Just another Thursday

Well, Halloween is finally almost here! So says Gabe. Me, I'm excited because Gabe doesn't like nuts, so I'm looking forward to all the Snickers that are coming my way. (For the bargain price of $30. It's not really free if you take into account the money you put into a costume.) Oh, well. It's fun. I'll post pictures of the boys dressed up soon. Gabe is going to be Darth Vader and Malachi is going to be a monkey. Gabe has is class party tomorrow morning and then we will go to Mike and Kathy's Halloween party on Saturday. They should have fun.

Class is going well. I got an A on my first test. That felt great. Although our paper is a reasonably fun project, it's a lot of writing. We have to watch the movie "Catch Me if You Can," and write a case formulation and diagnose the main character who is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. At least he's nice to look at, since I've had to watch it many times already.

The family is all doing well. Not much to report on. Chi definitely grew some, but I think he's still growing. He is a bit tired lately.

Catapults and Ca-chow!

Greetings. We've been keeping busy this October. It's funny, at the beginning of the month I made the comment that October is always so long, but then the rest of the year flies by. Spoke too soon.

We have had a bit of bad luck with weather on the weekends, but we have persevered. Last Friday, every one had the afternoon free, but it was a cold, rainy day so we went to Bronner's Christmas World. It was, of course, a bit cheesy, but fantastic too. They really focus on the ornaments and they have one for everything. We found flamingos, vegetables, including garlic, every character under the sun, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was hard to not feel like Christmas was just around the corner when you are in that store.

On Sunday, the weather was slightly improved, so we braved the chill and went to Johnson's Giant Pumpkins. They had horse rides (only $3! If you don't pay for kid's activities nowadays, let me tell you, that is a bargain.) and all sorts of activities. Malachi is fond of the goats. He just kept feeding them and petting them and in general hanging out with the goats. So, then we went and watched them launch a 80 lb. pumpkin from a giant trebuchet. All were duly impressed. The boys picked out their pumpkins (just regular size ones, but they really had giant ones for sale too) and we got a giant bag of fresh kettle corn, and took our frozen ears home.

Malachi is attempting more words. His current favorite, is from the movie Cars. Every time he see Lightening McQueen, Chi says, "Ca-chow!" It's funny. He even grabbed Gabe when he wore a Cars shirt and held him down, pointed and said, "ca-chow!" until we made him let Gabe go.

Gabe

The other day Gabe was talking to me about what he will name his dog when he gets one. Finally he settled on Thomas, but then he asked me if I wanted to name the dog Thomas like the famous inventor (he means Edison) or Thomas like the train. I said I wasn't sure I wanted to name it Thomas at all because what if it was a girl. He said no, you have two choices, Thomas like the real one or Thomas like the inventor. Oh, he cracks me up.