September

As always, once school starts, things tend to get crazy.  Between soccer and homework and my babysitting jobs resuming we were busy.  This year I agreed to take on another little girl mostly because I thought that one of the boys I've been babysitting for the past two years would be heading off to preschool so I would only have him on Fridays.  That didn't happen.  After a nightmare of back and forth with the preschool teachers and the program that funds the preschool, he didn't get in.  It's the same preschool that all of our kids attended and I have had nothing but praise for them.  But this year, the powers that be must have someone new in charge.  A big part of the program is based on a family's income.  But other factors also came into play and then if a child didn't get in right away, there was always a waiting list.  Eventually most kids would be admitted. We'll with only two kids in the family and both parents working, they didn't meet the financial qualifications.  And it seems that the program didn't place much or any emphasis on the other factors involved this year.  And then instead of creating a waiting list for potential students, they made the school district try to recruit more kids with financial need.  Almost daily the teachers would petition the administrators to let them admit the other kids who didn't initially qualify.  But they were always told no.  That they had to exhaust every other possibility first.  So while they were exhausting possibilities unsuccessuflly, the preschool classrooms had plenty of spots available for other children they they couldn't seem to find while there were plenty of other families who had gone through the registration process already and would have jumped at the chance to take one of those slots.  It makes no sense to me, since the program gets its funding from having bodies in the classroom, why they would not allow a child who could benefit tremendously from a preschool experience just because their family makes too much money.  Ridiculous. A's parents looked at other options but because he works they both work in other places from where they live, they were unable to find a program that would fit their schedules or who were even accepting new children.  

So anyway, it has ended up that I still have all of the same kids from last year plus this new 3 year old girl this year (who happens to be the daughter of Spencer's third grade teacher).  My hands are full and my days are exhausting.  But they are cute kids and it helps to pay the bills for which I am extremely thankful.  It's so weird to me to not have any of my own children at home during the day anymore.  

Anyway, it was a busy month of adjustments and getting back into a routine.  And as usual we had ups and downs.

One day after two of the babysitting kids left, I took the two remaining kids out onto the front porch so they could eat a snack and blow bubbles until the bus arrived bringing our three youngest plus the little girl I babysit after school.  As the bus pulled up at the end of the street I noticed the sky was getting dark and some clouds were rolling in quickly.  Just as the kids were approaching the porch I looked down the opposite way to see Kendall walking home.  He typically walks to my mom's house when she's in Utah so that he can get her mail and water plants and then he walks home after that. But he was home earlier than usual.  He explained that he had started walking there but then realized he had forgotten to bring her key that day so he had just switched directions and come home.  

Right after that, the sky went almost black and the rain started falling and the wind picked up.  It was crazy how fast it came on and I think we were all mesmerized for a minute watching it come in.  But then the lightning started flashing and I told everyone to quick get inside.  By then the wind and rain were going so hard we couldn't see much of anything and shortly after getting everyone inside, we heard this massive crack and felt a thud that shook the house.

I glanced out of our big picture window and could see that a giant branch from our tree had fallen into the yard.  I couldn't tell much of anything else because it was hard to see.  But the whole thing was over in just minutes and then we could see just how big a branch it was.  It was massive.  A tree size branch.

The storm had hit pretty much just the south part of town.  They later determined it was caused by "straight line winds".  So not a tornado, but devastating none the less.  Trees were down all over and some had fallen on homes or vehicles. Victory Park had several trees down. The nature center nearby lost about a thousand trees and had to close down a lot of their hiking trails until they could clear all the safety hazards.  (We still haven't been back yet because it was closed for pretty much the whole autumn but I'm sure when we do it will look a lot different!)

The miracle for us was first that Kendall had left his key.  That delay of going to my mom's would have meant that he would have been caught walking in that storm.  Luckily he was home just in time.  It was also a miracle that the branch fell exactly as it did.  A little further west and it would have crushed our white van (which might not have been that bad of a thing now that I think about it!) but a little further east and it would have taken out our neighbor's garage.  As big a pain as it was to clean it up and clear it out, it could have been much much worse. So we were thankful that we got off with as little as we did.

Just a little perspective to show just how massive the "branch" was.

Thankfully we had friends and neighbors who pitched in to help us clean up the mess. (With one additional trial of Kalen catching his finger between a piece of wood and the wood splitter and requiring some stitches and a lot of pain...) And now we have a bunch more wood in our wood pile!

We got to participate once again in our annual Festival of the Forks.  Taylor had a cross country meet that morning so he missed the parade.  But the rest of the kids participated in the parade.  Kindergartners needed a parent to walk with them and Kaya chose Kalen, so this was the very first year that I sat on the sidelines alone to watch the parade!

Kendall and the rest of the middle school band did a fantastic job!

Lynnsey and Spencer rode the Albion Youth Theater float. (Lynnsey is wearing the yellow mask and pink boa and Spencer is just below her in the sombrero.)

And Kaya walked with her class and the rest of the Albion Wildcats.

Sometime these two actually get along with each other!

We enjoyed a fun day with lots of sights to see and food to sample.  Always the yummy food!

Taylor has been participating more this year with school events including MHS spirit week.  He had fun putting together costumes including  a toga and 80's day. (I loved his 80's day costume!)

Our tiny garden had a plentiful tomato and poblano harvest this year. We enjoyed lots of salads with the tomatoes and spicing up our dishes with the enormous peppers.