At Home in the Mountains

 Here are some pictures of stuff we've done this fall. We found this great place called Cedar Preserve. It is $3 to get in! It has a great picninc are, 10 miles of hiking trails and a butterfly garden. Will definitely be going back. This is the trail we hiked. With a stroller. .5 miles. KILLER.  Thank goodness we had lots of many chocolate bars to keep us happy.  Hiking in Texas. Yep.  Rare selfie. Usie? Whatever.  If you look closely in the top of the tree you can see the hawk that was sitting there as we passed by on an evening walk.  98 degrees mid Oct. Bleh. It's FINALLY feeling much more fallish 'round here.  On bench at Cedar Preserve. Sp  Spider we saw that had babies on it's back...or as Kelsay calls it "a 'poder". 😂  Picnic area  Feeding ducks and swans by library  Kelsay preferred eating the duck food herself.  Maddy got new KAFOs.  The fair! They had a lot of new stuff this...

So before I share my story about Kelsay, I have to mention that the red mark on her face from chin to forehead is from here running full speed into a corner. Kelsay loves to pray. When we sit down to eat she will fold her hands together and say, "Pray! Pray now!" Then at the end she will echo the Amen and clap her hands. The other night she was in the bathtub and randomly decided it was time to pray. I told her she should say the prayer so she said, "Dear God", clicked her tounge 3 times, and said, "amen". Guess that is Kelsay's first prayer. 😂

 This doesn't look like such a big deal scrolling thru the pictures, but it was a lot of work! We are not the most enthusiastic home improvers on the block. Our motto seems to be: if it works, why spend money for something different. However, the floor in the downstairs bathroom (pictured in the firts two photos) was in terrible shape. It was floored with vinyl tile squares, the cheapest, most ugly flooring known to man, and had probably been there since the '90's. And have I mentioned that it was also uglier than sin? So we decided that we'd put in real tile over labor day weekend. We were nervous because it was a really big project for us,and neither of us had done any tiling before.  First step was the demo. Worst and hardest part of the whole thing. I started about 9:30 and worked for two hours. My hands were swollen and bruised by the end of it. I had to soak them in Epsom salt that night. I used a crowbar to break everything up. I think there are floor scrape...

 Our back to school started out with a crunch....maybe it was a crack.... On the last Friday before school Kelsay climbed up in the new double jogging stroller I had just put together, somehow pushed it over and busted her face. There was lots of blood, I didn't see the accident as I'd gone into the kitchen to get breakfast for the kids, and we thought her teeth were broken. Turns out she just pushed some of them up into her gums. After lits of exams, x-rays, and 4 hours in the Er with none of us having had anything to eat or drink that morning, they told us nothing was fractured or broken, the teeth should return to normal position in about 6 weeks and to make a follow up dentist appointment and watch for teeth turning black. In the above picture she is crying because she did not want to wear the hospital gown and because I was trying to take a picture of her in the hospital gown.  On Saturday we went for frozen yogurt for a before back to school treat.  Firs...

 We had a great weekend at Mema's. It was the last hoo-rah of the summer as far as traveling. Cindy and kids and Tammy came and we met my parents there so it was extra fun this time. Above is a pic of our 104 degrees at 6 p.m. picnic in Post, TX.  We got 58 pints of black eyed peas and 14 pints of green beans. The green beans were kind of done already so that's why we didn't get much off them. We also brought home corn, cucumbers, and apples. So yum!  The kids had fun playing in the sprinklers....except Kelsay. She hates water spraying on her so she just watched for a little bit and then went inside.  She like chilling in the little chairs.  We ended the weekend with rain!!  Not too interested in picture time on Sunday morning.  Ah well, they get it honest  I've been putting up aplmes today. 10 pints so far and many more to go. Made some applesauce for dinner tonight. I don't want to say goodbye to summer!! But I...