Feast Day Fun: Michaelmas!

Michaelmas this year saw us making dragon dinner rolls, eating blackberry lemon tarts and learning all about St. Michael and the archangels - again.  The kids this year were all "Wait!  It's Michaelmas again?  Didn't we just do that?" They knew all the answers to my questions, and complained about already knowing about Michael casting out the devil from heaven, and why we eat blackberries on this day (hint: legend from the middle ages about the devil landing in a blackberry bush when he was thrown out of heaven).  Which is the whole point, really.  They REMEMBER!!  They really REMEMBER!!!  We read from Revelations, read about Pope Leo and his "overhearing" a conversation between God and the devil, and then recited the St. Michael prayer.  This led to a discussion about angels in general, and archangels and guardian angels in particular, and spiritual warfare and free will... even amongst the celestial beings.  All good stuff.  All great reasons to justify spending a little extra time shaping our dinner rolls into dragons and gluing the wings back on my St. Michael statue from Italy.  It's worth it,  to stimulate family dinner conversations about important things that THEY ACTUALLY REMEMBER. 

Apple picking with the Squires

Couldn't ask for a better day for the Squires to come over and pick apples!!  We had campfire doughnuts, dogs on the grill, and fresh apple cider to boot.  Fun day!!

Happy Birthday Grandma 'Verne!

This lady turned 78 today, so she came over to celebrate with us.  Unfortunately, the blueberry zucchini cake with lemon butter cream frosting that I spent HOURS making refused to come out of the bundt pan I had baked it in... and ended up a crumbled mess.  So we had blueberry zucchini cake trifle. Which... in fancy crystal cups.... tastes just the same. 

Happy birthday, Grandma Laverne!

Parade of Nations

Mommy/Quinn Date Night

It's not too often that just Quinn and I get to hang out together.  When my "date" for the Light the Night run couldn't make it, Quinn stepped in to run with his Mama.  Or rather, run in front of his mama, because he's WAYYYYYY faster than I am, and in much better shape after daily gym class and football at school.  Regardless, it was a really fun night, just the two of us.  So fun, that we had to end it with ice cream.  Because what's a date without ice cream???

 Quinn  made a friend.  They bonded over color spraying each other.

 I could pretend I ran with Cynthia, but she was WWWAAAAYYY ahead of me, too :)

I could only catch up to her at the finish line :)

And a full moon to boot!  Perfect weather for a great run!

 Goofball selfie.

Sweat.  Color.  Ice cream.  Good way to end an evening.

Our Life, Organized

September is... well.  I try not to swear.  But it's crazy and overwhelming, and I just needed to feel like I had a HANDLE on it, because it was getting away from me.  BIG TIME.  September.  It's a swear word in and of itself.

Enter the magnetic, dry-erase calendar.  That my dog chewed up when he snuck into the trunk of the car, so I put it in a beautiful frame to try to hide the bite marks. 

Even with only the half month of stuff we have on there (from tomorrow forward), it looks dizzying.  Blue = boys, pink = Reagan, purple = Mama, and orange = entire family obligations.    And this obviously doesn't even COUNT the given things, like work, school, and church.  This is all just the "extra" stuff. 

I never wanted to be THAT family, that overschedules everything to the point of exhaustion.  But we have become that family. 

Silly Dog

Went grocery shopping yesterday, and it was BIG grocery shopping.  Like, bags all the way to the tip top type grocery shopping.   When I got home, I opened the trunk and brought in a load, then when out for more.  As I grabbed the next bags... I noticed something... weird.

YUP.  You found him.

Silly dog.  Who knew he could jump that high and crawl in there like that!

Montana Fly In

Rob calls his fly-in trips to Montana's wilderness his "pilgrimage".  There, amongst the mountains and trout streams, without humans or daily life interfering, he is alone with his thoughts and his God.

The first leg was on the Missouri River, the reach that hasn't changed since Lewis and Clark navigated some 200 years ago.  Next, he met up with a buddy, whose wife flew in some fresh apple rhubarb pie.  He ate well on this trip. 

There was substantial rain this year, which kept him indoors more than he would've liked, but a pilot friend offered him a hangar and a hostel in Winnifred, MT, so all was well and he spent his time catching up on books.   Once the weather broke, he went into the Belt Mountains to the Judith river, where he finally had some good fishing and got to view some bull elk. 

This is where Robbie feels most at home.  This is his heart.  Mountains, streams, airplanes, and solitude.