I'm back! My Corner of the World

I am loving retirement!  I've been very busy.  I've not started subbing at the local schools yet.  I'm just enjoying being free to do most anything I want.  

 Sara and Jory and the kids came up in August for an important meeting for the family business.  I picked them up at the airport, dropped them off at the meeting site and took the kids to lunch then to our home. The  next day was another meeting, so Mike and I  watched Aaron and Abigail.  We went to the library, to the park, and to see and sit on Grandpa's antique tractors. The kids are great at entertaining themselves since they don't watch TV.  However they could watch Frozen so they watched it twice.  They had first seen it at the movie theater.

Of course, the visit had to include goodies from a local bakery.  The big part of that was the decorated cake with Happy Visit on it.  The kids love cake and rarely have it, so it's a huge treat when they get to have some.
For the past 3 years I've taken pictures of Aaron savoring every bite.

An important note: School for teachers began on the day I had to pick them up, so if I was still teaching I would have been unable to do any part of their visit.

 These pictures aren't in order. The first two pictures were from August and these next two are the Pumpkin Festival's parade. Doug brought his kids and we all watched the parade from a friend's house.

 Last week we watched Doug's kids overnight and painting pumpkins was a highlight of the evening.

I have been doing a lot of planting and maintaining our flowers.  There was supposed to be a frost on this night, so I took a picture of my begonia in case it was ruined. However, it survived as did others, so there are still colorful plants surrounding the house.  I'll show more pictures of them later.

Dillon played biddy league football on Saturday mornings and we got to almost every one of the games. I would have been too exhausted from work to attend.  Dillon is the boy in the center of the photo with his head turned the other way.

Peyton played volleyball on the 7th grade team at her school. The games were on various weekdays at 5:00.  We made a lot of them.  One night we took everyone out to dinner and I realized as we were leaving that normally I'd have been getting things ready for school the  next day and then going to sleep.  Therefore, I couldn't have stayed so late and would have missed some quality time with them.

This was a picture of Abigail during their visit in August; she wore the princess shoes most of the time when we were indoors.

 



The next three photos are from our trip to the Wilds. It's a preservation for all kinds of animals and it's only about 45 minutes away. We took Colton, Dillon, and Addy (Doug's kids) there on a special tour where you sat in the specially designed back of a truck and got literally up close and personal with them.(Peyton had volleyball practice that was mandatory and school was starting soon, so if we didn't go then, we could not have gone).

Feeding the rhinoceros.

We also kept Doug's kids for two nights and days in  July.  We have not done that since Dillon was a baby.  I couldn't handle it because of the fibromyalgia fatigue.  But what made it feasible was that now I could rest the next two days which I couldn't have done if I were still teaching.

There is more, but I'll post it later.

I've been reading book after book and can even stay up and finish a book if the suspense is getting to me.
I did organize the biggest walk-in closet and also the room that is attached to the back of the kitchen. We have to go outside to get into it.  We have our bulk items, pop, cleaning supplies, and Tupperware, etc. there.

Well, that's all for now.