October 27th-29th, 2011

Thursday, October 27th, Ashlyn won the Fruit of the Spirit Award for Joy...same one she got last year, which tells you something!  Mrs. Hutchinson said that the deciding factor for her was when she was walking to recess one day and she was dancing as she was walking and singing Holy, Holy.  We are so proud of her for bringing joy to others as she has brought to us.

Friday, October 28th was the Fall Fest at Calvary Chapel of Melbourne.  We put our car into the Trunk or Treat at the Fall Fest as a 70s disco type theme.  I wore a flower child dress and vest and looked like a hippy (sorry, hubby wasn't there to take pics).  Kaylyn dressed up as a Hollywood Movie Star and Ashlyn dressed up as an Asian Princess (both their choosing).  Jason got stuck at Jury Duty until 7:30 pm, so I was stuck by myself with the car and the girls.  I missed the girls singing for the kid's choir, so I did not get pictures of this :-( but my friend filmed it so that I could see it at a later date.  It rained the entire time, but there was still a lot of people that came out...amazing!  We got home at 10:00 pm that night.

Saturday, October 29th, Kaylyn and Ashlyn had their final Championship swim meet in Cocoa Beach at 8:00 am...talk about tired!  And guess what, still raining!  It rained the entire swim meet until it was time to go at noon.  Then we had to get Kaylyn to her first volleyball game that started at 1:00 pm.  We quickly ate lunch at McDonalds and then headed to the game.  We got there at 1:00 and luckily they warmed up for about 15 minutes so we weren't pushing the limits.  It was best 2/3, but we only got to play 2 since we lost both.  We got better the 2nd round though and it seemed like they were starting to get in a groove.  We have some very talented players on the team.  I think Kaylyn and I will need to practice since I'm playing volleyball with some co-workers during the week and I need the practice too.

With Friday night and Saturday, we are all very exhausted!  We are going to church tonight and hopefully will get to sleep in tomorrow, which is much needed!

Halloween Weekend

Friday October 29th, Jason and I had off work. Our church was having a Fall Festival. Our car was in the trunk or treat part of the festival, so we had to wash our car and get ready for it. We made our car's theme the Florida Gators. While Jason was washing the car, our cat tower came in. I put it together and the cat absolutely loves it. The dog was a little jealous...but he has his own comfy doggy bed!

After the kids got home, we ate dinner and then headed out to the Fall Festival. Over 8,000 people came! The kids had fun getting candy, singing a couple of songs for the children's choir, and jumping around in the bounce houses. The girls and I caught a ride home at 8:30 pm with the Yanko's since Kaylyn had her last swim meet the next morning and we had to be there at 7:30 am. Jason didn't get home until almost 10 pm.

Kaylyn placed 2nd in the Butterfly stroke...I don't even think I could do it anymore! We didn't leave the swim meet until 11:30 and we headed over to Fred Lee Park for the end of the season swim party. Kaylyn got the award for competitive :-)

The next night was Halloween, so the girls got dressed up again (I sure got my money's worth out of these costumes). Then they went around the neighborhood with Daddy and got even more candy! I sat outside giving candy to the kids. We only went through 2 out of the 3 bags of candy from Sam's Club. There were a little bit fewer kids this year...probably because it was a school night???

I took the extra bag of candy to work and we still have two big halloween buckets full of candy that the girls have gotten over the last week.

Boo at the Zoo

October 23rd we went to Boo at the Zoo. The kids got to play games, make crafts, go to treat stations, ride the train, and see some of the animals. While on the train, the camels got on the tracks and would not move. The guy had to keep ringing the bell and inching the train as close to them as he could, but it took like 5 minutes to get them out of the way. It was very funny...everyone cheered the "engineer" when the camels finally moved and we could continue our train ride. The lemurs were very active during the train ride. All of the businesses that had candy stations set up, gave out the really cheap candy. Don't think it was worth $10/person, but this is Ashlyn's first experience with Halloween, so we're doing many events that fall around it so she can truly experience it. She loved dressing up as the pretty pink princess and Kaylyn loved being Cleopatra.

Pumpkin Patch

Kaylyn got strep throat and was out of school Wednesday and Thursday, but we got her make-up work while she was out of school and did it. She made up all her tests on Friday and made 100s on all of them. This child is unstoppable.

So we went to the Pumpkin Patch Friday October 22nd. This was Ashlyn's first time to one. They rode the hayride, took lots of pictures, and picked a pumpkin out. The girls seemed to really enjoy this.

Today we had Kaylyn's swim meet. Since she was out sick for a couple of days this week she missed the second swim practice and was probably still a little weak from recovering. But boy oh boy...was she a poor sport! This child cannot stand to lose and boy does it show. She's very competitive and when she loses she gets very upset, talks meanly to Jason and I, and can cry. We just want to pull her out of there for behaving like this...but it's so hard to do that. She really enjoys swimming and we're hoping she learns that she can be a winner even though she does not place first. It's probably one of the hardest lessons for her.

We're probably going to Boo at the Zoo tonight, so I will post pictures after. But here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch.