Applejack Acres

It's that time of year again - apple pickin' time!!!  For the past 4 yrs, with a year off in there somewhere, we have gone to the apple orchard.  It's something we look forward to each year and we had a BEAUTIFUL day today when we went.  

Our group size isn't growing, but the kids themselves sure are!  And, I do believe they get goofier each time we go.

Getting this herd of children to pick apples and fill their bags, without eating them all as they do, is no easy task, but we managed to get of there today with only 8 consumed apples between the 5 of my kids (aka my kids and my babysitting kids).

Also, trying to get the boys NOT to climb the trees and throw the apples was also hard, but after getting yelled at a few times, they did a better job. ;-)

The girls loved filling their bags and finding all the yummy apples to eat.

I couldn't get Noah to stop eating long enough for this picture.  He ate through 3 of them while we were there.

I try to always get a picture of Michael and Madie together.  I love the expression on Madie's face when Michael tried to hug her.  Hilarious!  She's such a tween!

As you can see, though, Michael has grown a *little* faster than Madie. ;-)

These boys are such good friends.  Love the Spock sign!

Lisa and I have become really good friends over the past 2-3 years and her family is really sweet.  So glad her husband could join us today too!

Patty and I have been super-close since Madie and Michael have been in 2nd grade.  I seriously love these people like they were a part of my own family.  So glad Quentin got to join us too!

Janessa took this picture of me and the kids.  Sadly, Pete was at work.  But, we had a great time anyway!

These are the boys I babysit.  They're goofy and crazy, but they're also pretty awesome too. :-)

How could I not love this couple?!

The farmer (I still have no idea what his name is after all these years!) took us down to see his chickens.

Then gave us all a ride in the tractor.  It was such a fun time and we walked out of there with tons of apples and apple cider.  YUM!  Such a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Scarecrow Fest

Today was our annual Scarecrow Fest!  We go every year and have for several years now.  It's one of the reasons I decided to drive home late last night after the reunion.  I didn't want to miss it!

We went a little late this year (around 11:30), because Madie doesn't get out of dance class until 12:45.  We didn't want to do everything without her.  I noticed last year that it was a little smaller than in years past and I noticed the same thing this year.  Not quite as much stuff to do, sadly.  But, we still managed to have lots of fun and we saw lots of people, which was great!  First stop?  The Farmer's Market.

There is always a booth that sells homemade dog treats.  We go there first every time, so we can get Tater a special dog treat.  It was so funny, when we got home, Livie put her bookbag on the floor, with the dog treat inside, and Tater would not leave it alone.  He could smell it and just couldn't wait to get his hands on it!  He devoured this giant rawhide bone in less than 3 min.  Crazy!  The picture above is them picking out some honey sticks for Madie from a local beekeeper.  Is that what they still call them?  It's all natural honey from their hives.

This year's Scarecrow theme was zombies.  Earlier that morning they had a zombie run.  Wish we could've gone, but I slept in this morning and didn't want to drive over twice.  Heard it was fun though!

There was the ever-popular petting zoo.  The geese weren't in the mood to be touched, but the goats were!

So were the chickens.  I got to see several of my students and former students when we were out today.  Many of them were here at the petting zoo.  The goats were so small and so stinkin' cute.  My dream is to one day live on a farm with apple trees and goats.  They are just too sweet!

After we hit the petting zoo, we were able to go get Madie and have her join us for the rest of our fest experience.  We went to one area that had the most booths.  The booths used to line the streets, which I loved, but now they are all in one location to make it easier to walk by.  No JDRF this year, but Michelle (the gal who runs it for her son) was away with her husband, visiting their Type 1 son in college.  He's a freshman this year. :-)

There was a big bounce house/slide thing.  This is the same one that was at the picnic this year for Pete's work.  Madie opted out, while she and I visited the booths, while Pete watched Noah and Livie play on it.

We got to see a few more scarecrows on our way to our late lunch at Jardines (our favorite!!).  Livie is pointing to the brain in this scarecrow's pocket. :-)

Livie is punching the mushroom in this Mario set-up.  Hilarious!

There were several scarecrows, but again, not as many as in years past.  I'm thinking maybe our SS kids need to create a scarecrow for future fests.  I think that would be great fun!  We visited a few more stores, but not many, since we're trying to save up for next weekend's JDRF Walk!  But, we did visit our favorite bookstore that moved locations, just a block away.  It's a lot smaller now, which makes me sad, but just really glad it's still around.  I might be an Amazon junkie, but there is nothing, NOTHING like a good bookstore.  There are few things in life that bring me more joy than a really amazing bookstore.

So, that ended our day together and it was beautiful (if not hot) outside for this fun time.  It's the start of a full month (October) of busy, busy weekends.  My favorite time of year!

20th Reunion

Last night was my 20th reunion - something I've been working on with 2 other classmates/friends since about this time last year!  I wasn't terribly excited to drive the 3 hours there and back on the same night, but I'm really glad I did, because I had a lot of fun.

I didn't buy myself a new dress, but I DID get my hair done.  Nice to have cute hair once in a while. :-)

The reunion was in Monticello, which is closer than Royal Center, so that made my drive a little easier.  I got a little nervous when I pulled in.  I mean, the "unknown" that comes with reunions is kind of gone, because I'm friends with nearly all of them on FB, so I know what they look like, what their lives are like, but still - I haven't seen most of them in 10 yrs in person, so some nerves come with that.  But, once I was there, it was like old times again.  I sat at this table with some of my best friends from high school and one of my current best friends.  That's Teresa on the left.  Suzanne, on the right, and I were SOOO close in high school.  But, the last time I saw her was at my wedding 14 yrs ago!  It was so fantastic to catch up with her again.  I refuse to let another 14 yrs pass before seeing her again.  She's so much fun!

Suzanne, Teresa, and my other friend Josh and his girlfriend were the most fun to talk to that night.  So many memories of them together.  I don't think I've seen Josh since Noah was maybe 2.  He and Michelle came out for a weekend and I remember Noah just loving him to pieces and constantly wanting to hang all over him.  I, of course, reminded him of that. :-)

Here are more of my friends, Trace (L) and Beth (R).  They are such sweet people and it was really fun to catch up with them too and see them again.

Teresa, Suzanne, and I took up 3 of the 5 spots of our former, infamous HS group - DAS.  DAS stands for Dead Auditorium's Society.  Can you tell Dead Poet's Society was popular at the time? ;-)  We used this made up club to get out of homeroom nearly every day and would meet on the stage in the auditorium to hang out and laugh it up.  Good times!

The award for the coming the farthest was Andre there on the right.  He was an exchange student during our senior year.  He flew in all the way from Brazil!!

Josh liked to point out that I am still shorter than he is in this picture.  I told him I'm leaning, because with the chair, I easily have an inch on him. :-)

More friend shots.

This is my very good friend Kathy.  We grew up together and I practically lived at her house the summer after we graduated.  We were great, great friends until recent years when we just lost touch.  Seeing her again was like old times - we chatted forever and laughed it up.  I wish I made it down to Royal Center to see some of these people more.  I grew up with them and that love doesn't go away.

And, of course, I had to get a picture with one of my besties.  I seriously have the most beautiful best friends.  Michelle couldn't make it that night, though we texted throughout the evening.   But, I'm sooooo glad Teresa made it!  Wouldn't have been the same without her!

A fun night was had by all.  We didn't have many of our 72 classmates show up - I think only 18 to be exact - but we had fun even with that small size.  I can't even get into all the reasons some of our other classmates didn't come.  Stupid reasons involving the evening being "too fancy" for them.  Whatever.  Had fun with those that were there and really glad the ones that came, did.

This is Kathy with her husband Jeff and our friend Rob (L).  Rob flew in all the way from Virginia.  He gets the second award.  I'll be honest and say we weren't really close friends in HS.  But, after becoming friends on FB again, I feel like we've built a nice friendship and I'm so happy to see him so happy with his life.  He has a beautiful wife and an adorable little girl.  Really awesome to see that!

In the picture with Andre from above, you'll see he's sitting next to Eric and Eric's wife, Megan.  I am friends with Megan on FB, but had never met her in person.  I know from being her FB friend that she is an INCREDIBLE artist.  Like, amazing!  So, when I saw her "doodles" on her 1993 quiz, I had to take a picture.  Oh, to be able to draw like that.  It was fun to meet her in person after all this time.

This picture was taken by Josh's girlfriend, Marissa.  He is an amazing photographer and she helps right along with him.  He told me he wouldn't sue me for copyright infringement if I posted this here, so I did. :-)  This is our group from that night.  I wish it had been bigger, but am thankful for those who came and thankful that I was able to make the drive out to see them all.  It was a really, fun night!

Getting Creative

As I posted before, Noah got his new pump and a whole bunch of pump supplies on Friday.  My "diabetes cabinet" is already packed full of other supplies - like needle tips, test strips, etc... and I knew I needed to come up with a creative way to store all of his new things.  An idea popped into my head and I took Noah with my on Saturday morning to see if my new idea would work!

Noah loves tools and has tons of them already, even at 10 yrs old.  So, I thought of a tool chest.  Not for his tool, however, but for his diabetic supplies.  It's got lots of drawers, would look pretty cool in his room, and we could add pieces to it to actually hold REAL tools, as he got older.  So, we went out, found the cheapest one we could find, made sure the drawers were large enough and plentiful enough to hold everything, and brought it home.  Noah was really excited about building it, but when we took it out of the box, it was already put together, so Pete just added the wheels to it, so it could be moved around.  Noah supervised until he got pulled back into the world of Minecraft by his sister. ;-)

When it was done, he rolled it into his room and put it right next to his bed.

He then filled it up with his pump supplies.  We still have room for more and I'm sure it'll fill up quickly with other things, once we get rolling on this pump thing.  Nice to know we have more storage if and when we need it and Noah is really excited to have something so fun to hold it all in.  He made sure to show our neighbor boys as soon as they came over this morning.  I told Pete, for as much as he's been through already, I think it's ok to get him a little something special to make all of this stuff related to his disease seem a little bit cooler. :-)

Youth Times Two!

Oh.  My.  Lawn.  I don't think I can adequately tell you how busy today was.  I'm going to try, but I doubt you'll fully grasp the busyness.  That's ok though.  Just know, after you read everything I post, even though it was busy and I'm tired, it was SUCH an amazing blessing from start to finish and it took me until that finish to finally receive the blessing of it.  Let's start at the top.

I woke up at 3 o'clock this morning, because Noah woke up with a low.  I've had some anxiety lately (a long story that I won't get into), so I was unable to fall back asleep.  With a day like I knew I had coming, being unable to sleep was NOT something I could afford to deal with.  It definitely put me a bit off my game for a good part of the day.  Noah and I left for church around 7:45, so we could run to Kroger and get some balloons and put the finishing touches on the kick-off for ZONE.  We had a carnival theme - snacks, prizes, games, etc..  

They each got a bag with some goodies inside about Jesus and our program, and they were able to add prizes, crafts, and snacks to their bag as the morning went on.  Some of the games were a spinning wheel game and a can game, where they tried to knock down all the cans.

Every time they played a game or took their photo at our makeshift photo booth, they got tickets.  They took the tickets to the prize table and got prizes.  Noah and Livie helped Pete and I set all of this up Saturday morning, while Madie was at dance, so they both knew exactly what prizes they wanted - and they got every single one! :-)

At the Snack Table, we had water bottles, with the information about our program on them.  We had popcorn and animal crackers and hot dogs too!  The kids really seemed to enjoy the free treats!

Pete helped lead this bean bag toss game.  The kids loved it!  Especially the older boys, who enjoyed trying out their baseball skills. :-)

Madie is old enough now to be a helper and did the ring toss game.  She was giving out tickets left and right!  I think this was the best station of the morning, since the kids could win so many tickets at a time.

We had crafts they got to do and many times I saw kids standing around, going through their bags, to see what goodies they had collected.  I was seriously so tired when this was going on, I really was in a daze.  I had so many people come up to me both during and after to tell me how much fun the kids had, but I was so disconnected at that point, wallowing in my anxiety, that I wasn't able to receive it.  I went home, tired and overwhelmed, because I knew that I had another kids' event to go to just an hour and a half later.  I was not looking forward to it to say the least.

Well, after that hour and a half passed, I loaded up Madie, Noah, and our neighbor Jade, and headed out to pick up two more kids and take them over to a place called the "Enchanted Forest" over in Utica.  Our brand new Jr. High Youth Group was having their kick-off event here and I had promised to take my kids and their invited friends.  We were there from 2:30-6 and during those 3+ hours, my attitude completely changed.  I'll tell you why.

When we got there, the adults were there to greet the kids and we got them their ride bracelets and tokens.  Doesn't this look like a great group of kids?!

My kids weren't interested in riding the rides.  They wanted to play arcade games and win tickets.  Guess the theme of the day was "TICKETS"!

Madie and her friend Katie played lots of games together, putting their ticket winnings together to make it a larger bundle. :-)

See all their winnings??

Watching Noah go up this ride, screaming and laughing, is when my attitude started to turn around.  I started to come out of my exhausted, stressed haze and start realizing what was happening all around me.  You see, over 2 yrs ago I joined our pastor to try and get a youth program started in our church.  Our youth program died when our youth pastor left about 5 yrs ago.  I knew my kids were going to get to the age where a youth program would be important to them and we didn't have anything like that in our church at that time.  I started going to monthly meetings with John and other area ministers as we tried to create a city-wide group.  Month after month, I went to these meetings, with nothing to show for it.  Everything fizzled out when John was faced with his dad's failing health.  He came back from that and his Sabbatical with renewed interest in starting something up again.  I was kind of over it at that point and didn't want to start a new cascade of meetings that would result in nothingness again, but I went.  I wanted to support it, even if my heart wasn't in it.  But, what I wasn't willing to look at, at the time, was this wasn't meant to be on MY time table, but God's time table and HIS time table is what matters in all of it.  After 6 months of talking about it, I begrudgingly went to one more meeting and a gal, who had never been to the meetings before, got teary-eyed and said, "God wants me to do this."  WHAT?!  After all this time, was I really hearing this?  Fast forward to today, 6 months later and I found myself, staring into the laughing, screaming face of my 10 yr old, while my 12 yr old was running from game to game, and I realized.... It's happening.  All that work, all that prayer, and the youth program was happening right before my eyes.  My exhaustion fell away and excitement came in its place.  I was too tired to appreciate the joy in the eyes of the kids during our ZONE Kick-off, but I was awake and able to receive the joy that the kids had during the Youth Kick-off!  A day that began with me feeling overwhelmed and under-rested, ended up being one of the biggest blessings of the year for me!  God does that too.  He likes to turn things around, when I least expect them too, and remind me that He is in control, always.  And, I needed to hear, and know that today.  So, the rest of the afternoon went a little something like this:

Tickets were cashed in.

Prizes were bought.

Laser Tag Annihilation occurred - which was, hands down, everyone's favorite!

We adults (and later the kids) all sat around and chatted and had some delicious pizza.

All the kids, except Madie with her fear of heights, tackled the rope course.  Noah powered through it, after some nervousness crept in.

Noah discovered the joy of the Tilt-O-Whirl and, after much convincing from my peers, found me at his side for one quick go-around (though that's Madie's friend, Katie, in the picture above). :-)

New relationships between adults and kids were formed.  And, this makes me happy, most of all.  So, today was jam-packed with activities for the kids, both young and younger still.  I wasn't able to receive the blessings of the first event, at the time, but I WAS able to see the blessings of the second event and receive the joy of what it meant to my kids, their friends, and our church. :-)

So, you see, that is the story of how God changed my heart today and reminded me that I don't need to hold on so tightly to my worries and concerns.  I need to trust Him more and know He's in control.  I know in my own failings, that I will continue to fight my own need to control, instead of giving it to Him, but it was something I needed to be reminded of today and He did it in the best way possible - through the completion of a long-held journey.  What a great God we serve!