Dishwasher

As of Wednesday, the dishwasher is running again! Hallelujah!

Catching Up

A lot has been going on....

Oct 31: Abigail turned 6! I took the kids and the triplets from next door around the neighborhood trick-or-treating. The first time our kids have gone trick-or-treating in four years. It's only about a mile around the block, but add all those walks up long driveways and back while pushing Bug in her stroller and I felt like it was quite a workout! Alex was volunteering with the boy scouts at a fall carnival at the church where the troop meets.

Nov 1: Abigail's tooth came out- her first! Unfortunately, the tooth fairy seems to have either forgotten about it or still thinks we're in Scotland. I'm sure she'll get around to it- soon.

Nov 2: The kids and I all went to the doctor to get our flu shots. Poor Abigail got all worked up and was crying before her shot. She stopped just after getting it. I'm supposed to take her and Aidan back for a booster next month; hopefully it won't be so traumatic. Aidan was funny; after he got his he gave a small, nervous giggle. I guess it was from relief it was over with.

Nov 3: Abigail had her Spongebob Squarepants themed birthday party. Several girls from her ballet class came over to help her celebrate. The next day we saw many of them again at another birthday party!

Nov 9-11: The Cub Scout fall family campout at Lake Limestone. We cheated and took our camper and it was great! The weather was lovely- we could see the rainstorms on the other side of the lake. It looked very pretty from our vantage point. We took our canoe and Tartan took Aidan out on it, but the wind made it hard going so that was the only trip out. Kyrie caught a perch (which we released). It made up for the one that got away at a family campout a couple of years ago.

Nov 13: Alex found out that he won 3rd place for his short story in the South Montgomery Library Teen Writing Contest. We're very proud of him. He might have done even better if we'd discovered sooner about the contest. He had about a week and a half to come up with an idea, write and edit it. The contest had apparently been announced at the beginning of October. We're also very proud of Kyrie whose steamboat watercolor won at the library level of the Little Toot watercolor contest.

Trusting in the Lord and thankful for all our blessings,
Naomi for the Colliers

Griffin Lodge

The South Branch Regional Library recently decided to have a Teen Writing competition, so naturally I decided I'd enter to see if I could string together a reasonable story. I learned that deadlines are a writer's best friend - if you have five days to write a story you don't waste them. I wrote a story titled Griffin Lodge, and I think it was a pretty good story - very P.G. Wodehouse meets ambiguous fantasy. And thus it came to pass, Griffin Lodge won third place. And there was much rejoicing. Happy happy happy. Now to spend my Barnes and Noble gift certificate - and probably most of my allowance to boot!



- Alex the deliriously happy.

Critters

Well, I've already written about the snake, but I thought it was time to include pictures of the animals we choose to have around. First there's Lucky the toad. He's fairly low maintenance and very interesting to watch when he detects an insect nearby. It's also entertaining to watch him when he's caught something larger than his mouth. He's been fed cockroaches, crickets, grasshoppers, a moth, and maybe a katydid.

Fluffy is our outdoor cat. She's inside in the picture because we have an unwanted animal in the house- a mouse. Unfortunately, she has not discovered its whereabouts and is only interested in exploring the house or lying on our bed. She's a kitten so she has a lot of energy and will leap backwards in the air to try and grab her fur toy. She eats cat food. :)

The other animal we had in the house the other night was a tree frog. It hitched a ride in on the ladder and I startled Tartan when I shouted at him to stop; I noticed it just before he reached the rung the frog was sitting on. I had no choice but to scoop it up in my hands and then have Tartan open the door for me to let it loose. Ick; I thoroughly washed my hands and then used hand sanitiser as well.

On a completely different note: Abigail has her first loose tooth! She's a little bit anxious about it, but we all try to reassure her that it 'll be ok. It's really very loose, so it might be out in time for her Halloween birthday. She didn't like the jokes about resembling a jack-o-lantern though.

No dishwasher.

Trusting in the Lord,

Naomi for the Colliers

Death of a Snake

Several weeks ago we discovered that a snake found the underside of our paddleboat a nice place to hang out, but Tartan had not been able to get enough of a visual of it before it would slither into the water. A couple of nights ago when the temperature was rather cool, he went out to empty water from the boat and discovered it curled up under there and it appeared to be a young cottonmouth. Poisonous- not something we want anywhere near the children, or the cat. Wednesday night I bungled the search and destroy mission we went on, so Thursday before it got dark (and just before we were going to have a bunch of cub scouts over for a meeting), Tartan went out on his own.

I glanced out the window a few times as I was serving dinner and I suddenly noted a lot of movement and splashing going on so I hurried out to see if he needed assistance. I was told to bring the camera. I took several pictures, a few of which turned out. I thought about posting a pic, but thought some people might feel squeamish. :) The snake was then killed and disposed of. I hope it was a poisonous snake, but when in doubt, we just had to play it safe.

Trusting in the Lord,
Naomi for the Colliers

The weather is getting nicer

I like October in Texas. The weather eventually starts to cool off and it's a comfortable temperature outside. The cold front that came through yesterday was a very wet one though. About the time to leave for ballet lessons, it was raining pretty hard- but I expected it to pass through fairly quickly. Instead it came down even harder; the umbrella hardly seemed to be doing much when we got out of the truck. It would start to taper off and then the next storm cell would pass over. The raingutters that Tartan installed over the back deck and next to our bedroom certainly got a trial...by flood! They need a little more work, but they kept most of the rain going down the spout rather than splashing onto the deck or outside the windows. Today was a beautiful day; the rain all gone, but the temperatures still cooler.

Saturday was the Cub Scout Raingutter Regatta, though fortunately without any rain. Aidan, Kyrie and Abigail decorated pinewood boats and Tartan attached the sails they had to blow on to race them in the raingutters. None of them placed, but they all were really close in their races and they were good sports. After hot dogs, crisps, and pink lemonade we went home and had a visit from one of my sisters and her husband. All in all it was a splendid day.

In case you're wondering (and you might)- no, we still do not have a working dishwasher. I still have no idea when it'll be fixed. Well- rejoice in the Lord always!- even without dishwasher. :)

Trusting in the Lord,
Naomi for the Colliers

I wish my dishwasher was working

Our dishwasher gave up the ghost on 21 September. Of course, the part that needs to be replaced takes about 2 weeks to come in- so I should hearing something by the end of this week, but more likely early next week. I've had the kids do some of the wash up, but mostly it's me and mostly it piles up through the day until I can get to it in the evening. I guess there are worse things, but it's certainly not helping any.

I do praise God that though it looked like I might be coming down with the stomach bug Tartan had last week- it was just an annoyance yesterday (our really busy out-and-about day) and we were able to get everything done. Except dinner- I was too wiped out by then, so Tartan brought home fast food. Today I appear to be fine.

Time for lunch!

Trusting in Jesus,
Naomi for the Colliers