I don't know if the preparation and return from our Great Wolf Lodge trip just took over, but I feel like September was a crazy busy month. October has not slowed down much, but at least enough that I finally have time to blog about it!
William was selected to test for his next karate belt. So, Emily and Juliet made up a sign for us to sport at his belt test.
Ready to go! That is his Sensi in the background.
Testing. They test in groups with others at their level. They start with the lowest rank and move up, so Billy missed him actually testing (right at 5,) but surprised him when he came over wearing his new belt.
Success! Sporting his new 11 Kyu belt!
Grace and Juliet unpacking a gift box from Zoey.
The Saturday after our trip, we headed down to Eaton Rapids to play some board games with the Cornishes. We were there most of the day, and played 3 different games (at least 2 times each.)
What the other room looked like, with 10 kids:
And, because we were feeling wild, we drove back down early the next morning to drop off our crew, and made an adult only trip to the Renaissance Festival!
It was a really fun time. I don't know that I'd seen the shows in years, since we always had so many small ones of which to attend. That said, this is the only picture that I took.
The lines were wildly long when we arrived, and got longer and longer throughout the day. They were running out of some of the more popular foods (like turkey legs.) I'm sure there are many reasons it was so packed: they weren't open last year, it was a beautiful day, it was next to last weekend. Even so, the sheer number of people was astonishing, and I'm so happy the kids were tucked safely away. Unsurprisingly, but hopefully not terribly biasedly, I think that the Texas Ren Faire does it so much better, or did, the last time we were there, many years ago, but coronavirus has changed so much, it could be just as bad there.
On October first, we went out delivering Boo Bowls! Filled with treats for our friends, we dropped off what we hope was a pleasant surprise.
When we went down to Eaton Rapids to deliver one for the Cornishes, we saw signs for a rummage sale at a nearby church! So, I sent my friend a message letting her know that my car was parked in fron of her house because of our fun delivery, but that we were going to the sale.
They had massive quantities of goodies, and all of my crew found something! William found a foam dart gun, and he liked it so much that he wanted to take pictures of it with my phone.
Juliet helped him set up his target cans.
When we were at the farmer's market in Cadillac, I saw some tasty looking cabbages. I'd been in the mood for some of my Grandmother's New England boiled dinner, but didn't want to cart the cabbage home, along with all of our vacation things.
Last week, at our local farmer's market, I found a beautiful cabbage, but this thing was a beast!
I only used about a third of it, and it made an entire crock pot full, plus a bowl full. The bowlful I tossed in a bag and stuck in the freezer for another time. It came out very tasty, though I seemed to be the only one who liked it.
In the Kroger, freebie, catalog that they sent out last month, they had half a dozen pintrest worthy ideas for spooky treats! Since I've not been on pintrest in a while, this was a delightful surprise.
As it turns out, I've set out to make all of these this season, apparently.
The little mummy oranges are so cute! The kids tried to eat them first, despite having a stash of unwrapped ones!
On the same day I bought the cabbage, I also bought a pie pumpkin. Alice helped me cook it up so that we could make some pies. It was so big that it made 2 pies, 4 crustless pies, 20 pumpkin chocolate chip cookie/muffins, and enough for a pumpkin juice recipe (that was not a big hit.)
The kids are all really excited about the ghost fruit kabobs, so I guess we'll be making those next.
later days
