And so it begins...: October 2014

Well, well.

Here we are in the middle of my Fall term already.

I can tell because I have yet to leave my computer for a full day without having to write a paper or un-dig some research for another paper.

Oh, and did I mention the studying?

Ugh, anyways...in between all of these wonderful, stressful things we also have plummeting temperatures.

Last year we were surprised by our electric bill going from about $80 up to $500. We had tried to buy wood and use our fireplace, but that did not reduce the bill substantially enough to cover the amount of chords of wood.

We decided we needed to insulate under the upper portion of the house.

Brent has had some trouble actually being off at all the last couple months,and it is just going to get worse. This next month I don't think I will see him until Thanksgiving. He is going to be in Washington for almost 2 weeks, trying to squeeze in hunting, and then needing to go clean up mess at his own store.

Well, he was able to make it home and start the insulation. He did not get as much done as planned as he was very late getting home(3am) Wednesday morning and had to leave to a meeting early Friday.

Still he and Mitchel got all suited up and got under the house. They did about 2/3rds of it. Over the course of two days. I'm afraid I was no help because I had school, and August decided to get sick.

It was horrible. We gladly let him snuggle in between us when he came in the middle of the night. Abruptly we heard some gurgle-bubbly sounds and we knew what it was...August had a diarrhea incident in the bed! It wasn't that bad, but it was annoying. We were already so exhausted. To get up and have to change sheets and poor Aug. He was so worried about it. He had no idea he was going to do that. The poor dear. The second night was even more exhausting as he was up every hour and half needing to use the toilet.

In addition to the insulation being 2/3 of the way complete, our new stove and oven should be delivered this week (on Halloween). Yeah! Papa came over this week to pull out the old ones and will be here to install the new ones on Friday.

After getting August back into good health I was able to tackle my midterm assignments. I lived in my robe for a couple days. Stopping school work only to do dishes, cook, and laundry. My mother was a life saver keeping the boys running with errands, chores, and halloween costume shopping.

Here are some of the pics from this week:

The guys getting ready to open a bag of insulation...

They need to insulate a little over 1,000 square feet ( the upper level of house)

Mitchel is excited to be wearing a bunny suit.

And there it is, the hole which the boys had to crawl through to get to the underside of the house.

Brent is the first one in!

Mitchel goes in second.

August was very curious. (and being outside in his underwear did not contribute to him being sick)

Since we are a few days without a stove or oven we need to use the bbq, microwave, and this...

Here are the toad-in-a-hole, (or birds nests, whatever you call them) breakfast on the griddle

Where the OVEN once was...awaiting the new one

Where the new STOVETOP will go.

This next video was August trying to block Mitch in his room.

It was adorable. He came to get me to show me all of the things he did to trap him..

sadly, he didn't realize the door opens inward. All of his planing was in vain.

Some of the sad, very sad midterm craziness photos...

At around midnight I needed some PEANUT BUTTER and apple to keep me going

One of the papers I had to write was on this. My virtual child, Imogen.

I baked one last pie in the oven before it was taken out.

A blueberry and rhubarb pie

Eating pie between breakfast and lunch on Saturday...

Almost done on SUNDAY

Watching TED talk to finish up critical thinking paper...ugh

Now I just have to take some tests this week and be done with it until finals.

Can't wait to get our new appliances.

And to have the insulation done!

We have already been at below freezing for a couple weeks now.

We did it!

We went and braved the pumpkin patch.

I am always weary about doing things like this without Brent, especially now that August is going through his full on CRAZY phase, but it was actually awesome (overall).

Luckily I wasn't all alone.

Rebecca had also said she would brave it with the boys, but Max was able to come too.

After visiting with my Annette for a couple hours that morning,

I decided to get there a little early so we could eat some lunch there...

Man traffic was not agreeable.

It took forever to get there.

We were extra hungry.

We got some hot dogs and nachos then found a seat.

August was absolutely INSISTENT we go take a picture with this skeleton guy we passed on our way in, so that is what we did first.

We walked around to kind of get our bearings. (and so I could price stuff)

Activities were $3 each.

I decided to buy the kids bracelets for $10 which let them have unlimited use of certain things.

It also included one ride on the trains and fire truck.

August wanted to go take a look at the animals. I wasn't able to take any pictures other than this one below because he was "running" from one side of the barn to the other.

There were cute baby ducks and rabbits.

Cows, pony, and goats.

Upstairs above the barn they were playing Charlie Brown cartoons.

It was awesome. (and this part was free)

While inside getting their bracelets there was a gift shop and a cafe...

and another skeleton.

August was so excited.

He wanted to take a picture this time of him holding the skeleton's hand.

Then, we ventured over to the "hay maze".

We were in here for awhile.

The boys just loved running through it with a bunch of other kids.

If Brent had been there I probably would have let August go alone and had each of us at one of the exits, but because I was by my lonesome, I had to go in.

Around this time Rebecca and Max showed up with their little pumpkin heads.

They bought some Kettle corn and everyone sat down to snack.

I got August another sucker (I think that makes me a sucker?)

And Bray wanted some "dipping apples".

There was so much yummy food there. Had I been rich we would have indulged a bit more.

August cheesing it up for Rebecca's picture

The boys decided they really wanted to ride the train next.

Max and Becca were not wanting to do any of the pricy activities, so we kind of separated for a sec while the boys took their ONE train ride.

When this train was in Bend, we learned about this pumpkin patch

The array of pumpkin canons that went off every so often

There was a photo-op

for Charlie and Miles next to the giant hay slide.

Max positioned Miles on Charlie's lap for these photos.

August was pulling at me so my pictures were a bit shaky...

It worked for a little then Miles did a FACE PLANT on the bail of hay.

It was priceless.

Daddy picking the hay from his face.

There were two giant slides, a water pump table, and a corn shucking machine. We hit up all of them. (there were also some tractors on the far left side, Aug played there earlier before Charlie got there)

Above: The gentlemen shows the boys how you take corn kernels and grind them down to make chicken feed.

Below: They showed the boys how they used that machine to rip the kernels off of the cob and make pig feed.

The boys really enjoyed this part.

They are future hen owners ya know!

Meanwhile, August had refused to exit this giant inflatable pumpkin (seen in the video I attached) and as a result I told him he was not getting his fire engine ride. I kept seeing the engine come and leave, and time was running out. The place closed at 5!

Can you believe that?

Anyways, so I told Bray to go ask Max or Becca to ride with him. I initially told Bray to just give them the tickets, but he really wanted to ride it...So while we were grinding corn they drove by (also seen in the video)

We finally ended up on the hay ride that took us over to the actual pumpkin patch and corn maze.

Rebecca took this opportunity to nurse Miles, while I ran my two into the maze.

Turns out Max ended up taking Charlie in too.

Too bad we missed em...

Still, a corn maze is always fun!

It was at this moment I realized that the boys both wore great PUMPKIN colored shirts.

However, neither of them would sit amongst the pumpkins for me to take a picture they wanted to climb on the giant hay spiders. So they ran straight to those....