October

I almost decided to skip what I’ve missed and just start where we are at, but then I started scanning the pictures and I realized, there was too much good and too many blessings that needed to be remembered.

October lives as one of my favorite months. There is still so much sunshine for my soul, but the brisk morning air brings thoughts of change, and sights that take my breath away. I feel like I spend every single day of October trying to fit in one more exciting thing before the beautiful colors are gone or the air is so cold my nose hairs freeze when I breathe.

October did not disappoint this year either. The colors were #AMAZING! Picture perfect, take your breath away, Amazing!! Every time I set foot outdoors I was overwhelmed by the beauty. I often found myself perched on the edge of the couch in the sunroom soaking in every single leaf; each unique in color and shape, yet each so very, very beautiful. I could see the colors change by the day and did not want them to slip away without appreciating every single one of them.

It seems six or seven times since the middle of October we have said, “Today is bound to be the last beautiful day, we have to get out and enjoy it!” And, we have jumped on every one of those opportunities. We took a peaceful walk along Back Bay and met up late in the evening with some friends for ice cream at the Famous Bailey’s Bubble. Lacey chose an ice cream sandwich that was the size of her head. We took many walks around the block and several hikes at Castle in the Clouds.

We also experienced some scary in October. We had quite the rainstorm one day, five or so inches, and we walked in the house from being gone and Elena said, “Mommy, I lick da water on da ceiling.” I tickled her and told her she was cray and she said again, “I lick da water on da ceiling?” When Cody and I both looked up to see our ceilings were soaking wet. Cody climbed in the attack to discover that a vent strap had broken causing a vent to fall into the attack, allowing those five inches of rain to come into the attic. Sad day, right? Well, we knew a new roof was on our agenda in the near future, we had done the front half last fall, and we went back and forth between fixing the vent and waiting til next year or just getting the job done. We went with the latter. We were blessed with the most divine weather and a few wonderful friends, one who took an entire day off, on his birthday no-less, to help us re-roof. We were blessed with the most beautiful weather and we now have the joy of knowing we are leak proof!!  That, wasn’t the scary part! The scary part was, the day after we had torn off the roof, Kevin and Julia came home from school and we were up working. I talked to the kids as they were walking into the house and Kevin said that he had gone to the nurse for benedryl during the day because he was itchy and his eyes were swelling. He didn’t have a note and no one called, so I figured it must have been mild. The kids played while we worked. About 5:00, I yelled for K & J to climb the ladder so I could tell them how to make dinner while Cody and I continued to work. When Julia’s head popped over the edge of the house, her face was completely swollen and she looked a wreck. I asked her what had happened and she said she just felt very tired. I immediately came down, had Kevin and Julia both shower and gave them both a dose of benedryl. We ate dinner and as we were preparing for bed, they were both increasing in size by the minute. We put K on the couch upstairs and J joined us in bed. She seemed to be swelling at a more rapid rate. All through the night she would try to open her eyes, but not be able to see anything because her face was so very swollen and all through the night I stayed on top of the meds. The next morning, she had to go to the bathroom, when she climbed out of bed I whispered to Cody, “I hope she doesn’t look in the mirror!” Not even two seconds later we hear a loud sob from the bathroom and I asked what was wrong and Julia responded, “I just looked in the mirror!” It broke my Mommy heart into 9 million teeny tiny pieces. I brought her out on the couch and was rocking her when she started to clear her throat weird and said it felt like something was in her throat. I immediately threw her in the car and we headed for a doctor. It was still quite early, but since we have a 40-minute drive we arrived at the urgent care just as they opened and they saw her immediately. Her airway appeared to be clear and it was determine that they were both suffering from an environmental allergy. With in a few hours of seeing the doctor, their bodies were covered with hives and they were itching, something fierce.  They were both put on a very high dose of steroid and several meds to control the swelling and itching. It was a long few weeks of no sunshine or physical activity that would cause a heart rate increase, but they were serious troopers. I was so so proud of them. Since it has all cleared up, Julia has had no more problems, but after about two weeks of being rash and swell free, Kevin broke out again. Once again, he was brave and handled it like a champ.

October was also for apple picking and making oodles and oodles of canned Apple Pie Filling.

I was also able to chaperone a field trip for Julia. We went and hiked…. A mountain… Can’t remember the name. And it was soooo bloody cold!!!  The kids were troopers. We scarfed down lunch on the top of the mountain with snowflakes floating all around us accompanied by a pretty strong wind, and what took us about an hour and a half to climb took us about 40 minutes to go down. The kids (and adults) were so cold that no one wanted to stop to rest, everyone wanted to get the heck out of there. I very much enjoyed the day with my girl!!

And, we can’t forget Halloween! I do love me some Halloween. Unfortunately, on the day of the school party and our church party I fell violently ill, and had to call in my lovely friend Karen for back up. I called her sobbing and she went to the school and make-uped my kids and did a wonderful job, too! I couldn’t possibly be blessed with better friends.  On Halloween day I could finally stand again and we took the kids trick-or-treating through a little neighborhood here. They loved the freedom of walking the streets with their friends, and I loved the awesome neighborhood for supporting a fun, safe environment for the kids! (I also loved full size candy bars that they were passing out! Just ask my scale HOW much I loved them!!)

As was previously mentioned, October is the coolest, bestest month ever!!

I wish we could have an October every other month.