October

October was another busy month full of the kids soccer and band schedules. Marching band is no joke at the high school! From practices during school hours to more intensive 3 hour ordeals on Monday nights to hours long performances in the stands and a pretty amazing half time show on the football field, these kids have to be dedicated! We enjoyed watching a few of the shows (and games too), especially one that was played at Albion College and brought out crowds of people from both towns. 

In all the busy-ness of the month, I didn't managed to get a whole lot of pictures of all the happenings including any of the kids soccer games. All of them had a great fall season. I appreciated that the weather wasn't as horrific as some fall seasons have had! It was still chilly but we managed.

This year for Halloween, we cheated again and borrowed costumes from the Bramhall's. We went with a Peter Pan theme and it was so much fun! The only costume I had to buy was one for Kendall to be Peter. There was a kid size Peter costume and Spencer went back and forth before deciding he would rather be the Tick Tock Croc so he wound up wearing the Peter costume for his school celebration since it was a lot lighter weight and there was less chance of totally overheating indoors. But then for trick or treating, Kendall went as Peter. It was raining (of course!) but we still had fun. We went to the college festivities first and the kids got to trick or treat to various sites around campus followed by a fun performance of Michael Jackson's Thriller to wrap up the party. Then we went to a few of the houses of people who like to see what we come up with from one year to the next. There was no Trunk or Treat at the church this year which was a little sad. They instead wound up doing a Harvest Festival the following week which wound up being really fun but had really low attendance so they may bring back the Trunk or Treat next year but incorporate the activities of the Harvest Festival.

In the meantime, Taylor was doing great and enjoying his mission. His new companion Elder Bright was brand new so Taylor got to be a trainer at the same time that he was called to be District Leader. He had a few stressful experiences but did great through it all and couldn't have been happier with his companion--especially after the struggle he'd had with his previous companion.

September

Once again, summer seemed to fly by and suddenly school was starting again. There is something about first day of school pictures that really reminds me how quickly my children are growing up. I've said before and I'll say it again, once they start Kindergarten, it seems like a blink until they're leaving home. It still seems so strange to me not to have Taylor here anymore!

This year Kendall began his 10th grade year. After getting freshman year under his belt, he was a lot more confident and excited about this year. He's enjoying his classes and his friends (including reconnecting with some of his younger friends who are now freshmen). He's got a full schedule of some pretty tough classes but has been doing well and keeping up with all the extras like marching band.

The other three kids started their year still here at Albion Community School. Some of that changed later, but I'll get to that in a future post.

Lynnsey is already a 7th grader. She got off to a bit of a tough start. She had hoped that she would be able to have more of a junior high experience with at least a few different teachers and class periods, but because of budget cuts at the school, she was pretty much in one classroom all day long just like her elementary school experience. That was a big disappointment and then they wound up shuffling her around the first day. She thought she had one teacher but partway through the day, they made her switch to a different class after she had been excited about some of her friends in that one plus, the teacher was one of Kendall's favorites. But it turned out that other friends were in the other classroom and her teacher was the wife of the first

teacher who is equally as awesome. So after the first few days, things settled down and she began to enjoy it more. And as an awesome bonus, she did get to switch to the other teacher for a subject or two during the day so she still gets to enjoy being in his class at least part of the time.

Spencer is a 5th grader this year! That seems the craziest to me I think because he's still so small. He's loving his teacher who we requested because Lynnsey and Taylor had both had her and loved her and she seems like a nice fit for Spencer. He is especially loving her huge classroom with the little reading cubbies where kids can go and relax with a book as a reward for getting their work done and having good behavior. 

And my baby is a 2nd grader! We didn't know either of the second grade teachers this year so we didn't request anyone. Later Kaya told me that she had actually been hoping to get into Mrs. Taylor's class but she wound up in Mr. Hick's class instead. It only took that first day though for her to be thrilled with him. 

 It was a busy month with soccer starting up again and the kids adjusting to their schedules at school. As always we had a fun time at the Festival of the Forks. It was a little rainy at times and overcast, but it didn't stop the parade or the festivities.

Kaya marched with her classmates and the rest of Albion Community School.

Spencer and Lynnsey marched with the school band. Spencer and the other 5th graders didn't have their instrument, but their new band teacher had them march anyway. (Probably to make it look bigger than it really was!) And Kendall marched with the high school band (they sounded great!). Later Kaya participated in a "pie" eating contest but was sorely disappointed that this year they didn't have real pies. They were prepackaged pastry thingies that were so dry and took the kids forever to get down. Kaya came close but another kid finished just before her. You can see in the picture below how enthusiastic she was about the whole event! Hopefully they learned their lesson and will go back to real pies for the next contest!After walking around and checking everything out, we made sure to buy our traditional elephant ears and then went for our traditional lunch of homemade tamales! Yum!

August

August always arrives so quickly and reminds us that summer really doesn't last forever. Suddenly we are trying to cram in activities that we thought we had plenty of time for and now we realize we just don't have enough time.

Kendall attended his second year of band camp the first week of August. This time he had a much better experience. It was still exhausting and lots of hard work, but knowing a lot of the other band members and having gone through it all before made it a lot more enjoyable. This year he was able to really be himself and participate more in the fun stuff like Skit Night where he had people cracking up with his performances (they loved his rap!). 

The second week in August was the one we had all been waiting for. We were able to travel down to Nauvoo, Illinois for our annual Potter Family Reunion. The Bramhall's were in charge this time and they chose the location. We were able to pool our resources to rent the Hyrum Smith farmhouse. Between several bedrooms, pullout couches and a bunk room we had plenty of room for A LOT of people. We had mom and dad, our family of 6 (we sure miss Taylor!), the Bramhall's family of 7, Jonathan, Susannah and her two kids, Melissa and her 4 kids made the trek up to join us (it was so awesome to see them again and have our kids get to know their cousins from Texas!), Timothy, David, and Samuel. We missed Andrew and his family and Nathan who had to work that week.

Nauvoo is so beautiful and even though we had a few days to spend there, we still had to pick and choose what we wanted to do because there is just so much. We took a wagon ride around the outskirts of the city, toured the old historical buildings and shops and learned a ton, we saw a musical called "Old Nauvoo" that was fantastic, spent time learning about pioneer activities at the Family Life Center and then got to dress up in pioneer outfits at Pioneer Pastimes where the kids participated in old fashioned games and activities including some stilt racing, some of us did a session at the temple followed by a sealing session which was awesome, we visited neighboring Carthage where we toured the Carthage Jail and listened to an emotional retelling of the last moments of the Prophet Joseph Smith's life before being martyred by the mob in the very room where it took all took place, and we were able to go on a handcart trek that was way more challenging than we had imagined but that gave us a small taste of what that might have been like for those pioneers. When we weren't off doing all of that, we found time to visit and relax and play back at the house. The kids had fun in the hot tub room and concocted a fun video that involved all the cousins and which they posted to YouTube to share with each other. It was just such a fantastic trip.

 

After Nauvoo, most of us traveled up to Chicago (a few skipped that part and went the rest of the way to Michigan). The girls visited the American Girl store for a fun few hours of exploring and a yummy dinner while the boys went to eat and then visited the Lego Store next door. It was a second Chicago trip to AG for the older girls who had fun but for the younger girls going for the first time it was magical and they had a ball. I was glad that Melissa was able to join us for this part of the trip too. Jenna is such a sweetie and it was so much fun to see the quick friendship that developed between her  Kaya, Rebecca and Lydia on this trip.

 Spencer was in Lego heaven with his fellow Lego-loving cousins!

 After Chicago, we had to say goodbye to the Chambers so they could get back for their kids football and cheerleader activities. I hope we don't have to wait as long to see them again!

The rest of the family journeyed to Michigan for a few more days of visiting and playing at our regular favorites. We visited the Marshall Fountain, Ketchum Park, Victory Park, Swain's Lake, Kids n Stuff museum, the nature center, and a fun kids concert at the band shell.

                                       

Meanwhile, Taylor got to have the amazing experience of hearing Elder Bednar speak to the missionaries in his area. He was able to meet him and have a great conversation with him so that was a big highlight of his mission so far!

After all the fun and adventure, we wound up the month with Kalen heading back to work at Albion College and me starting up babysitting again and getting the kids all ready for the new school year. That was a fast summer!