July
The month of July started out with a family trip to Cincinnati to watch the Reds vs. St. Louis Cardinals. Since we were going all that way, I decided to add a trip to the Newport Aquarium to the mix. Mary, Rob's mother, Andre', Rob's nephew and his brother, Cody all made the trip with us. The boys loved the aquarium and we enjoyed the game even in the rain. (I wanted to add a picture, but had already moved them off of the computer and didn't want to go to the trouble of adding them once again. If you want to see pictures from our Cincinnati trip, you can read about it here.)
(You can view a picture of Connor right after recieving 1st place in one of his events if you read here.)
Swim meets continued until the regional meet which was held at our club pool. What an experience!! The meet was held on the only day in the month of July that was very, very cool.
As usual August brought with it the beginning of a new school year. Keaton started 2nd grade. Connor started 3rd grade. We continued to visit the pool as often as we could and adjusted to the new amount of homework Connor began having as a 3rd grader. I had to adjust to teaching 3 different grade levels at once.
September
When I went back to find pictures for the month of September, I couldn't find any. As I began wondering why there were NO pictures, I started thinking about how busy I was during the month. Keaton started his 3rd semester at the Kelly Autism Program at WKU and his 5th year at the Communications Clinic for speech. (Each semester he goes to WKU four days a week-2 for KAP and 2 for speech.) I was still busy learning and planning our new instructional model at school as well as getting used to teaching 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. We also celebrated my 34th birthday with good friends at Shogun. Man love that food and the company was great too. Can't wait until another visit to Shogun.
After giving it some more thought, I realized the real reason there weren't any pictures in September. One day when I was in the shower, sneaky Keaton took my camera out of my purse to take a few shots hiimself. (He loves to take pictures of the television screen for some reason.) When I tried off and figured out what he had done, the camera (the one I had just gotten back in June for our anniversary-3 months old) wasn't working. The lens was stuck out. I tried everything I could to repair it but nothing worked. I finally gave up and contacted the company. I was to send it back for repair. Well, I didn't get to it right away for some reason. One evening I sat down to finally box it up for shipping and turned it on, Guess What!! IT WORKED!!
October
In October we spent Fall Break in Gulf Shores, Alabama with our friends, the Johnsons. The boys as well as the adults had a great time. This was our first trip with the Johnsons, family of five. We stayed in a two bedroom condo and made the most of it. We had lots of fun with five boys ages 8 and under. We played in the sand, caught jelly fish in the ocean, swam in the pool, went out to eat, and watched almost all of the Star Wars movies. It was a great time with good food, good times and good friends.
We also made our annual visit to Jackson's Orchard just before Halloween. I love those caramel apples and the boys love to play on the hay maze.
We also spent one very cold Saturday morning at the Austim Awareness Walk. Rob went ahead of us and ran. We met up with him for the family walk. It was extemely cold but very much worth the effort. While there we purchased a corn hole set made at the Kelly Austim Center for Rob's 40th birthday. The boys really enjoy playing corn hole with their Dad.
The boys each dressed as characters from Star Wars for Halloween. Connor was Aniken Skywalker and Keaton was Captain Rex. Both costumes where from Star Wars the Clone Wars, not the movie.
October was "Spooktacular"!!
November
November was an exciting month. Not only did we get together with family and friends for Thanksgiving, but we also watched Connor play flag football with the Upward league. This was only his second year to play. I may actually start catching onto the game if he continues. He enjoyed it, but I'm not so sure I want to him to play tackle. We'll see what happens next year.
We also got to watch Ceceley play basketball here in BG. She has played for several years but we haven't always been able to watch her play. We marked our calendar to make sure we make every game she or Codie play in BG.
I was able to watch the New Moon movie with great friends. We started planning our movie night long before tickets went on sale. Cheri preordered our tickets and we bought our shirts. We even gathered at Cheri's house the Sunday night before the big event to watch Twilight again and play Twilight Scene It. We had an awesome time even if we did stand outside in the cold.
November was really a month to be "thankful".
December
December was a festive month. We celebrated the birth of our Savior with our traditional gathering at my Granny's house as well as at our house with Rob's mother, Mary. Before break began, Keaton began very fasicinated with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. When he brought Chicka Chicka Boom Boom home from the school library, he took it out of his backpack as soon as he got home and placed it on his book shelf. It was the first book he took out of his backpack on his own this school year. When I gathered it up to put back in so that he could return it to school, he carried it right back upstairs. When we finally got it back to school, he checked it out again and brought There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly home with it. So, we made sure that he recieved his own personal copy as a gift. It was so much fun listening to him read and recite the stories over and over. Although he still loves movies, at least he is beginning to show interest in things other things.
Connor finally got his hands on the fourth Diary of a Wimpy Kid book he had been wanting for
