Catching up . . . September, October and November

On September 17th Joseph received his Webelos badge.  Go Joseph!

And Joseph tried to teach me chess, just as Dan, Brandon, and Aubrey have tried in the past. It didn't go well. 

Aubrey and I went to see a musical she was very excited about (we both agreed that there were some cool parts and some good music, but overall it was a very strange and somewhat inappropriate show!)

October brought lots of soccer games,

 some in the pouring, windy, freezing cold rain.


















Sports are never cancelled for rain in Washington, of course!

We enjoyed a wonderful General Conference, with lots of relaxed listening and note taking (Joseph took notes on Dan's computer this time), plus plenty of puzzle doing and decadent food eating. We invited Hunter, one of our Trek family kids, to join us for Conference.

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I attended several field trips with Joseph's 5th grade class. Every month his teacher walks the class down to the Salmon Creek, where they take water samples and assess the health of the water through all sorts of scientific tests.  Pretty cool.  See Joseph there taking notes on the far right?

 We also went on a field trip to Columbia Springs, where the kids continued to learn about our ecosystem and the wonderful natural world around us.

 Here they tried to make a stream out of sand which would withstand erosion.

I just have to say that it was FREEZING this day. I had been fighting a cold, and after this day-long field trips I succumbed to a lousy 3-week-long sinus infection. Not fun.

A beautiful sunrise over the Salmon Creek as I drove to pick up Aubrey from Seminary.

 Aubrey's onesie Halloween costume!  On Halloween night she went to a party.

 Carving pumpkins and hosting our Halloween dinner on the day before Halloween.

Posing outside in the beautiful fall weather.

 Halloween night - we met up with several families and three of Joseph's closest friends.  It was pouring rain and we got soaked, but the kids didn't mind.



















Afterward the kids traded candy, which is the best part of trick-or-treating.

 One day after school Joseph and his friend Ian worked together on Joseph's raking leaves chore. I'm not sure why Joseph was trying to rake behind his back?