Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! We love to dress up for Halloween. Sadly, this year is the first time we did not do a family theme. So sad. But everyone enjoyed their costumes. 

Rebekah wanted to be Elsa from Frozen. Her friend, Bridgette, dressed up as Anna. There were a TON of Elsas and Annas running around. Emma wanted to be a pirate. We based it off of some pictures of Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean. I found all the items at the thrift store and altered them. Her friend, Olivia, is dressed as a demi-god at camp half-blood from the Percy Jackson series. Rebekah also went to school as Pippi Longstocking. Though I don't have a picture, Clay put on all his St. Louis Cardinals gear and dressed as their manager.

I decided this was the year to pay tribute to my grandmother, Loretta Thorpe Chase, who was an actual riveter during WWII. I only found out about this a few years ago. She would put the kids to bed and work the night shift. She worked at Douglas Aircraft and did riveting on the SBD Dauntless Dive Bomber. There's a video below about these planes.

Making the grade

They just had the award ceremony for 4th Quarter report cards. Emma made it the whole year with straight A's. Great job!!

Park holes, playground, and frog

We walked around to check out the progress in the park. Emma found these huge holes and jumped right in! This is where they a building a picnic pavilion. 

Construction keeps moving along. The construction company has agreed with the town to only work Mon-Fri 7:00 am to 5:00 pm. That way the weekends are quiet. It's fine when school is in because we are all up before 7:00 am. However, construction on this park started right when school got out for the summer. That was a bit of a challenge for us. I have been lucky to sleep in until 7:30 before I am awoken by the noise. I'm glad that school is back in so I am not woken up by the work.

The playground equipment got delivered and they have been slowly putting it together. The company who made the playground equipment sent their own guys to assemble the playground. They did not know about the agreed upon work hours. They started before 6 am on Sat and Sun.  

 A few days later I woke up to this in my yard. They are tunneling under our driveway to run a power line from the box in our yard over to the picnic pavilion. They pulled out a few of my shrubs.  

 That night we found this toad on our driveway as we were pulling in. Thankfully, we did not run over him. He hopped off into the grass in time. He was about the size of my fist. 

Orbital Picnic

Time again for the Orbital Employee picnic. We had fun hanging out with the Williams girls. The girls all loved getting their faces painted. 

She's got moves

Shhh! Don't tell her I posted this!

We arrived early to an church meeting. While we were waiting Emma asked me to video her dancing to Love Story by Taylor Swift.

Towards the end other cars started pulling up and she ducked in the car so others wouldn't see her.

A little place in Boston

Clay had to go to Boston again for work. 

He found this cute little place.

First day of School

Ready to start another school year. 

Rebekah is starting 2nd grade with Mrs. Ellison, who Emma had.

Emma is starting 7th grade. She is taking 2 high school level classes this year: German and Algebra.

A day at the Temple

Now that Emma is 12 she is old enough to go to the temple with us. We had a wonderful day taking Emma to the temple with us

 

Ice Bucket Challenge

Okay. I know that the ALS Ice Bucket challenge took the internet by storym this summer. 

I also know that I was supposed to post these videos to facebook. I did not.

Here is Emma's video:

Her friend Elizabeth was also nominated. Here is her video:

Adventure Park & Baseball

On Emma's actual birthday she wanted to do a rope course again. We found a groupon and all went together. This is the course. 

 They all did great!

 The only bad part of this course is that the ONLY way down is a jump off the edge. I was starting to get a bit shaky and was looking for a way down. Couldn't do it. Only one way off the course. Here is Rebekah jumping off.

 Here's a video of Emma jumping off

After that fun-filled adventure we went off to a baseball game, per Emma's request. The Orioles were playing the Cardinals. Clay had an extra hat for me to wear.