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| One of Laken's drawings. A 3D Robot |
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| We went up to Jackson Minnesota for the kite festival. Professional kite fliers come out and stake down their huge kites. Some of the kites are over 200 feet long and the cords on them are super strong. |
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| The kids enjoyed seeing all the kites. There were fish, dragons, animals, rainbows, ones that swirl around, octopuses, etc. |
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| We let the kids buy their own mini kites. Laken got a dragon, Makai got a red dinosaur. |
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| Kaliya got a ladybug and Carter got a dog. |
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| A few days after the kite festival, the kids wanted to fly their kites again so we went to the baseball fields. Unfortunately the wind wasn't constant so the kites had trouble staying up. |
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| Laken working on his headstand. Makai enjoying some time at the playground. |
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| Kaliya had been asking all year to do dance and when she finally had a chance to sign up, she changed her mind. But we signed her up anyways. I knew she would love it and she was excited to wear her dance outfit. |
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| The kids had a fun day at the library for a back to school party. They got to try on a real astronaut helmet and make pudding and juice the way an astronaut in space would make it. |
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| We had a HUGE storm one Thursday. When we left dance, I saw there were some big storm clouds coming and told the kids to hurry into the van so we could get home before the storm hit. If I had known how big of a storm it would turn out to be, I would have gone back into the RWC instead. But we had no idea and drove away. We got about halfway home when it hit. The rain and wind came down all of a sudden and really hard. I could hardly see anything and branches were falling off trees everywhere. There was no good place to go to get away from it so I just had to keep driving. The kids and I were scared so I told them to pray we could make it home safely. We continued to drive and had to find our way around downed trees and branches across the road. I couldn't see anything and just had to keep driving. We had to turn around a few times to find another street that wasn't blocked off from trees. Finally after driving over many small branches and being completely freaked out, we made it home. The kids were scared of being blown away so I had to hurry to get them inside a couple at a time. There were lots of tears but when we finally got inside and calmed down, they were ok. We continued to watch the storm from inside the house. When it was over, we were able to see some of the downed trees and damage around us. The next day I drove around town and saw some of the bigger damage. Part of the roof was blown off the bowling alley, the roof was blown off a car wash, many trees were down. Some people had trees fall on their houses or roofs. We were blessed that we didn't have any big branches fall in our yard. Later I had heard that a tornado touched down just west of us in Superior (10 miles away) and the winds around us were up to 60+mph. We were truly watched over while we were driving home. |
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| Then shortly after the storm had settled, we found a rainbow. |
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| Carter had a wiggly tooth but unfortunately I noticed his adult tooth was coming behind his baby tooth. I told him we would have to pull it soon so the adult tooth could come in the right place. He also got sick again with breathing problems. We were able to use an inhaled steroid to help him but still took him into the doctor. We got prednisolone to help again and got him an appointment to see an pediatric pulmonologist. The poor kid was on so many medications to help him breath. He was using singulair at night, albuterol in his nebulizer twice a day, budesonide (inhaled steroid) in the nebulizer twice a day, and now on prednisolone. He also got an inhaler to use at school before going outside for recess twice a day. |
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| Unfortunately he woke up with HUGE hives on his body. They started in his armpits then the next morning had spread to his inner thighs, abdomen, and down the backs of his legs (next picture). I kept him home from school that morning and gave him benadryl and put hydrocortisone cream on him and called the nurse. When he was a little more comfortable, he went to school. When I finally talked to the nurse, she said he was probably having an allergic reaction to the prednisolone. He's had it many times before but apparently this time it gave him hives. So we stopped that and he was fine. |
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| We wanted to take the kids to a Twins Game in Minneapolist. Here we are riding the tram from the Mall of America (where we left the car) to the Stadium. It was about a half hour trip there and got pretty crowded near the end. |
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| Watching the game. It was pretty chilly that night and we didn't have all the winter gear out. The kids did have hats and gloves and we all got a free hat when we went into the stadium. We had only bought 5 tickets but were sitting on bench seats so we were fine until some more people showed up a few innings in. But by that time, we were winning and the kids were cold and tired so we headed out soon after. It was fun but next time I think we'll try to get better seats. The kids watched but it was hard for them to really see and know what was going on. |
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| Autumn time means it's time for family pictures. We took a walk in Fort Defiance and were able to get a few good pictures of us and the kids. Laken took this picture of us. |
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| Makai found a big stick |
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| We took the tripod so we could get a family picture |
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| And we can't go without stopping at some point so the kids could throw rocks and sticks into the creek |
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| Makai didn't really want to cooperate and have his picture taken. It took a lot of convincing. |
