Kate's blog: November 2014

Zach is the first one to leave at 6:55am on the first day of 6th grade. His new private school, Pioneer Heritage Academy, has a dress code and requires a button-up shirt and tie on Tuesdays. So this outfit is what he came up with the first day. We have since evolved to black pants and a black shirt with his tie on Tuesdays. So that's good progress!

Brooke on the first day of 3rd grade.

David was NOT in the mood to get out of bed so early to catch the bus at 7:30am.

But I got a little smile out of him as he headed to 1st grade and his 2nd year of Spanish-immersion.

Brooke is ALWAYS excited to go to school!

So now it's just Gabe and me at home and he continues the tradition of pulling everything off of the kitchen shelves.

The 2nd day of school was my birthday and with Mike's schedule, he was home and made omelets for breakfast.
(He works TH-Sat and every other Wed.)

And Nicholas' first day of 8th grade on everyone else's 2nd day.

With the kids off to school, we took Gabe to Grandma's house and Mike and I headed to Cannon Beach for the day.
It was absolutely perfect weather! The beach had lots of people but it was all adults, no kids. I guess everyone was celebrating back to school too.

Love my sourdough bread bowl with clam chowder at Mo's.

My friend, Rockelle, had brought me some gooey chocolate bakeries and that was my birthday dessert.
(I shared a little with them, but the kids probably had ice cream too.)
Brooke lights the candle.

Gabey helps me blow it out.

Reading a card from Zach and opening presents of new boots and more chocolate. Mike broke the rules on getting me presents because my Lasik surgery was supposed to be it.

A week later we had a Country Stroll for a Roll activity where we had country western band play, good food, and everyone brought toilet paper to donate to a homeless shelter. Here is Mindy, Tonya, Carol, Beth, and Julie doing the Electric Slide.

Nicholas (with Howard Millett) earning 6 more merit badges from scout camp.

Zach too. From Bruce Merrill.

Another scout pin for mom.

Gramma's 70th birthday celebration with her choice of apple pie.

Zach's school is only on Tues, Wed, Thurs, with plenty of homework to keep him busy on Mon and Fri, but I offered to pay him $20 to completely clean out all the weeds and dead plants from the garden.
Dad ended up teaching him how to use the rototiller.

This year instead of a Cure JM fundraiser, we went to Ronald McDonald House fundraiser. This picture was taken after winning a bid on Civil War tickets to the game which also included a Duck blanket, shirt, football, Christmas ornament, towel, pillowcases, hat, and Duck vodka.

I guess I should have gotten a picture of all the stuff instead of just the empty bottles of vodka. I remembered an experience when I was about 8 years old, when a neighbor had given us some champagne (probably a New Year's gift) and after my parents kindly accepted it, my dad wanted to make the point that alcohol belongs in the toilet and not in our bodies. So he opened it in the bathroom to dump it down the toilet. Unfortunately, the bubbles hadn't quite settled and the bathroom walls and kids huddled around got a champagne shower.
So we decided to dump the vodka down the kitchen sink in front of the kids, after confirming it wasn't carbonated. We let them all smell it and they each gagged. Hopefully, they will remember that alcohol doesn't belong in the body.