Get Comfy, This Is LONG

So get comfortable, because this a a long overdue post about what has been going on lately at our house. We went up to NC and dropped the kids off at Nana and Papa's and then Derek and I headed up to Banner Elk in the mountains to celebrate our anniversary. We go away every year just for a couple of days and this has really been good for us. With having little kids so much of our time is given to them, it is great to just be able to focus on us. A couple in our church let us use a condo they own up in Banner Elk and the top picture is our view from the condo. It was just beautiful and we loved the weather. Oh, how I miss fall living in Florida. I might add that today is was 94 in October- are you kidding me! Anyway, back to our trip.

We went horseback riding right through the mountains. It was a great ride. The view was amazing and most of the time it did not feel like a trial at all.
These were some of the horses, just hanging out on the mountain.
This has been our second time riding together and Derek always seems to get the high maintenance horse.

Derek's mom had given us some samples of hand sanitizer (so we thought) and Derek threw one in the car. After riding the horses, we decided we could use some. We sprayed it all over our hands only to realize that is was breath spray! Now our hands were all sticky as well. It was so funny all we could do was laugh! We did check later on and the other two tubes were sanitizer. It was good to know that we can still just have fun together.
The college I attended was not to far away and I had always enjoyed going to the Hebron Rock Colony as a student, so we went there as well.

It was really pretty and we had a lot of fun trying to decide the best course on the rocks.


We made it to the top and tried to take a picture of ourselves.
We always enjoyed going to the mountains for apples when we lived in NC, so we were excited to see this sign. I had to take a picture because I did not think it was an odd thing to think that there would be an apple orchard the way the arrow pointed. Oh no, it was a housing development! Who calls a neighborhood Apple Orchard - are you kidding! Again, we just had to laugh and I made Derek take the picture as we drove back by.
We went to the Linville Falls Viaduct and walked the little trail under it.
Derek found a little cave. We enjoyed our time away and then got back to Fl in time for Ethan to go to his after school soccer and the last day of school for the week. He did make up all his work on the car ride and with Nana.
Ethan was student of the week this week and got to fill out this poster all about himself. He really wanted to draw pictures, where I would have done more actual pictures, but it was his poster. He did want one picture of his favorite place - MI. He has some funny answers:
His favorite color is beige
His favorite animal is a toad
He would wish for 1,000 dogs
Where did some of those come from. His favorite food of course is pizza, he wants to be a police officer when he grows up and he likes to jump in the bounce house. Those were pretty standard answers. I did think it was funny that he added his turtle in our family picture. (If you click on the picture it should make it bigger and you can see his artwork better)
We added a new reward incentive at church this week. It is called the Treasure Tower and I had seen it at the dentist some time back. I did some research and it was inexpensive and there was not a contract to sign, we we got one this week. The kids can earn a token for good behavior and participation and they get to get a prize. What kid does not want to put a quarter in the machine when they see them. I introduced it to the kids tonight at church and they were really excited. We start giving out tokens next weekend. Aubrey was my helper when the lady delivered it and she was pretty excited about it. Too bad she is not old enough to use it yet. However, Mom does have power over the tokens, so I may just slip her one. There has to be some benefits to having both parents work at a church, right? ( she got a blue dolphin!)
I happened to still have my camera with me from church, so I just had to take a picture of this car. This is seriously how the car was parked at Target. What?? Are you kidding me? It is a nice car too. It was still there when I left and I was never able to see who would actually park a car this way. Oh, the stories I have living in Palm Coast!

Ethan was doing his spelling homework (writing his words in chalk) and he apparently decided to wash them off as well. It turned into a water fight between him and Aubrey. I did not realize what they were doing until Aubrey came to the front door without her skirt. Now, those who know Aubrey know she is EXTREMELY modest. She does not like anybody, even Daddy, to see her without clothes on, so this was really funny.

As she was heading into the garage she had lost her underwear as well. I still had my camera and she covered her little bottom with her hands and said, "Mommy, don't take my picture." I respected her privacy and did not, although it was very tempting!
Saturday I made this cake for one of our friend's daughter's birthday. I enjoy giving the cake as our gift.

And finally, for Grandparents and family- this is Aubrey's fundraiser piece for this year. Just like last year you can order shirts, mugs, magnets, etc. Let me know if you want anything.