fall fun

Robert and Campbell making sure the Thanksgiving turkey was extra amazing.

Two 12 year olds that still play with blocks

A few of Campbell's meets have been at our local park so she knows that course really well! We like to stand at the end of the bridge to cheer her on before she heads up the last big hill. She ended up running Varsity until the end of the season so she's still going strong with daily practice- the last meet is in a couple weeks. We've been so happy with the kids on the cross country team. The kids are so nice to each other, are good students, and have made practice something Campbell looks forward to. Even if it's 100 degrees outside and they're running for 2 hours straight.

Emery came up with the idea to make a table and then tile it for her plants to sit on in her room. Grandpa helped her build the table, plan the tile pattern, and use the tile saw.

Not surprisingly, Griffin used Legos for his cell model project

Checking her pace and time after she's done with another race

Campbell's always happy to be done! It makes her really nervous on race day but she continues to challenge herself with hard things and I admire her for it!

Griffin dissecting a chicken leg during his body muscle system unit study. He was not a fan- I didn't think he'd be that repulsed! Then he started talking like he was the chicken while he tore the muscles off and examined the joints. Disgusting. We were both glad when that project was over.

We ended up watching two dogs at the same time for a week when one of the owner's dogsitters fell through. It was a lot of dog for a family with zero pets. We're watching the white dog again next week.

Griffin and I compared our lung capacities by taking a super deep breath and filling the balloon while exhaling as much air out as we could. I crushed him. 

Griffin and Quinn did cross country during soccer season to fill in the gaps with some hill running when they weren't chasing soccer balls. They end the cross country season with 5 meets scattered around the East Bay area. Some of their friends do CC also so it's a fun time.

We tried out a new pumpkin patch this year and are so glad we did! I've never seen so many different pumpkins scattered around the fields- it was beautiful!

3 different mazes kept all the kids busy for a while

We got a new honey extractor so we can extract when we want to. My honey helper stayed up late with me to get the rest of our frames finished up for the season. She's super thorough and makes sure we get as much honey out of the extractor as we can.

Then I stuck the mostly empty frames and cappings outside for the bees to clean up. Since this is "dearth" season where there's not a lot of nectar to be found we got hundreds and hundreds of bees show up to get their fair share. The bees came back for 3 more days even when I put everything back in the house. They just flew around in circles hoping some honey would appear.

Learning to mow our little lawn

Griffin's last minute with braces! He was so happy to get them off a few days before Halloween! Not that the braces stopped him from eating candy while he had them on.

All gone!

Quinn doing her best wanted poster face at the beginning of our tour of the Harry Potter haunted house during our church trunk or treat activity.

They love carving pumpkins!

Happy Halloween! Griffin was a referee (in real life and for Halloween), Emery made her Care Bear costume, Quinn was Medusa and Campbell was a photographer.

Griffin played keeper for about 5 mins for the first time in 14U soccer and he was the loneliest keeper ever. I don't think the ball ever even got to him. He usually plays midfield center so he can go wherever he wants. This was a great season- he scored lots of goals and his team won most of their games.

Griffin and his friend were in the Herbology Room for the Harry Potter haunted house. The YM and YW helped run some of the rooms and parts. Campbell was a tour guide and Emery helped do the photos at the beginning. The plant boys jumped out and scared people and I heard they did a great job giving people heart attacks.

They had a fun pasta feed before each big race