Painting Date Night

 Date night with my love to test our painting skills!  Thanks for organizing this fun date night Brad.  We are pretty good artists, if I do say so myself!

Gotta stick that tongue out - it definitely helps him stay focused.

Trunk-or-Treat Ward Party

Another Ward Trunk-or-Treat party in the books!  The kids loved running around and around getting candy, then we went in and had dinner, and then enjoyed tons of games and activities inside.  The young women and I were in charge of the cupcake walk and it was a huge hit - until the party got cut short.... (more on that later.....)

One thing we learned this year is that fog machines are a bad idea inside the church building and will trigger the fire alarm.  One other thing we learned is that nobody at that party that night knew how to turn off the fire alarm.  We were only about 30 minutes into the games and activities when the alarm went off.  Everyone just went on playing like normal, as others were scrambling to get the alarms off.  The alarm was so annoying, and we couldn't get it turned off, and before long the firefighters came!  At this point people were calling it quits and heading home.   We were supposed to go one more hour, but as the teams continued to work on that annoying alarm, everyone else cleaned up and ended the party.  I wasn't too sad to say goodnight a little earlier than planned.  :)

It was a ward party to remember!

Bentley and Karly's Escape Room

 Bentley is so good at coming up with such fun and creative things for us to do as a family.  This time he enlisted Karly as his assistant to help him create a fun escape room for the family.  He had such fun riddles and clues that we had to solve. "The Halloween Escape Room" was a major hit.  Thank you Bentley and Karly!

Here's an example of one of our clues we had to solve.  "Each ghost said 1 truth and 1 lie except for the crook who said 2 lies. Can you figure out who it is?"

  

His puzzles really do leave us puzzled quite often!  He helps us all twist our brains a bit and have tons of fun while doing it.  Thank you Bentley!

Halloween Week at Ballet

 Karly and Olive got to wear costumes to their ballet classes this week.  They both chose to be pirates!  It was fun to see their small parent performance after class too.  They are doing so great at learning choreography and they are having fun learning so many new things - poor girls got my tight hamstrings though - sorry ladies!

Eden's class also had a little performance, and they were invited to wear costumes too but they were too old for that I guess. Her performance to the Phantom of the Opera was so graceful and beautiful!

Well done ballerinas!

Floofy the Hampster

 Recently, Olive's teacher Ms. Fox got their class a new classroom pet hamster named Floofy.  Ever since then, Olive has been begging for her own hamster.  Unfortunately for Olive, this momma says "NO!" to any additional breathing, eating, pooping things under this roof.  So to compromise, we worked out a deal for Olive to take care of Floofy at home for the weekend.  She was so excited that Ms. Fox trusted her with this special job, and she took her job as caregiver to Floofy very seriously.  Turns out the long weekend was the perfect time, and returning Floofy was positive for all!

Thanks for staying Floofy!  And thanks for going back to school!

Brad in Tennessee

Guest Post by Brad:

Mom and Dad (Grandma and Grandpa Justice) are slowing down their travel so I decided to take a long weekend and visit them in Tennessee on a solo trip.  Dad is 81 and Mom is 78.  It was really nice to stay with them for a few days without the hustle and bustle of travel or a bunch of people. 

Fall was in the air and colors were beautiful.  This is picture of the little walk from Mom and Dad’s house down to Julie and Jeff’s:

I did whatever they did and went wherever they went.  At this point in their retirement, things are quiet and slow.  They live in a quiet and slow country town.  It’s perfect.

We drove down the streets of McMinnville listening to oldies music and enjoying the fall colors.  It was like going back in time to the 1950s—while driving in Dad’s luxurious Range Rover. 

I had a chance to meet Dad’s cat herd.  A number of months back he found a feral momma cat with a litter of kittens in a log hollow in his backyard.  Since then he has attempted to domesticate them through a series of feedings, petting, cooing, oooing, and ahhhing.  He has been so successful that the momma had another litter of kittens and the neighborhood is overflowing with them.

I woke up in the morning before them and they were peaking through the windows, waiting for breakfast.  How many cats do you spy in this picture?

Every night we would have dinner together.  Mom cooked twice and we went out to dinner twice.  After dinner we would put on our pajamas and watch 2 or 3 shows, NCIS being the favorite.  Between 9 and 9:30 we would go to bed. 

Mornings were nice and slow.  They would emerge from their room about 8:30 am while I was already getting some work done.  By noon we would be off to lunch together.  I got a sampling of their favorite places—Four Corners (an Amish sandwich place), Kimmie’s at the golf course and the burger place. 

I noticed that my brother, Jeff, was still very present in their lives.  They both include him in their prayers over dinner.  They visit him weekly in the cemetery.  Dad has something of an ofrenda with a variety of Jeff’s pictures up in his office closet.  Every time he goes into file something away he says hello to Jeff.  They miss him and are aware that they will see him soon—saying as much when they pray.

They were waiting with me to visit Jeff’s grave so we could decorate it for Halloween.  Dad found special Trick or Treat signs and attached a metal bar in the back so we could nail it in.  I did the hammering, Dad did the “it should be straighter”-ing.  

Mom and I went on a breakfast date at a place on Main.

Dad and I washed the cars like we did for years in California.

I had a chance to visit Matt and Heidi in Thompson Station and play a few games with their kids.  Check out this cool book library Matt built for Heidi in front of their house.

We ended the weekend with a nice dinner at Uncle Julio’s in Brentwood.  It was a great Mexican food place with a fun surprise at the end—a chocolate pinata!  Mom did the honors and broke it open for us.  

As my parents get old, it is deeply heartwarming to spend time like this together.  I love them.  They did their very best to raise me and my siblings. I choose to savor the time together.  All of the slow drives, oldies music, car washing, breakfast dates, lunches, early bedtimes and chocolate pinatas.  I’ll take it all.

Face Painting Shenanigans!

We had a free evening so I thought I would get a little face paint practice in on Karly before Halloween.  Who would have known it would have turned into such a fun night!  Once I was done with Karly's face, Olive wanted to match, which gave me an extra chance to practice on the Cheshire Cat look.  

Then Eden and Bentley decided they wanted to do each other's faces and this is where is got really funny.  This was just one of those experiences where I was fully present, everyone was, and we were all laughing and joking, and watching these two in particular teasing and laughing together.  It was my favorite.

I could tell he felt a little weird about how to stabilize her while he worked so we were all dying laughing when he started using her nose as the perfect handle bar, and she just went with it.  I love their friendship.

Then this was her face when she got the final reveal.  Who knows what he was going for.  He worked so long and hard, I think she was expecting something really good when she finally saw the finished product.  Bentley's good at a lot of things, but we decided his face painting still needs work.

Then Eden wanted to finish it out with some real effort to make something pretty so we erased the cat from Olive's face, and Eden gave her this rose.  Well done Eden!

 Thanks kids for such a random, out of the blue, light hearted night full of laughter and connection.  My favorite!