But wait, there’s more!

 

You just thought my account of fall break was over!  We celebrated Chris turning 46. 

Josiah and Eleonora enjoyed a Junior Retreat at CSBC. 

I made some egg cups to put in the freezer for “healthy” before-school breakfasts for me. (I do not like eggs one speck unless they’re in a baked good. This does not count.). It’s so funny how the idea of a healthy food choice varies from generation to generation. I’m reading the Mitford series (again!) and their idea of a healthy breakfast is mostly dry toast. 

We enjoyed watching the boys perform at a football game. 

Ten years since Ashley’s wedding!

An old pic from a fall retreat back in the day. You can see little Josiah’s face if you look hard enough. 

We also went to the Pumpkin Playground with the cousins on Friday.

Fall Break, continued

 

Twice lately, we’ve had a hint of the Northern Lights around here, but interestingly, they are best seen through a phone’s camera. Pretty cool!  Also, Chris and the boys finished rebuilding my beloved picket fence that got crumpled by a tree a few summers back. (The same tree that took our three neighbors’ sheds and almost me!)

Adorable blast from the past. 

Eleonora earned a ticket to the Creative Discovery Museum this summer, so while Chris took her there, I took Josiah to the TN Aquarium, which was an unexpected birthday wish of his. Caleb spent this day with his Aunt Bean and cousins. 

The four of us had a fun lunch at the Mellow Mushroom while in the big city. (Josiah said that in exchange for the purchase of this $9 shark jar, he will have excellent posture for the rest of time. Thought I better document that here.)

We had a lovely time celebrating Benjamin’s fourth birthday party with a Toy Story party. 

Another blast from the past from Josiah’s first camping trip. That was a night of very little sleep for me!  Don’t let the picture fool you, I’m not sure that baby spent a moment sleeping in that basket!

Chris got us all packed up for a camping trip at the camp platforms one evening and I had the best night of sleep from the whole week!  Here he is reading Harry Potter to Eleonora. They’ve almost finished the series. Before that he read though all the Little House books with her. She finished 1,000,000 AR words for the school year over the break. She and I are almost finished listening to the Emily of New Moon series. The Anne series is one million times better, but since we have finished listening to those, these will have to do. 

Caleb spent the night in the Range Rover that Chris got in a shrewd motorcycle-swapping deal. 

My dad drove up in the golf cart for a little visit. 

Here’s Caleb making a midnight (more like 8:30) snack by firelight. 

Our tents on a platform. 

Another day, we took my dad to the Museum of Appalachia as our tour guide extraordinaire. We had a great time. 

Chris and I enjoy talking about ways to add stairs to the attic of our house and making a fun space up there. This picture was to show him how much we are overcomplicating the idea compared to our ancestors. 

It was such a beautiful day!

My boys are showing off some fine modeling skills if you zoom in on this picture. 

Josiah enjoyed spending some time with the pumpkin to his pie. Ha. 

And here’s a cute little Laurel getting ready to visit her Great Grandmother. See what I told you?  Scrambled!  Nevertheless, we had a wonderful break!

Fall Break

Last week was Fall Break. This girl rang in this glorious holiday with a four-day fever.

However, this sad news was in keeping with the fact that my favorite fall break activity of all time - biking the Virginia Creeper Trail - was not an option this year because parts of the trail and some of the bridges were just washed away by Hurricane Helene!

Since we were home anyways, and since I was off of technology since it was the beginning of October, I took to my bed/couch and spent 11.5 hours reading a book called The Weight of Ink. That was a good time. I will tell you what happened next, but this Blogger situation is downright frustrating in the way it scrambles my pictures so I will tell you more in another post. With my pictures all willy-nilly. That means out of order. Here goes.