Hi to all  you very busy folks, especially to those that are packing to move!  As I remember you, I will be very thankful to be able to stay here, settled into this house... as we have been for 10 years! We recently spent some time considering a move, but felt like this place meets our need so well, why would we choose another place?  We know some time a place out side of city limits would be great. We have some animal lovers in our family that dream of having more animals; even Jason would like to have a mini farm. It is a little hard on this mommy to not have cats and kittens around and to watch my girls cuddle them!

          This seems like the perfect day to write my letter, it is kind of cloudy and cool. Simon and Mary Lou and children just left here this morning for their trip home.

We will miss them... I hope my children will not be too irritable with each other as they have to go back to having just siblings to play with instead of cousins!

Mary Lou was able to go to the kid's clothing sale with us (Marnita & I) Sat. morning.  I got a lot of clothes so it was worth the trip to Wooster. I also got a double stroller! I never had one before. I think I will really like this one.  Other things we did this weekend... we went to P Graham Dunn Fall Festival, and on Sun. to a farm picnic. Sun. eve. we went to a fundraiser for the Pregnancy Care Center of Wooster. Cleason and his five sisters (Alanna came too!) went to that. They showed a free film and people gave donations for the snacks. The rest of the family was at my parents for the evening where we had gathered for an early supper.

          It was nice the children got motivated to do school together this morning before breakfast. Natasha saw mine doing school when she woke up so she got her Math book, which inspired every one else to do Math too. I wasn't going to ask them to do that subject this morning, but they liked doing it together, and now it is done, so we

just have History later this afternoon. I feel like 'forgetting' that Ciara didn't do Phonics this morning.  Another thing I am almost forgetting is that it is laundry day. A larger than normal wash too, with the clothes I got at the sale!  I am also ignoring the bags of apples in the pantry waiting to be turned into apple sauce or apple pie filling.

One way I celebrate fall is by making apple butter. On a day like this....but not today!

          We enjoyed our anniversary weekend so much! !  It seemed there was one fun thing after another to do together. I don't remember other years being quite like that. Of course there was the people that were willing to keep our children; Brians kept them for us Sat. afternoon and evening. And on Sun. afternoon and evening they were with Jason's family.  They made it possible for us to spend some sweet couple time! What a gift! I spent Sat. morning making food for the weekend, and then put the little ones down for naps. We woke them later to get them to the babysitter in good time so we could have a long evening  to shop. Our goal was to find clothes for me, and the destination was Lodi Station Outlets. What a treat!  We did a lot of unsuccessful shopping till we finally came upon the right stores toward the end of the evening!  I found  a few out fits and a pair of shoes and a pair of boots. That was the wonderful deal of the evening. They had been around $60, but with a huge mark down plus the second pair of foot wear 1/2 price they were $7. 

          Oh dear, I interrupt my account of our wonderful weekend ; the children are playing outside this evening, and they came in asking for gloves. Is it really that cool out there!? I had to find where I'd stored them for the summer; in the box of winter boots. I am starting to think about cold mornings when we have to bundle up just to dump garbage and feed animals. The day temperatures for the next two weeks looked very nice, in the 70's mostly.  

           O.K. Talking about the weather, we had a perfect day for our anniversary on Sun. We left church before it was over to get to Cleveland by one o'clock.  We had reserved  a cruise for our 12th anniversary.  We were on the ship for 2 1/2 hours. Soon after starting out we were served the meal, which was buffet, and the food was available for the whole cruise. Our table was dismissed first, so Jason and I were the first of the entire ship to go through the buffet!  What I thought was special about that was being able to see it all still untouched. It was very attractive and delicious. The ship had two dining decks and then the top open deck where mostly everyone went after the meal.  I had a wee bit of trouble with motion sickness, but not enough to take away from the great time we were having. We saw a lot of interesting sights, some 

light houses, ships out on Lake Erie, bridges, ect. One available spot on the rather crowded top deck was right next to the captain's cabin. Is there a better description for that part of the ship? Anyway, we got to watch him steer and try to avoid the waves the speed boats made for us (once or twice)Jason talked to him some too. But there was another older fellow on deck that told us a lot of interesting things about the ships and what they are hauling, and where they are headed.  I asked him about the weddings they have on board, and he got the idea that maybe we were considering it for ourselves!? So we told him we were actually celebrating 12 years. We  didn't get announced though; lol

We had heard over the loud speaker about another couple on board celebrating an anniversary, and there was a girl having her 16th birthday ,and a few folks celebrating their retirement...

We knew when we got back they were going to be getting ready for a wedding that evening. Some times the couple will reserve the whole ship for their ceremony, other times there is a wedding performed  while other people are enjoying a cruise. The captain will even marry you if you so desire!

We had to drive a hour home and we were both so sleepy....Sun afternoon, a big meal, and being on the water for over two hours. Not surprising!  We  took some of our precious time together to nap when we got home.  I had bought and prepared supplies to do a full body herbal wrap. I had to still mix some things up to be ready to do that. Jason wrapped me up after we soaked the ace bandages in the solution. I was hoping that the wrap I'd chosen had a lot of detox power as well as a slimming effect.  It was fun to do together. It was sweet of Jason to help me cause it was pretty messy.  We relaxed for an hour while we had some drink and delightful little snacks. By bedtime we picked up our children, who had also had a good day....a picnic on the church land in Dalton, ect.

            Last week seemed like a week of small disasters....just things that force you to stop and clean them up, before there is a much bigger mess. I think it was Mon. that Venesa and her little brother went upstairs during school and found the dusting spray bottle. Yes, it was out because I was dreaming of dusting my room!  They sprayed the main area of the dining room floor. It was a homemade mixture of olive oil, lemon oil and water. It resulted in  shiny little patches, a path that I was hoping stopped at the carpet!  Bradyn got the itchy foot powder and nearly emptied it on the living room floor, and all over the baby toys that were dumped on a pile.

Eric didn't quite get on the toilet one time. He is always loose. I was hoping that getting him off milk would make a  difference. Right now we are letting him have al l the dairy he wants... to test if his rash gets bad again. It was almost cleared up...so I was convinced it was a milk allergy that caused it, but Jason wasn't. It was hard for me to agree to put him back on milk. The rash looks awful and causes him a lot of itchiness. It got worse, but I know it flared up when he got into Venesa's bath water that had some rose oil in it...sigh. time will tell what the issue is...or will it!?         

              This year we took the children to the Wayne County Fair.  One of the things we enjoyed the most was seeing the variety of animals, esp. the rabbits.

Ryan found out he was too tall for most of the children's rides! We stayed for the noisy truck pull that evening.