We had a great time at the pumpkin patch at Hodges Farm the weekend before last.  There were pumpkins to pick, of course, but also animals such as goats, pigs, rabbits, cattle, and horses to look at; a corn maze to explore; a jumping castle to bounce around in; and more.  The best part is that it is less than five minutes from our house.

Last Saturday, I took Camden to meet the Spurlock family at the lake at the Shoppes at University Place for a little Oktoberfest relaxation.  Scott was celebrating his birthday by sampling an unknown quantity of unidentified beers; that is to say, he lost track of their identities after the first few samples.  It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed sitting under the trees at the Wine Vault while a two-man band strummed their tunes and the children played.  After the beer tasting was done, we sat on a park bench by the lake while the children watched the ducks and swans, and played around a willow tree.  To finish off the day, we returned home to join Andrea and Tristan for a pizza dinner and S'mores cooked over an open fire.

We all went to Camden's Curriculum Night at her school on Thursday to find out more about what she will be learning this year.  She actually has two teachers this year, one who will teach her Math and Science and one who will teach her everything else.  They both seem like great teachers and we are looking forward to an excellent year.  Camden was one of about a dozen students chosen to sing a couple songs at the Curriculum Night.  The school was honoring Latin-American Heritage Month so they sang one of the songs in Spanish. Check out the video of her singing with the other students below.

Tristan's preschool pictures are online if you want to look at them.

(Norm Hill Photography -Password: sharon)  Tristan is on page 1 for his Monday/Wednesday /Friday class and page 16 for his Tuesday/Thursday class.  Also, Tristan's cousin, Sam, is on page 17 in the fourth and fifth row.*  We will be taking Tristan to the pumpkin patch today with the Spurlock cousins and our friends Kim and John Christenbury and their new daughter Abigale.

Andrea's school will be closing down next year due to budget constraints.  The final vote on this is not until November but it is almost a sure bet that it will happen.  The plan is to move the students and faculty to a larger school that is at half capacity and operate them as two separate schools.  The pluses for Andrea is that the new location is closer to home and she may actually get her own classroom instead of having to share one and teach some classes in other rooms.  The main negative is that her school is one of the few schools left that has a small student population and strong community support.  When it moves, much of that support will be lost and students who normally walked across the street to get to school will have to be bussed to school.

*I just checked the pictures using my other computer which has Internet Explorer instead of Firefox and the pictures were on different pages than I stated.  Just look at the first page and the last couple of pages and you should find them.

Well, we didn't do any exciting site seeing last weekend because all of us except Camden have been sick.  Andrea was sick early last week and had to finish out her work week with no voice; quite a task for a middle school teacher.   Then on Saturday she fell ill again.  I was sick at the end of the week and into Saturday with a head cold.  I pretty much felt worthless Thursday and Friday.  Tristan came down with a fever and runny nose on Sunday, highlighted by a choke induced vomit.  In order to spare our only uninfected family member, we decided to take Camden to her mother's house a day early on Sunday.  Hopefully we did not act to late.  Today, however, Tristan has made a miraculous recovery and is his old self, although I had to keep him home from preschool.  Andrea's voice has returned and she is back to teaching.  I spent several hours doing yard work yesterday and have swept and mopped the floors, and gone grocery shopping today to make up for my hours of inactivity last week.  Here is a funny picture of Tristan, though: