Visiting and Traveling

We are having a nice Fall here.  Overall the weather has been great and we are still enjoying some nice Fall days.

Cal brings home books from school that he has to read almost every night.  It's really cute because many times he'll say to the girls "Who wants to hear a story?" and then he'll go over to the couch with the girls following.


Had to get pictures of the rest of the kids...


Elden didn't want his picture taken.


A little over a week ago Lois and her family came for their monthly visit.  Lucky for me Lois babysat so I could go on a field trip with Clark! We went to a life science museum. 






They had a cool room with rocks that glowed when an ultra-violet light shined on them.






That night we had a fire outside.



I didn't think we had regular sized marshmallows (we actually did) so we used some mini-marshmallows.  They worked out okay, though I would never try to use them in the future.


Saturday night was the adult session of Stake Conference.  Lois yet again babysat (you're awesome Lois!) and Lee and I were able to go to the meeting together.  It was great!  Afterwards we went with a few couples to Cracker Barrel and got dessert. I ordered the blackberry cobbler. The blackberry part was great!  When I got to the crust...that was another story.  I have never had lard in a pastry crust before, but now I have.  What other ingredient would make a crust taste like bacon?  Yuck.  I didn't like it.  Good thing there wasn't much crust.  And now I know to never buy lard to make pie crust! Just the thought alone is gross!

Lois and family had Stake Conference the same weekend as us, so that worked out great.  We all went to Stake Conference together on Sunday. I wanted to sit in the chapel for Stake Conference and was hoping to get to the building at 9:00am (the meeting started at 10am).  We got off a little late and arrived at about 9:15-9:20.  The chapel was already full.  Oh well.  We went ahead and sat in an overflow room.  Better luck next time!  Afterwards we drove around Charlottesville.  It's a pretty town!




Thanks Lois and Jeff for coming and visiting!  Oh, and don't think we left Jeff out of the fun.  Aside from helping Lois with babysitting, Jeff helped Lee move to a new office location!  Yep, we are now in a different office. Here is a picture from Google maps..and it's the back of the building (though it is officially the front). 


The new sign...though another sign will be in the works in the near future.


Here is the front entrance of the office (technically the back of the house).  AGR Insurance and a realty office are upstairs. We'll have more pictures soon of the office.  It's almost all put together.  I admit, when Lee told me about wanting to move locations I was very weary of the idea.  But the "new" place is great.  And it has ramp which is a huge bonus.  Lee's lost a few patients after they saw the flight of 21 stairs up to the office in the old place.


A few days after Lois left we headed up to DC.  Unfortunately she was sick so we didn't see her.  Lee and I just swapped kids at the temple.  There is a park close by so I took the kids there, fed them sandwiches and then we walked around the temple.  Lee took them to the DC Visitors' Center. Right before we left Jeff and Reed met up with us and gave us some yummy cookies and a toddler bed.  (Can you believe that Elden will be in a toddler bed in a few months?  I will start potty-training him the middle of March. My last one.....)

We should just use this for our yearly family photo.  Kids, why can't you do this when we take family photos?


Even though Lee and I didn't get to go to the temple together this time, it actually was great having the kids visit the temple and enjoy it for themselves.  We'll take them again in December to look at the lights.

We've started "buying" the business now, so that is exciting--especially since Lee is working at Walmart as a greeter.  Ha ha, just kidding.  He is working as an eye doctor twice a week, six hours at a time.  We haven't "paid" ourselves yet and this money will ensure that we can pay for our expenses at home (food, utilities, rent, etc.) without draining our emergency fund.  I feel blessed for this extra job.  In the process of looking for extra work, Lee actually was offered a full-time job and even a part-time job (20 hours per week).  It's nice knowing that optometry doctors are needed!  We just need more patients to show up at Lee's practice....

We have a busy week ahead of us and I can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week!  How fun! I am so excited that some of my family will be here so we can celebrate together.