September, a beautiful month for weather, lots of gardening, getting back into school and the swing of things. It is always a busy month. This year proved no different.
We started off the month with a trip to Kalispell. We arrived on the 31st and then had the weekend to spend with family. First item of business was to do some shopping at the mall and get Raelyn's ears pierced for a second time. She decided she wanted a second hole for awhile and that is what she decided she wanted for her birthday from Grandma and Grandpa Louden.
Later that day we went up to the maze with my Mom, Josh, Carrie, Diedrich, and Piper. This year we decided to just do the maze, the cars and the boats and skip the golfing. The golfing felt too long and hot and the kids get bored of it fast so we skipped it this year. We started with the maze first and of course we were racing! It was me and Liv, Josh, Carrie and Piper on a team, and then the other kids.
After that was the car races!! It is so weird, but great that they can all drive their own cars now. I was lonely though in the car all by myself. We were all more spaced out this time too and it was harder to get past or close to people. It was still fun though!
After the cars was the bumper boats. It felt good (mostly) to get wet! We had a blast floating around and spraying one another!
The mountains are just so close in Montana...they just jut right up out of the ground!!
That evening there was some really pretty skies and sunset so I had to go out and take a few pictures. I love being able to see the sunset! Not displayed in order.
On Sunday we went to my parents church. It was out at Big Sky Bible Camp because the church had spent the weekend out there for family camp. They had two baptisms that morning and a missionary speak. And then they had a lunch afterwards. It was nice to be out there. We were kind of cold though...it was a cold weekend.
That afternoon we had blackberry pie to celebrate my dad. He had his birthday August 4th and turned 75 this year.
On Monday morning I met up with my cousin for coffee and a treat. It was nice to chat. She is going through a rough time and I needed to spend some time with her. The black rifle coffee company was awesome too! I bought some drinks to bring home for the girls.
After that we headed over to Josh's house to see their new sheep dogs and their new kitty.
From there we went over to Grandma's house which my parents and Josh recently bought from my uncle. It was hard to be there. It was the first time I had been there since my Grandma passed away and it was hard to see all her stuff and know she is gone. I took a few picture of some of the things and we brought a few things home. I sure do miss her. I am so thankful for her life and the example she was for me of a Godly woman. And I am so glad I will get to see her again one day.
After that hard visit we ran back into town to get a few things. My mom got some coffee for Hans for hist birthday and I got Raelyn a drink because I had not gotten her one earlier because I didn't hear from her what she wanted.
And that evening we decided to park and then walk down to the bridge with my dad. He wanted to get some exercise and we needed to get out on our last night. It was a pretty evening.
The next day was Tuesday and time to head home, sadly. We needed to get home to get school started. I once again drove the whole way. What a long drive!! But it went well. A lot of driving in such a short time. Montana is so beautiful!!
As soon as we got home from Montana it was time to start school! We had our first day of school on Wednesday, September 6th, because co-op started on Thursday. It is our tradition to have some fun first day of school gifts, have cinnamon rolls, and take pictures. We usually don't do a whole lot of school we just start looking at our curriculum and figuring out what this year is going to look like. Because co-op started though Claire already had some school work to do. She wasn't too happy about that. Here are some pictures of our first day of school gifts.
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| Mom's little stash |
That afternoon we got some first day of school pictures outside. The girls were not too excited about it. Minus my upbeat sweet Raelyn who is still willing to let me take pictures of her. No pictures of Olivia on this day, because it wasn't her first day of school. She didn't start for another couple of weeks. How did they get so grown up?!!
Olivia is a senior and doing Running Start at Olympic College. More about her later in this post.
Claire is already in 10th grade, a sophomore, This year she is doing Geometry, English(1st semester at Sound Learning), Marine Biology (at co-op), Worldview (at co-op), and this second semester she has added Financial Peace.
Aubrey is in 7th grade this year!! She started her first year of Sound Learning and is doing great. She is taking Life Science and the Narnia writing class there. At home she is doing math, world history, and Bible Study Fellowship, along with a few other smaller things. At co-op she is doing a ballet class and Oregon Trail history class.
Raelyn is in 5th grade this year! Raelyn is doing math, English and reading, science, world history, and Bible Study Fellowship (this year is John) along with a few other odds and ends. At co-op she is doing a ballet class and an art class.
September is the month for tomatoes and dahlias!! 2 things I LOVE!! So yummy and so pretty!
On Friday the 8th we headed to the fair for the day with our friends. We had bought dizzy passes and it was free to get in with a school supply before noon so it worked out great. We were able to walk and catch part of the parade coming back to the parking lot. And we found some people with initiatives to sign so Olivia did her first initiative signing as a registered voter.
At the beginning of our day as we getting our ride passes.
Once we got our tickets we were ready to ride the rides, but unfortunately only the smaller rides were open till noon when the larger rides opened. So we hung out in the kid section for a bit till the bigger rides opened.
When the big rides opened the zipper was discovered and about half of the girls fell in love! Some of them really loved it and others only kind of liked it.
This one was next to the zipper so it was rode a lot too!
A couple girls got stuck on this one while the other girls were on the zipper...ugh!
They only got to ride this roller coaster once because when they went to ride it again it was shut down for the day. That was a bummer.
We decided to take a break from the rides and get some ice cream and snacks and watch the clydesdale horses. They are so pretty and the owners are very good at training and guiding them!
Time for more rides!
Raelyn got some people to ride the coaster with her!
It was a fun day at the fair with our friends. We headed out and grabbed dinner at Chick-fil-A before making the long drive back home.
As September started I had to try and start working out on my own. We made a facebook chat group with a couple of my friends to encourage each other to workout, share our workouts and times and ideas. It has worked pretty well. I am still working out 2 to 4 times a week. I prefer weight lifting and don't often to choose a lot of cardio. I should probably add some cardio. I like being able to sleep in when needed and keeping my workout time shorter, but I miss my workout group a lot. But I am doing my best to keep my workout habit and not just do nothing. Here are a few of the workouts I did in Sept.
More tomato pictures! Sorry! LOL! I kind of got a lot of cherry tomatoes! Yum! I love make salsa with cherry tomatoes, cherry tomato balsamic sauce, and of course just eating them. They are so sweet!
We celebrated Betty Kavanaugh in September. It was a real sweet time to celebrate the amazing woman she was! I helped with the celebration of life as the minister of fellowship at our church.
On this beautiful night we had small group at Christi's house. It was so pretty! I couldn't resist taking a few pictures.
Pictures of my roasted balsamic cherry tomato sauce. The hardest part is cleaning all the tomatoes.
This was a day that I took Raelyn to Nature group. They were making apple cider in the press. It was pretty fun and we took home a yummy jar of cider to drink.
Found this cute little guy in a candle one day. It often surprised me when I was on the front porch watering because it lived up there.
This is the flower beds that Hans created for me while I was in Kalispell. They turned out so pretty and I can't wait to get some flowers planted in them this next spring. I had to work to dig out the grass and weeds and then get new dirt in them. In October I dumped the tomato pot dirt into the beds.
Sorry, not sorry! More flower pictures! They are just so pretty!!
One of the best parts of school in the fall or spring is the weather is still nice enough for us to work outside. We try to soak it up when we can!
Olivia had her first day of running start on September 18th. Her first quarter she took 18 credits. She had an 8 credit math class which was a combined 99/141 class which was algebra 2 and pre-calculus. She really liked her math teacher and he made the hard class that she was expecting bearable and her favorite class first quarter. She also took English 101 in person and a Nutrition class online which both proved to be pretty manageable. How did she get so grown up already??
Hans ended up being in DC Olivia's first week of classes so I had my little sleeping buddy. She is just the sweetest...I don't want these days to end!
We left the badminton up for awhile and the girls took advantage of play time.
Olivia's friend turned 18 and they had a fun dress up party dinner out. She looked so cute I had to get a picture.
We were able to catch one of Kelsey's volleyball games towards the beginning of the season. It is challenging as the girls often have dance during her games. So I think this was a tournament that was on a Saturday so we were able to make it to one of the games. They lost which was a bummer, but it was fun to watch.
The product of all my hard work! I got so many tomatoes this year that I was able to make a ton of sauce all out of my own tomatoes. I didn't need any of Sam's tomatoes!
It has been weird having just Raelyn to do science with. I chose a marine biology course to do. It is fairly simple and we are not very consistent with doing it. But this was a fun experiment (on ocean currents) we did one Monday together while her sisters were at sound learning.
Deer coming to eat my garden and trees...grr! But they are so pretty!
We created some extra chaos this year in our Banks Lake reservations because of how spots were open and our timing. So we booked super early and then banked (haha) on getting a second spot to finish up our time. It was so so stressful though. And so many people getting spots. It was really drama filled and terrible, days of getting up early and praying and hoping for spots for everyone. Everyone did end up getting spots, but every year it so so stressful. I don't know how many more years I can do this!!
A few more garden pics...the last for September...lol!
Samson literally kills me. I love how tries and does crawl into the goofiest places. Today it was a backpack that was left out.
And Delilah thought this was the best sleeping spot for a few weeks. She loves to move around the house sleeping here and there. I bought the black fabric to refinish our dining room chairs and it sat on the table for quite a while and she slept there....silly girl!
