Pow Wow

I love this time of year. I enjoy the weather and the trees and the family time. This year I am loving the excitement that Wilson has because of talking about holidays at school. It has been fun to hear him preparing for his Indian powwow and learning about Thanksgiving.

All the kids had made their own costumes (a paper bag vest, hat and a pasta necklace.) Sometimes I forget how much Wilson loves order. He was very excited to show my dad and I his necklace and that he had put the pasta in a pattern and the drawings on his hat were also in a pattern.

It was such a fun way to start our Thanksgiving break.

Camping

Every year in November our school district has a meeting that gives the kids a 4 day weekend. And every year when this happens the Chinos go on a camp out. The thing that was different about this year is that we decided to go along.

The only problem is we are not really "campers" and it was kind of cold and rainy.

Also we do not have appropriate gear. Luckily we know some gear people that make it pretty easy on us.

The boys loved being outside, sleeping in a tent and ..

playing with all the kids. Thank goodness the kids never realized that they could have easily taken over, there were 16 of them and only 7 adults.

Sarabeth even made a video of Campbell and Ben talking about some of the kids adventures.
Check it out at http://vimeo.com/2263542

the bluff

Castle Bluff is such a special place to me. In the weeks that I prepared to spend the weekend there I waited with anticipation. For me it represents time alone, time with God, time with teenagers...also in the fall it is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

I think we hit the leaves at there peak.

Have tons of pictures, but I don't know the rules about putting peoples pictures on my blog without permission. Anybody know what the rules are with that?

jack

I was out of town for Halloween, but I did make it to the carving party.
This is the face of our very cute and kind of scary jack-o-lantern.

These two worked hard to create just the right "vampire" face.