Fall break

Kids were home all week for fall break, they had a blast! The house was a revolving door of friends and activities. Having cousins live right next door at our guest house has made after school and break times one big party. We also watched the kids of our close family friends, our kids have known each other for years and we call them cousins. Their Dad is getting deployed for a year and we thought they needed a night away so we had a slumber party. Our kids had a blast. Unfortunately the cousins move out next month November 1st, so the ongoing party will soon change. We are super sad about it especially since my sister in law, Suzie is my closest friend in the ward. All my kids would say the same thing, that their cousins are their closest friends in the ward, bummer.

One of our foreign exchange students, Cindy, moved out fairly suddenly.  She met a friend at school whose parents are from China, she is also an only child and they live in a four bedroom house. We think she wanted space, her own room and Chinese food, all of which we couldn't provide :) we were sad to say goodbye. I personally love when preschool kids leave my house crying cause they don't want to leave, so it was sad that she could leave so easily. Luckily we will see her around school. So glad we still have Beryl, she is super sweet and has really joined our family in activities and humored us on our craziness.

All week Bella and a good friend have been fixing up my parents old Ford Explorer, Nana calls it Black Beauty she hasn't run for nearly 7 years. Bella's friend got it running! It still will need more work, fingers crossed we can get it fully running by March.

Benjamin is continuing to work crazy hard on converting our tack room into a preschool room. We have already replaced the roof, taken down all the walls, installed windows and doors, built up the walls, installed electricity, framed a bathroom and on Saturday we installed water! My pick ax skills are mad, you need a lady to dig a trench I'm your gal! Benjamin's handy man skills are never ending! This week we hope to install insulation and drywall. I can not express how excited I am to get the preschool in its very own location and not sharing it in my home. It is going to be so sweet.

On Saturday, Bella and Olivia and their cousins threw a bon fire party, it was "lit". They had about 20 friends come out for smores. They even convinced their Dad and I to hide in the desert behind what we call "the creepy gate." Just down the road from us is a winding path that leads to this rock gate with metal skulls a top the gate. Its super creepy because its in a tunnel of mesquite trees and beyond the gate the path turns so you can't see where it leads too. Anyways we sneaked over there and hid and waited till they got there and came out running. It was great! Even the kids who knew we were doing it got totally spooked.

It was a great break and I am looking forward to a quiet Monday. at home with kids in school and preschool that starts Tuesday!