Feels like Fall

I love it when the seasons change! It is 52 degrees this morning. We slept with the windows open last night and air in the house is crisp and fresh. This morning I put on long pants and snuggled up with my coffee. I think spring and fall are my favorite seasons in the south. We're so lucky to have a taste of cool weather in the mornings and evenings while its still warm enough for the kids to run around outside without jackets and all of that mess during the day. For the record, Fairbanks is expecting snow this weekend with a high of 30 and a low of 0! I love Alabama! Roll Tide! (Just kidding Dad)

Backyard Fun

We are finally settling into the new house. It seems like we spent the first two months busy with unpacking, house projects and lots of errands. But things have slowed down this week. We still have a long list of things to do in the house but we had a nice long weekend. I went to New Orleans for a Jazzercise meeting on Saturday and Ed and the boys went to visit Aunt Linda and Uncle Neil at the Lakehouse. On Monday and Tuesday we all chilled out at home. Ed has been tackling more do-it-yourself projects and he hung the tire swing for the boys. It may not be as perfect as he had hoped for (I didn't buy the right rope) but it works and the boys LOVE it. Ed said he is surprised how much the boys love it. I asked him if he ever had a tire swing growing up and he said no. Well there you go then! Carol Ellis and I used to play on a tire swing in the very back corner of the playground at Almost Angels when we were 3 and 4. It was our favorite thing to do after digging for the devil in the sandbox.



We also did some neighborhood trash picking this week and got the boys a pool. They didn't have a chance to play in it until last night. As it was getting dark they jumped right in. They didn't mind that the water was FREEZING.

Did you get a new couch?

Nope! This is the couch that Edward bought right before I met him in 2000. It was in desperate need of some new "clothes" so after much convincing by Edward I tackled the job. And after much nudging and hinting from Edward I managed to FINISH the job too. I'm really proud of how it turned out. Its not perfect but I like it better than I ever liked this couch even when it was new.

Bugsy is so helpful!

Our family is actually DECORATED! For the first time, I feel like I have a decorated family room. OK, so the pictures aren't actually hung up yet, but everything MATCHES! Its a miracle!

What were YOU doing at 7am?

Apparently this family likes to start the fun early! I don't know how it started but Nolen thought they were going to see if apples would sink or float at school on Friday. Well, they didn't get to, so I told him we could do it at home. So of course, as soon as Max woke up on Saturday morning, he told me it was time to see if apples sink or float. After convincing him that we needed to eat breakfast first, we got the boys dressed and went outside. I filled up a bucket with water, brought out 3 apples and let the boys go to town. They played with the water and apples for about an hour. Who knew it could be so fun?!?!

First the boys found out that apples do in fact float. They had fun throwing the apples into the bucket and watching them splash, go underwater and pop back up. They were pretty wet from all of the splashing.

Then they tried bobbing for apples. Of course that is too hard for them, so they used their hands. Getting a little wetter.

SUCCESS! Look at me Max!

Anything you can do I can do better!

The kids ended the morning Alabama style. We're not too proud to admit that this is their swimming pool!

Like I said a whole morning of fun!
Bucket - free
Water - free
3 apples - $0.99
splashing around on the patio at 7 in the morning while Mom and Dad drink coffee....priceless.

Max's Quality Time With Mom

While Nolen is at school every day, Max and I spend "quality" time together. When we lived on post that was true. Now we have either 3 hours to waste on post, or we drive back home, spend 2 hours here and drive back out to get Nolen which is what we did today. We colored some together and then I got on the computer to catch up on my Jazzercise bookkeeping. Max was VERY quiet in the kitchen so I decided to check on him.

He was devouring "oiled peanuts". What a cutie!

Staying Busy in the New House

That feels like a bit of an understatement! Between teaching 6 Jazzercise classes each week, driving Nolen to post for school, keeping Jasmine out of trouble, and putting the house together, we've been keeping out of trouble! Ed has been tackling a bunch of projects around the house.
Before we moved in, he put up a mailbox and installed a doggy door. It takes a brave person to start cutting a hole in a door! More recently he installed a smarter thermostat, reran all the cable TV (no pun intended), put up a clothes rod and shelf in the boys' closet, fixed the entertainment center a little, and has more to do installing shelves in the garage and turning a closet into a pantry for me.


Meanwhile, I have tackled recovering the couch. It was Ed's idea but I'm such a control freak....It seems to be going pretty well. We'll see how it turns out. I should have taken a before picture. One of the back cushions had a huge hole in it and we had already repaired holes in the seat cushions so drastic measures were necessary.



The boys haven't been getting as much attention lately as they did this summer. I try to take them to a park a few times a week - and its been cooler lately so that has helped. Yesterday, Ed took them out to fly a model rocket. ALL of the boys loved it! This is a picture from Lake Tholocco on post. The boys LOVE the teeter totter, and even though Max chipped his tooth on it back in February, I still let him play on it. I'm such a good mom!

Ed did a bunch of yard work yesterday. We have some great plants and trees all around the yard but the back yard especially needs some TLC. HE borrowed a pole saw from the neighbor and was cutting dead branches out of trees yesterday. We have about 5 oak trees in our yard. He has also started a compost pile! We want to extend the patio and I want to screen it in, but I suppose that is more of a long term goal. I think these are Mexican Petunias.

Ed is also really proud of his roses that are growing down by the mailbox. We need to cut them way back at some point. They have been blooming lately since the trimmed them.

Well, I think that is all the news that is fit to print. Time to get dressed for Jazzercise. Another busy week begins!

Long Time - No Post

Sorry for the big gap since the last post. Things have been extremely busy around here...let's see where should I start??

Well, the most exciting thing is that we bought a house in Enterprise! We absolutely love it. We closed 2 weeks ago and moved in this past weekend. It is MUCH bigger than our house on post was and MUCH cuter too. Ed is thrilled to have a house where he can do all the projects he wants - if only he had more time. He just started his second semester of his Masters degree in Operations Research. I don't know the names of his classes, but I do know that one of them uses Applied Linear Algebra. I took theoretical Linear Algebra as part of my math degree. It is not an easy class. He has been spending a lot of time studying, watching lectures and doing homework. What happened to all of that lazy time we had back in Alaska? Seems like we used to sit around watching the snow fall for months at a time.

Anyway, we closed on the house 2 weeks ago and then went over and had a picnic dinner on the floor.

The boys love the new house. They have a lot more room to play. Ed has already painted the boys' room. It was pink, and now its blue. He put in a doggy door for the dogs and the boys apparently (we'll get to that later), and he put in a mailbox. He is really enjoying all of it...if only trips to Lowe's were free....hmmm. I told him that he spends money at Lowe's the way I spend money at Target! That's not good!

Moving day went well. I took the kids and got out of Ed's hair. He had some great friends helping him and everything was finished in 4 hours!!! Now if only we could get everything put away that quickly! We hung out at the boat races at Lake Tholocco with Austin for awhile.

And the last bit of news for right now...

Yesterday I went to the old house to grab a few more things. I was packing up the Weber when a big fat green worm caught my eye.

(I'm working on the formatting here but enough is enough! - Oh, durr, I can edit the html...I used to be a professional! Haha)

Anyway, found a big green worm, made all of the neighbors check him out, decided to try to bring him to our new home. I have never in my life seen a worm this big! He is a half inch wide and about 4 inches long. He crawled across the ground, up my bike tire and all the way to the handle bars! His face looks like a hairy acorn to me and check out his crazy feet! The only worm that compares is Slimey. After some research, I believe he is a Luna Moth of the Giant Silkworm Moth family. Luna Moths have a wingspan of 5" to 6"!! Woah! How big is our bug house??