Just For My Canadian Friend

I received a text from Canada the other night telling me I had been neglecting my blog.  So for the sake of my sweet Canadian friend, Melissa, who, by the way, has the most adorable little kids IN Canada, here is my update and all that I have neglected to post.
 
I'm sure that these pictures will be out of order.  I can't help it.  I can't remember the order in which they were taken.

So grab a cup of coffee, a doughnut...or two...and get comfortable.  You'll be here a while.

First things first.  I'm home.  I've been home a few weeks now.  Mom is doing great!  She still has several months of rehabilitation, I think.  But right now she's beginning to use a cane.  She's still using her walker when she gets up in the mornings and later in the nights when she's most unstable.  Hannah stays with her a lot through the weekends and brings her to church on Sundays.  She cooks her meals and is able to do a few things for herself.  I go to her house on Thursdays to clean, do her laundry, and get her groceries. 

Today is Thursday and so I went for our normal routine day, but also took her for our hair appointment.  I was thinking about it and this was the very first time she has been anywhere besides church and her doctor's visits.
While we were at the beauticians she talked me into a new do.  So here it is.  I love it.  It's going to take a little getting used to, especially since it's so much shorter than what I'm used to.  But I do like it.

I recently joined a photography club.  My first assignment for this next meeting is Night Sky.  I am not good at night sky, that's for sure.  I've learned some things, though, and I'm working on getting better. 
Here's a picture of a few night shots.  I wish I had been in a better spot for the last one, but I had a lot of trees blocking my view.  I liked the coloring of the sky so I went ahead and shot it.

Our holiday season begins when we watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."  We have a Charlie Brown movie for every holiday, I think.  Anyway, we had a Pumpkin party and watched the movie and it was fun.  Always fun.  I make orange punch (One orange Hawaiian punch, one two liter ginger ale, and one can of Dole pineapple juice), pumpkin cookies, and we had tacos for dessert.  Not exactly pumpkin themed, but yum.  Harrison carved a pumpkin so we roasted the pumpkin seeds.  That was my first time doing that and they were really good.

Looks like a kiddie party, really.  But you know what?  My husband and adult children love this tradition.  We do one for the Grinch too.  :)

I recently had a photo shoot with my "son" Josh and his fiance' Taylor.  These two are a wonderful couple.  What the Lord has done for their lives is truly amazing.  I love them and we had a good time on our shoot.

We had a homeschool field trip this week to the Schiele Museum in Gastonia.  We did some school pictures there, went to the park for lunch, back to the museum to tour the Mammal Safari, which was totally awesome.  If you're in the area, take your child.  Live animals! It was great. 

This Lynx was enjoying a meal of a rat.  ick!

 Lemurs.  Cute.

 Monkeys.  The ones in the cage.  Not outside.  Ok, well the ones outside too.  But anyway...

 Honey bears.  I loved them.  They were babies all snuggled together keeping warm.

 Uhhh, yeah.  Bats.  Ewwww

 Kangaroos!

 Timber Rattlesnake.  This is what I was bitten by when I was sixteen.  These are one mean snake! 

 

We had our Fall Festival this month.  As usual, we had a great time.  There were a few mini me's of Brother Mark's running around.  haha

There were games, face paintings, hot dogs, cotton candy, pop corn, sodas, sand art, and lots of candy!

Bruce played a little putting.

 And this little jewel won the candy corn jug for guessing the closest number of how many was in the jug.  She was a very happy little girl, but I think her mom wasn't so much.  haha

 

I shot a wedding last month also.  That was a lot of fun.  The couple was so young and in love.  Their parents were WONDERFUL!  And I had a great time.

 

Had a shoot last weekend with this amazing little guy.  Oh my goodness!  He is just the sweetest little boy!

 

I could just squeeze him! 

Harrison and I went to the Grover Pumpkin Festival last month.  That was fun...and very interesting.  Harrison played a little Pumpkin bowling.  As a matter of fact, you picked out your pumpkin and bowled with it and were able to keep the pumpkin.  That's the one he carved for our pumpkin party. 

 We saw a really sad looking dog.  Why do people do this to your doggies?  lol 

 We ran into a mean lookin' dude.  Actually, he's from our church and one of the nicest men you'll meet.  He just looked mean here.  haha

 Harrison had his first cake pop.  I have no idea where he's been that he's never had a cake pop before now.  But he thoroughly enjoyed it.

 Posing with the Grover Fire Department truck.

 Found a friend and rode a ride.  I have no idea what "D" has in his mouth.  But that's funny.

 Ran into some friends from church.

 Saw some interesting and creative costumes.  lol

 

 Played a sling shot game where you had to try and hit the chicken in the field.  Not a real chicken.  More of a man with a chicken head on, pretending to be a chicken. 

 And saw loads of pumpkins painted by preschoolers.  There were some really funny ones there. 

It's been a busy month and a half since I last blogged.
Happy now, Melissa?  hehe