Trunk or Treat

This year the Ward Trunk or Treat was the day before Halloween. There was a chili cook-off at the beginning and Jason signed me up so I had to make chili for it. Jason tried it, declared it too mild and promptly added jalapenos. Not bad.

I braided Paige's hair in preparation for her Dorothy costume and it looked so cute. She was VERY excited!!!

However, seeing as how my kids would be wearing their costumes, we ate before arriving. Nothing like chili to stain a nice clean costume and I could see that coming. Paige didn't eat much dinner and I thought it strange.

We arrived, found a seat and enjoyed looking at all the costumes. Paige climbed up in my lap to cuddle and stayed there (also strange). I felt her forehead and she was warm. I asked her if she wanted to trick or treat and she said, "No." Poor baby! She then fell asleep on me.

Our friends, the Thompsons, came to sit with us. It was great fun to chat while the kids ran around. Brendan and Henrik are best friends and the girls all get along too.

After the costume parade, it was trick or treating time. I hoisted a sleeping girl and made it outside. The festivities had started. Paige and I waited at the Thompson's car until Daddy arrived with the keys to the car. Brother Thompson gave her some pretzels. Great bedhead (or "Mommy's-chest-head" in this case).

 She asked to go to the car and rest (so sad!) and Jason took the kiddos around. They had fun and came back with a nice haul.

After a few pieces of candy, it was bedtime. They were very excited to trick or treat in the neighborhood tomorrow night!

Carving Night

Jason has been gone almost every weekend this month and so we held off on carving the pumpkins until the FHE before Halloween. We all went to the commissary for the annual large pumpkin picking and we let the littles buy a small one to paint.

 

  

 

Jason and Brendan were the carving team. Brendan chose the Boogieman from Nightmare Before Christmas as the theme of the pumpkin. Brendan printed it out, Daddy traced it and carved it.

The girls helped scoop out the guts too, except Paigey, who was contentedly using too much of every color paint on her pumpkin.

 I think it turned out great, don't you?!

Boards

Jason here.

I told Christine a while ago that until I took oral boards residency was not done. So I have been studying at nights and on the weekends. It has been tough, but necessary.

Last week I flew to St Louis where the board exam was held. On the way there I went to the wrong airport, Dulles instead of Ronald Reagan. I barely made the flight. The test was on Sunday (not my choice) and I flew in Monday to stay in the hotel and study. For 14 hours a day I was in that little room by the airport studying.

I thought I would save money on food by buying groceries. The nearest grocery store was in Ferguson (THAT Ferguson). So that was out. I mostly ate Power Bars. That week there was apparently some landfill fire that was creeping towards a nuclear waste dump. That was a few miles from the hotel as well. Oh well.

So the week came and went and finally it was test time. The test itself consisted of 3 thirty minute sessions with two board examiners. The first two board examiners were consultants that had come out for site visits during residency, including one retired Brigadier General. No pressure!

I think I did... ok. I am hedging because if I failed I would not be surprised. But I am done for now at least. I won't take that test again for a few years if I failed.

When I came home though, I was relieved. It felt like residency was finally over. No more studying at nights and on Saturday. Let's party!

Loose Tooth

Jason here.

So Brendan turfed it the other day on his scooter. Which is cool. Boys should crash and burn and have gnarly scars with great stories to tell about it. It builds character. In addition to some face-scrapes, bruised knees and shoulder the hand was somewhat concerning. The ER said it was ok though, so no worries. Brendan really loved the ace bandage. By the way folks, if you have scrapes, keeping it moist and bandaged really helps speed up healing times.

Apparently Brendan also knocked loose one of his baby canines and has been hounding me to blog about it (no pun intended). So here you go: Brendan's knocked out lower baby tooth. The one on the other side is loose too, so it was probably coming out anyways. Moral of the story: if you are going too fast on your scooter, crash spectacularly, rub a sizable portion of your facial skin off, hurt your wrist bad enough to go to the ER, AND knock out a baby tooth... make sure you take pictures of the knocked out tooth.

Looking good Bud. Remember: chicks dig scars. 

Corn Maze

We had a had time finding a day when we could do our annual tradition of a corn maze in October this year. We had to squeeze it in but we made it happen.  After going to the school for Family STEAM Day we ate lunch and headed to The Plains, VA for a trip through a local maze.  The maze let a new group in every 20 minutes so we arrived with a little time to kill before entering. There was a lot to see and do at this farm. Of course there is the traditional pumpkin patch picture. :)

The kids seemed to enjoy the slides and playground the most, followed by the big tractor.

There were several places to have a photo op. Brendan took this one and it makes me laugh.

And a few of the kids.

It was super windy and quite cold but, once in the maze and moving, it wasn't too bad. There was an orientation meeting before entering. You can see that we are carrying a large staff with a flag on it. This was a distress signal to the "cor cops" in case you needed out in a hurry.

 

But we made it in and out of the maze in pretty good time. That was especially nice because some of us had to use the restroom really bad.

We let the kids take turns deciding which way to go. As the "corn cops" said in the little orientation before letting people in, "Logic is your enemy in the maze." So turning it over to the kids worked. There was a bridge named Victory Bridge that meant you were almost out. Here we are victorious!

It was another fun family adventure. I hope our kids remember these times later and I hope we can have many more.

STEM Family Day

Brendan belongs to a club here at school run through a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) grant. This program has a family day once a year when they invite a local college to supply students who run kid friendly experiments. Last year they even had a station where you could talk to people on the Space Station! We knew we had to go. It was last weekend.

And it was awesome!! There were over 18 stations and several exhibits. We operated robots, built bird feeders, made rockets, flew planes, went in a planetarium, made tie dye art, blew bubbles, saw a 3D printer and so much more. We spent two hours there. It was very well done and we all loved it. The kids learned things too, which is a major bonus. I want all my kids, especially the girls, to be excited about science and technology.

 

Blowing up balloons with chemical reactions

 

Robotics - Jason played with these almost more than the kids 

  

Expanding and shrinking marshmallow (air pressure experiment)

  

We are now the proud owners of two homemade bird feeders

 

Jason had such fun making and exuberantly flying his plane that it went too high

 

Stomp rockets!!

 

Tie dye art (solvent experiment)

  

And we ended the day with the 3D printer exhibit. The kids each got to bring home a printing.

Ouch!

On Thursday Brendan came in the door with a shaky, "Mom." I looked up to see that he had a very bloody face and knees. He had crashed his scooter. Poor guy! Road rash on both knees, both hands and one shoulder. His nose was scraped up and his lip was split. Luckily no loose teeth. He said his hand hurt too. I cleaned him up and bandaged him. His friend Henrik, who was with him and helped him home, told me later that "Brendan is the bravest guy I know. He didn't even cry!"' He did, however, freak out when he saw his lip and thought he might have to get a stitch.

The next day his hand was bruised and swollen. Jason took him to the ER for X rays. No broken bones but definitely sprained. It still looks bad so far, all purple and swollen, but all that can be done is a compression bandage and to give it time.

We have been changing bandages and using copious amounts of Neosporin and Aquaphor. Things look better already and I'm hoping his face doesn't scar. He is a little self conscious about how he looks but so far he has gotten some "street cred" with other boys when he tells them how it happened.  His dad made him laugh with this idea. :)

Leaving Skyland

We woke up, packed up and went to breakfast, seeing as how we had to check out at 11am. We had hot chocolate with our breakfast because it was cold (and because hot chocolate is awesome!).

After breakfast we visited the shop in the lodge so we could get some mementos of the trip. The girls each wanted a small stuffed animal and Brendan got a identification guide for local plants, which came in handy on our last hike. We then checked out of our cabin (sniff, sniff) and found one last hike to do before driving home. He decided to do the Stony Man Trail.

Before you hit the trailhead there was a visitor's center that we went into. Did you know that when Shenandoah became a National Park there were mountain residents people who were kicked out of their homes? Wow. I learned a lot more about the area and it was kind of fascinating.  Here we are at the trailhead (minus me, who was taking the picture). Paige is a goofball.

The hike up itself was not too difficult and it was very pretty. Jason had the older kids find and identify different plants along the trail, using Brendan's guide. It kept them busy and interested.

But the payoff was the summit. Holy cow!! Almost a 360 degree view of the valley below. SO beautiful!

We played around on the rocks at the summit for a while and then headed back down. With all this hiking, I had very sore legs for a few days.

A nice couple that came to the summit as we were about to leave offered to take a picture of all of us. It's the only one of the whole family from the trip.

We found this cool tree on the way back to the car and the kids had to try to smoosh inside.

And then we headed home. Even the drive back was breathtaking. Here is Mary's Rock Tunnel. It is 670 feet long and was bored through the solid granite rock. 

As much as I loved our little vacation, it is always nice to be home. We will have to see if we can do this again during the next leaf season.