The season is ramping up!

Wow, apparently I'm getting really bad about posting on the blog! I guess I better remedy that.

Things seem to be flying along around here. Days are going quickly, and soon it will be Christmas! We've been doing a lot of sledding around here lately. The brush that Papa Lee cleared when he was here last summer was hiding a really nice sledding hill! So now, we have a very good place to sled. The kids are both enjoying school and enjoying their Spanish classes (that meet before school). Timmy is excited because next Monday he gets to go to school all day (they will practice their Christmas program in the afternoon). Cyndie and I looked at each other when we heard that news and wondered what having an empty house for 7 or 8 hours would be like. It's crazy that that is what next year will be like all the time! Those darn kids are growing up!

So, that's about it around here. There's not a whole lot to report, other than days flying by.

The Reader

Just had to drop this out there ... this afternoon Timmy read and entire 90+ page book by himself. It was not a complicated book, but neither was it a total picture book. My mom pulled it out from our stash of books and suggested that he read her a chapter, and he proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon reading it to Grandma while she worked on sewing a big black backdrop for Cyndie's photo shoots and Grandpa while they sat on the couch together.

Great job Timmer!

Friday ... finally!

Actually, I can't really say "finally" Friday, because this week has, in reality, seemed to go by rather quickly. This morning we had fun at breakfast trying to convince Timmy that it really was Friday.

Tim: What day is this?
Me: Friday ... you have Spanish (before school) today.
Tim: No, it's Wednesday.
Me: I'm pretty sure it's Friday. Tomorrow's the weekend and the Christmas Party (for our Coffee Shop small group at church).
Tim: No, because yesterday was Tuesday.
Me: Okay, it can be Wednesday, but Mommy is still going to drop you off at school for Spanish this morning.

So, there you have it. Maybe we should refer to today as Frinesday. Although there's not much of a ring to that.

Wednesday night (the actual Wednesday, not Frinesday) was family night, so we pulled out White Christmas and watched it for the first time this year. I anticipate we'll get at least one more viewing in over the winter ... perhaps at the DeVries Family Christmas Retreat*.

*I don't believe there is an official name for this joyous event, but this year, rather than trying to cram 17 of us into one of our houses, we're going to go to the camp we all lived at in the 80s in Iowa, and have 4 or so days of family fun. Hopefully we'll be able to toboggan, play volleyball and do the rock climbing wall. We'll definitely play a large game of (adults included) hide and seek. Anyway, it should be a good time.

Last night at the last minute, we decided to go watch a basketball game at Woods. We got there in time for the B team game (I think B team is the 7th graders and A team is the 8th graders). Woods won 32 - 14 (or there abouts). It was rather hilarious. The first stringers were, on average, around 5 - 8 inches taller than their counterparts on the other team (Traver, another K - 8 school on the south side of the lake). They were also a lot better that Traver. If the first stringers would have played the whole game, it would have been more like 50 - 6. Anyway, it was hilarious to watch them. Being in the tiny gym at Woods and watching junior highers made me reminisce about playing basketball in junior high at Pomeroy when we lived in Iowa ... though I think we were quite a bit better than the Woods team (although my memory may just be a bit foggy). Good times.

Let's see, what's going on with the kids these days? Emma is really enjoying reading a lot. We are letting her read for a little bit after we tuck her into bed, so I left her reading last night, and when Cyndie went to get her up this morning, she was reading too. Note, that she did not read through the night. When we checked on her when we went to bed, she was asleep! Timmy is also enjoying reading. Right now we read with him and help him sound out stuff as he needs it. He decided to make a Christmas list the other day (for Santa) and one of the things he put on it were books that he can read all by himself. That's pretty fun!

So there you have it! It's nearly the weekend and we're supposed to get 3 - 5 inches of snow today and overnight. It's certainly cold enough, so we'll see where we get!

Winter Wonderland

It's not quite all the way to "Winter Wonderland" status, but there are some really fun flakes falling as I type this. They are big ones that are just kind of taking it easy as they slowly float to the ground, with small, intermittent swirls thrown in for effect. The driveway is covered, and I really can't see too much of the grass either. Is it really winter? A quick check of the 10 day forecast on weather.com shows that it could be ... there don't appear to be many days that exceed 34 or 35 degrees in temperature. I guess winter is here to stay, and on the first of December too!

There's not a whole lot to report today. We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend ... spending time with family and friends. We're at a nice, leisurely spot with the kids in that they are not really committed to much right now, so we're not running around like crazy trying to get them somewhere. They have really enjoyed getting the Christmas stuff up and are enjoying the Christmas season in general. A couple of weeks ago they pooled their money and made lists of what they wanted to get Cyndie and I for Christmas. The kids and I went shopping for Cyndie the other day and they did a great job of staying in their budget, but also getting some stuff that I think Cyndie will really enjoy.

On the house front, we are looking at a problem with our mound system. It appears to be failing, so we may have a rather large bill with that. Our neighbor, who knows about these things, was over last night to take a look. We're going to have a pro take a look in the next day or two. I guess we'll know more then.

Have a great Wednesday all!

Midweek today!

Yes, it's hump day even though it's only Tuesday. That's a relief since it already feels like vacation. Mostly it's that way because my cousin and her kids are visiting from Minneapolis for a few days. They were over for dinner and hanging out last night, and since our kids were up late, it felt like vacation ... or at least like a weekend!

It has been (again!) a while since I posted. So, no catchup, just a few random things that occur to me as I write:

• Last thursday was the kids' Pilgrim Dinner at school. That was fun. Grandma and Grandpa D were able to attend. Both kids dressed up really nicely.
  
• Over the weekend I constructed the skating rink for this year. I remembered that I have some materials left over from when the house was built that work great to make the sides of the rink. So, due to nice 8 foot sections of that, we have a 32x16 foot skating rink with nice 16 inch sides! After all the rain we got yesterday, it's probably 40% full! I also built the platform for the sled run. Since Papa Lee cleared out so much of the underbrush down the hill from the mound, we'll have a great area to sled.
  
• Yesterday Cyndie and I worked on putting in the steel pole for the basketball hoop. Timmy was a really big help too. He was in charge of getting the water (3/4 of a gallon ... he got it right every time!). We put 320 pounds of concrete on the bottom of the pole, so I think it will hold okay. The weather was great yesterday (or I should say the temperature). It was a near record high of 67 degrees. However, just as we were putting the concrete in the hole, it started to sprinkle. By the time we had all 4 bags in, it was pouring. So part of our effort was to build dams around the hole so that the water running down the driveway toward the concrete would be diverted! Then the weather changed so that I needed to cover the concrete with blankets since the temps are now in the low 30s!
  
• After a really fun and informative Coffee Shop (our church small group) at Laura and Gows, we spent the night. It was really fun and relaxing to hang out and do nothing! We watched Date Night, which was a really good and fun combination of the reality of married life with kids, and comedy.
• On Saturday morning Cyndie did her first 5k. It was at the local state park and many of her friends from the ladies group she's in also ran. She really enjoyed it, and I think will definitely do it again.
  
• On Saturday afternoon Cyndie had her first paid photo shoot. I think it went pretty well. She's learning a lot, that's for sure!
  
• Please pray for Jane Fraser, her kids, and Covenant Point Bible Camp up in the UP (upper pennisula). Covenant Point is a sister camp to Covenant Harbor here in Lake Geneva. Chuck Fraser, the director up at Point died suddenly of a heart attack last week. He was only 59 years old. He was loved by many, and impacted a huge number of people both directly and indirectly. He will be missed by his family, the staff at Point, and the many campers that go through Point. Here's a link to some thoughts on Chuck and his impact for those who may be interested. I went to Point 4 times (3 men's retreats, and for a week of family camp last summer). At the first men's retreat my dad introduced me to Chuck, who my dad has known for many years. As a result of that connection, the following times I'd visit Point, I'd usually have a 5 or so minute conversation with Chuck. Nothing deep, just being friendly. I didn't know Chuck well, but even in the few times I talked to him, I was impressed by his humble demeanor and servant's heart. Covenant Point will be very different without him.
  

In an effort to not get too behind ...

It's (again) been a while, so I'll try to get caught up a bit. I'll just throw some bullet points out there ... probably in random order:

• Work on the tree house progresses. Between my dad and I, we have the tree house 95% roofed (need to finish off the peak). After that it will just be little things like plugging some holes in the (used) siding.
• Last night I had some guys over to play Halo on the big screen. Since I'd never played before, I sucked! It was fun though. We were kind of doing a last hurrah for a friend who is moving to the UP in a few weeks.
• Cyndie has been working very hard to get ready for a "vendor fair" for the MOPS (mothers of pre-schoolers) group in the community. She's hoping to make some contacts/get some work for her photography business*.
• We went down to my sisters for some cousin time (Laura and Gow and the girls went too) on Friday/Saturday. Fun times. We watched Killers after the kids went to bed**.
• We're trying to get back in the swing of things with the kids doing their chores and getting their allowance. I'm not sure how we got so out of the practice of that! Having that responsibility is good for them, and they enjoy it I think.
• The kids have been playing outside with one of the neighbor kids quite a bit. It's nice that it's still decent enough weather to do that without having to totally gear up for the cold.
• Big news (I almost forgot), we sold the Suburban. We got a price we were pretty happy with. Emma was sad watching the folks drive away, but she cracked us up with her comment, "Hey, they have a big dent on their door" (alluding to the rather big dent that happened when Suburban met tree a year or so ago). So now we have only two cars in the driveway ... Suburban and boat appropriately disposed of for now (the boat is being stored in a friend's barn). We may even get to no cars in the driveway if we put the Subaru in the garage and the Excursion is parked off the drive.
  

*Did I ever mention that on here? She's doing a great job laying the ground work for her business. Now we'll see where it goes! Check out her web site: Cyndie Lee Photography. ** We'll see if I end up with time to write a review on this Romantic Comedy. I'm sure Fred will be waiting on the edge of his seat for that!

Thanks to all who prayed for Cyndie's Grandma Weaver. She's improving, but is certainly not out of the woods yet (Cathy thinks that something may not have gone completely right with the surgery grandma had).

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Until next time, I'll leave you with a few pix ...

Here's the inside of the tree house ... Grandpa and Grandma D brought over some goodies for a "it's nearly done, let's have a tree house warming" party.

Grandpa D with Emma and cousin Sally on the hay ride at Covenant Harbor's fall party for their staff.

Me and Tim on the hay ride.

Carving pumpkins. We did so late (after Halloween), but the kids still enjoyed it!

Yes, well, no good excuse!

That's right, I certainly have no good excuse for not blogging lately. I got out of the habit during the tail end of vacation, and then never got back to it here. My apologies to my loyal (do I have any of those) readers!

The end of vacation was more great times. The weather was beautiful, we had a number of outings to the beach, the park, restaurants, trick or treating*, the hospital.

*Okay, trick or treating in downtown Punta Gorda was CRAZY. There had to have been more than 1000 people (possibly much more) in about a one by four block area. The sidewalks were crammed! Interesting times. I'm not sure I'd go back there!

Yes, you read that correctly, the hospital. Literally five minutes before we were going to pack up and leave, Cyndie got stung by a sting ray. It was very painful. She and Cathy ended up going to the ER to get it treated. According to Cyndie ... make sure you do the sting ray shuffle, the alternative is not fun!

We spent a bit more time with Grandma Weaver too. Please pray for her ... she had her surgery and it went okay, but she's still having lots of pain. For a few days she was really confused and the medical team discovered that her kidneys had at least partially shut down, but they have fixed that now and are detoxing her body from the corresponding ammonia build up, but she's still experiencing a lot of pain.

So now were back in the swing of things. We have hundreds of boxes of girl scout cookies on our deck right now, though they are slowly being picked up by the troop members. Emma will probably spend much of the next week delivering hers. The kids' tree house is nearing completion thanks, in large part, to Grandpa D spending a lot of time on it. Cyndie and I's art class is nearing completion for this year. Here are the latest paintings:

Cyndie's painting "Beach Umbrella"

My painting "Keith Exploded"

So there you have it. I hope you feel as if you have caught up with things with the Wildwood DeVries.