on a regular basis.

We are really, really looking forward to the opening of our local branch

in the spring of 2025!!

ANOTHER DRIVER

 Earlier this week, we gained another driver!

Happy 17th, Bean!

She was off that evening braving the dark and the roads to Audition Class..

moose buddies

Unfortunately, we couldn't see the show live, but hopefully this is the next best thing.

We hope you had a wonderful birthday!!

Drive safely 💖

WILDWOOD 24

We made our annual trek to Wildwood in mid-September. 

It was super, super windy--almost to the point of NOT being fun.

Almost.

Biking on the boardwalk is always a highlight.

exfoliation.

firepit across the street

We forgot to get a group photo before we left. 

Oh well!

A good time was had by all.

SO MANY CHANGES

 

I recently mentioned that our school year is different.

We do have a recent high school graduate.  That in itself is a big change.

He is working at the job he has held for a couple of years at the greenhouse, working as an "on-call/as needed" photographer's assistant, just started an unpaid internship with a former teacher with photography related direction, AND helping out with our co-op theater program.  He's keeping busy.  Just strange not to have him around with us.

The three next oldest are attending TLC again so that eats up our Thursdays.  

The biggest change... Friday co-op ran into some building issues+ during the summer and made the difficult decision to NOT MEET THIS SCHOOL YEAR! There were many factors in this decision and we recognize that God is in control, but it was a hard and sad blow.  Thankfully, we have an awesome and capable co-op administration and we have been able to go forward with a very, very limited class offering of theater and private or semi-private lessons at a different location.  We are also going to have some 5 or 6 week intensives throughout the year and hopefully a whole lot of field trips or meetups to keep up the relationships. We love TLC, but KFA has really come to be our "first love." Most of the kids' good friends (not to mention mine) are there, we attend as a family and I teach several classes.  Not to mention, it has always been less than 10 minutes from home.   Bean's senior year, so it makes it extra sad but again, we are trying to make the best of it. Lord willing, the co-op will be back up and running for the 2025/2026 school year better than ever.

It does give us some flexibility to do other things and we don't have such a hefty bill which is always good.

Both girls have jobs, Bean's job really doesn't affect the school day, but Missy's job is during school hours and so we are flexible with that so she can make some money as well as complete her schoolwork.  Good life lessons, no?

There are a couple of other minor things, that I'm not going to go into now.

It just feels different, not better or worse, just different and I guess that is just part of life and growth.