11-11-13

Today is Veteran's day, so we're lazing around the house and enjoying the day off :)

Life has been pretty crazy busy for me.  So one thing that wives get to be involved in with the military is what is called "coffee's".  It is when the officer wives get together for a social event.  While there is usually coffee and wine, that is certainly not the center of the activity.  It's usually just a way for the wives to get to know each other within the department or company.  Anyway- I usually try to go to a couple of these, more to support Steve than anything else ;)  
- So last week I had one of these on Monday (and I forgot that I had invited the missionaries, so I had to throw together dinner and have Steve entertain them).  Plus I ended up staying and chatting until almost 10.   
- Tuesday was the girl's tap class until almost 6.  
- Wednesday we took pictures after school, had $2 Happy Meals at McD's and then Young Women's was at our house until almost 9.  
- Thursday we had gymnastics after school, then the Hohosh's had us over for dinner- didn't get home until after 8. I was pretty burnt out by then! 
- But then Friday Steve and I went on a date, so that was a more relaxing way to spend the evening :)  

Needless to say, I've been looking forward to a more low-key day.  Steve is looking up restaurants that are supporting Veteran's day and we may do some restaurant hopping today :)  

Did I tell you about the non-LDS cadet that we had over last week?  Probably not...  Anyway- last week at church there was a cadet- Tyler Allen. He stayed all three hours.  After church Steve talked to him and found out his girlfriend (still in High School in upstate NY) is LDS and she encouraged him to check it out.  He showed up to Thayer Hall the week before, but since it was Stake Conference there was no one around.  So last week he showed up and it was Fast Sunday. (he said the two meetings he attended with his girlfriend were Stake Conference and Fast Sunday.  I thought that was funny).  We invited him over to our house last week and enjoyed his company. He is currently Methodist, but he seemed fine with us talking to him about Mormons and what we believe.  He's a plebe and is really a good kid.  Anyway- he showed up again to church yesterday so we had him over again, as well as David Arrowchis.  We had a really nice time with him and I think he has been enjoying himself.  The stake has encouraged us to pray for missionary opportunities, and it was neat to see one just basically fall in our laps!  The reason I stayed at the coffee so late on Monday was that we were talking "church" there as well.  

So we took family pictures a couple weeks ago.  We decided to do a swap with a new family.  They have six kids as well.  Anyway- we took theirs and they got a couple good ones.  Then they took ours and we couldn't even combine and cut and paste to make one good picture.  It was really quite disappointing.  Then it got cold and the fall colors began to fade and I was very sad.  I suppose it’s not terrible, but I don’t love it.

Then after Halloween we went down to the Cadet Chapel to take some pictures of the kids in their costumes (castles go well with Belle, Rapunzel and Hermione Granger).  We also went down to a friend's house with a tree swing for Katie to get a picture.  While we were there we noticed a little creek bed and I decided we would try again.  It takes an incredible amount of time to get all 8 of us prepped and pretty, but we managed and I think we ended up with a nice family photo.  It is actually the one Steve edited to put as the head photo on our blog.  Since this is a creek bottom, there was water everywhere and the leaves hid quite a bit of the water.  I warned Ryan to be still and just wait for one of us to help him, but if you look at his pants, you can see he wasn't too patient and fell in :)  There may have been a few tears, but he overcame and was actually happy when we took pictures.  You just can't tell by his expression...