Halloween

Costumes:

William-Cute Winnie the Pooh 

Samuel-creeper from Minecraft computer game:

Sadie the witch

Henry wouldn't let me take his picture.  He just wore a black "Angry Birds" t-shirt and a Santa hat.  He was the black angry bird from Seasons.

Trick or treating at SeaWorld

This past Friday the kids had the day off of school because it was the end of the quarter.  We planned on carving our pumpkins and heading over to SeaWorld.  But, the best laid plans...  We did get our pumpkins carved, but Ben needed to go to a Scout training campout that night.  We helped him get ready to go, which included gathering the camping gear, but he also made a run to the scout shop to buy a uniform, which I then sewed the patches onto, and hemmed the pants.  Unfortunately, Ben didn't get to go with us to the SeaWorld Spooktacular.  We had a great time, even though it rained.  We all got a bunch of candy, and the kids (except William) did all of the rides in the kid area.  Most of them they did at least twice and one of them they did 7-8 times.  I didn't get the camera out much, but here are a few pictures.

Student of the Week

A couple of weeks ago Sadie was Student of the Week.  She got to fill out a poster about herself, take in a bunch of pictures, do show-and-tell every day, take in a treat for the class, and bring home the class mascot.  She's out trick-or-treating right now, so I can't remember his name, but he is a Wildcat.  Here are some pictures that we took.  After we took the pictures, we pasted them in the class journal and told about the things the Wildcat got to do while he was visiting our family.

And this is just a cool picture of some Florida wildlife in our front yard.

Ben Got a Job

Here's a quick update.  Ben got a job.  It is working for IHG (Holiday Inn), doing revenue management.  He will be working from home.  We have wanted him to work from home for years, so we are super excited about that.  It should work well with his calling as Young Men's president.  Especially when it comes to the monthly temple trips.  We are also very glad that we get to stay in Orlando.  The kids really wanted to move back to Pittsburgh, and for a while it looked like we might, but the money just wasn't there.  Ben starts work on Nov 1st.  He has 3 weeks of training in Atlanta, and will be home each weekend.  We won't have medical benefits for 90 days.  He starts by earning 2 weeks of vacation a year (so by this Christmas he should have about 1 day :).  So, everyone is invited to Florida for Christmas, since we won't be going anywhere.  Oh, and to answer the most important question:  I don't know what kind of hotel discount there is, or who is eligible.  I'm off to Ft. Lauderdale to pick up Ben (who drove a car to Dallas this week for a friend).  Of course we will also be hitting Primanti Bros while we are down there.  That is all.

Not much to report

Nothing new to report.  Samuel volunteered to be in a new class and is really unhappy about it.  At least yesterday he didn't come home and ask to be switched.  I think it helps that they split 3rd grade into reading  groups and he gets to go to his old teacher for 1 3/4 hrs for that.  I called the principal about it (the first time I have ever called a principal), and left 2 different messages (a week apart from each other), and she never felt it was necessary to call me back.  She also called Henry in to talk to him about his choice to do Virtual School for reading instead of doing it with the rest of the 5th graders in class.  According to Henry she was trying to talk him out of it, but I wouldn't know since she didn't share any of her concerns with me.  Did I mention she hasn't called me back for a week and a half?

I've continued to paint my friends house, and let mine fall into a bit of disrepair.  Henry quit clarinet and is doing piano for now.  I finally got my minivan window up (but not until it had rained for 36 hrs straight)!  Hmmm, what else?  Oh, Ben has 3 or 4 2nd interviews this week, a 1st interview, and maybe a job offer.

I think that's all.

DisneyWorld

How lucky are we that we have friends that work for Disney?  Thanks to them, we had a Mom and Daughter day at Disney.  It was a lot of fun.  Sadie liked everything except Haunted Mansion.  Too bad it stopped working while we were on it and we were stuck for about 15 minutes.

SeaWorld

Gotta love Florida!  We bought SeaWorld passes back in May.  I took the kids once at the beginning of the summer.  It was super hot, and we didn't stay very long, but we did see a few shows.  Anyway, after that, I couldn't find my camera.  Today, I got out my backpack to go to DisneyWorld, and lo and behold--there was the camera.  Here are some photos from our lone trip to SeaWorld.

Do they look hot and miserable?

I'm not sure that he loved the Splash Zone at the Shamu show.

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