October should be renamed no breaktober.

Here you go...

October is historically a busy month for us, and 2014 has proven itself no exception.  In fact, busy is a nice word for what we have had going on.  More accurately: irrationally, ludicrously, preposterously and laughably busy.

It started out innocuously enough with a Cub Scout family camping trip over near Fort Myers.  We have done quite a bit of camping but never in a group setting, so this was going to be interesting.  The kids had a BALL running back and forth between campsites and for the most part were really good.  Things started to get tricky when two baby flying squirrels were knocked out of their nest and found by our kids.  Of course the girls were IN LOVE!  Now the rule of thumb in situations like this is to let nature take its course, and we tried to convince the kids to leave the squirrels alone in hopes that the mother squirrel would come back - yeah, that was going to happen.  Guess we need to go back to parenting school.  To make matters even worse, night was falling and the forecast was for chilly weather.  So guess who got to sleep with two squirrels in a pair of socks inside her tent - ME!!  They both made it through the night, but one of the squirrels apparently took the brunt of the fall from the tree and was clearly failing, so we starting preparing the kids for its inevitable passing.

 

Other than the squirrels, the camping was borderline perfect.  The first night we didn't get to the site until well after dark so we threw up our Insta-tent and settled in for the night.  It was a tight fit, so the next day we decided to pitch the bigger tent.  Yes, that is right, we have two tents.  We are such tent snobs.  The bigger tent is AWESOME!!  I love it.  Don't tell Jim, because he will make me sleep in it more.  After our last camping excursion to the mosquito-infested  Everglades last spring with a leaking queen air mattress, I decided to purchase a cot.  For me. Only.  No more sleeping on the ground.  Sorry Jim!  We have a twin air mattress for him, don't worry.

The camping site was on the old Koreshan communal settlement.  Jim calls it the David Koresh settlement, apparently there was some cult-like activity there last century.  We got to take a quick tour of the (weird) settlement, but I think the significance was lost on the kids.  They did have pineapple bushes which were cool.  Some of the activities were a hike in the woods, fishing and the time-honored boys-against-girls game of "it."

Every meal was prepared and served by different groups within the troop.  Ben's Tiger Scouts were on duty the last meal - Sunday Breakfast.  He is  extremely happy to be a scout!

Oh, what happened to the squirrels? Oh we aren't finished with that story just yet.  On the way home we stopped by a Pets-mart to pick up some kitten milk because even I know baby squirrels are not supposed to be drinking regular cow milk.  The cashier mentioned that her sister's boyfriend rehabbed squirrels and I should have given them to her!!  I wish I had.  My life would have been easier if I had.  Sigh.  So, we make it home.  I put the babies on a heating pad, fed them and crossed my fingers the sick one would make it through the night.  He did, but he was struggling.  Lilly looked at me and said I should not feel bad if he died because I had done my best.  Such wise words.  They came in handy when I told her after school that he had died.  Poor baby boy squirrel.  His sister however was really thriving and squawking up a storm, but we had to find somewhere for her to go.  I put in a few calls and finally (finally) found somewhere to take her.  The women who answered the phone was really unpleasant and she took great pleasure in chastising me for our unwise decision to remove the squirrels from nature.  Apparently I did EVERYTHING wrong.  She was right of course, but... Whatever, she wasn't there and being pressured by all those little faces.  I decided to take the kids with me to drop the healthy baby off hoping the kids would take some of the heat off of me.  It worked!!  She was still unpleasant, but we actually got a smile out of her at one point.

The reason I was feeling the pressure to find a home for the squirrel was because the kids and I were heading to Swansboro for the weekend and Jim was going to Peru.  Before all of that though, we had to get through the second event of the month, the BOOSTERTHON!  The kids had finagled a few family members to sponsor them to run laps in order to raise money for the school.  So now they actually had to run the course, and run they did.  The maximum number of laps was capped at 35, good thing, because they could have easily run many, many more.

We survived and moved on to the next item on the list, THE MULLET FESTIVAL!!!  We were soooo excited to be going home to celebrate with the family, especially since Papa Dub was going to be the Grand Marshal of the parade!!  The kids really, really wanted to be in the parade so we were able to find some airline tickets that would make that happen.  Except it almost didn't.  We got to the airport with PLENTY of time to spare.  The airplane was delayed by half an hour.  No biggie.  Then suddenly it was delayed by A LOT and it became a real big problem.  We got on our flight to Atlanta with an almost certainty that we would not make our connection.  Well there was quite a bit of tears and words of questionable appropriateness but we made it to Atlanta to the monitors saying our next flight was boarding.  We RAN to the next gate which was two terminals away and were greeted with another delayed flight!  WHEW!  Of course when we didn't arrive at Nanny and Papa's house until 1:00am it took some of the shine off.
 

The Mullet Festival made up for it!  The kids had a ball riding in the parade and it was wonderful to see so many special people and of course life-long friends.  The best part of course was seeing my family!

Gigi & Me!

Parade Ready!

Nanny with all the grand kids

Ben & Lucy fishing with Fa

No sooner had we gotten back when Ben's forever wiggly front tooth starting hurting.  I have been going back and forth about having a dentist just go ahead and pull his teeth because they are teeny tiny (grinding) and now had gotten sensitive so they really needed to GO!  Of course two days after I made a Dentist appointment for the following Monday, one of the teeth was on the verge of falling out by itself.  Ben asked me to pull it and I willingly agreed!

Someone is pretty excited about his first visit from the Tooth Fairy!

 Lilly managed to score "Student of the Month" for her classroom this month.  The other two are a tad miffed because this is the second time she has had the honor and they are still waiting to be picked.  Sometimes it IS good to be Lilly.

Hey, guess who lucked out and avoided a trip to the Dentist.  Now to make the bottom ones go away ...
 

I see you looking at your calendar thinking surely that is all they have done in the month of October.  Well, you would be wrong.  We have two more weeks my friend.  Let's see what we can cram into them.  First up was a quick, blink and you will miss it, trip to VA to catch a William and Mary Football game with the cousins.  The kids and I arrived in DC without any of the hassle we encountered on our previous flight.  Jim met us at the airport (he had flown into DC from Arizona where he was working) and we hopped in the car for the drive to Richmond.  Bright and early the next day we climbed back in the car to drive over to Williamsburg for the game!  It was a great day!  Not nearly chilly enough for me though.  I had been hoping for a 50 degree day - did not get it.  But all the cousins were there and some of their cousins too.  We basically took over this one section of the bleachers AND to top it off the Tribe won!

Before we could even blink, we were back on the plane heading south.  Ready for Halloween!!

Lucy, world traveler

Oh, the flight back was uneventful, thanks for asking.  We did almost miss our flight due to my husband's insistence that we go over to Arlington Cemetery.  Which on any other day would have been an EASY thing to accommodate, and it was a beautiful day, and such a sacred and important place to visit.  However, the last Sunday of October is the Marine Corps Marathon whose finish line is at the Marine Corps Monument, which is adjacent to, you guessed it, Arlington Cemetery.  So we ended up running through the airport and clear security to make it to the gate long enough to grab some pretzels before boarding.  Ahhh, good times.  I must say, however, that it was incredibly moving to visit Section 60 at Arlington, where hundreds of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.  Every American citizen needs to visit this place.  But we don't recommend doing it on Marathon day.

My mom used to make our dentist appointments the day after Halloween and if you had any cavities, no candy for you!  She will deny this if you ask her.  To be fair, it may have only happened once, but it was burned into my psyche so it may as well have happened every year.  So what do I do?  I make the flu shot appointments two days before Halloween.  In my defense, I made them too late last year and all that was left was the shot and the kids REALLY REALLY wanted the mist this year.  Soooo.... Here is to hoping the live virus they sniffed up their noses doesn't make them sick before they have a chance to Trick or Treat.
 

 

We made it to Halloween!!!! So far so good!  We carved the pumpkins the day before so there will be no last-minute mad scooping and carving for momma this year, thank you very much!  The kids spread out some spiderwebs and we turned on the spooky spotlights.  We are READY!  Now to put on the costumes!

Lilly decided to go as Hermione Granger.  Lucy choose to go as  hugely popular Elsa.  Ben, well Ben is a blue shadow man.  What?  Yes, we attempted several times to get him to pick something else, but the boy wants what he wants.  We took them to see the Blue Man group back in August.  We think this had A LOT to do with his decision.  Last year's sickness really left a mark because up until we left to go trick or treating, he said he was not going.  Of course he went, and he did fine.  WHEW!

Well, that is it.  The last month of the year where we could have possibly taken it easy and didn't.  The next two months are going to be a blur with a birthday and several holidays to survive.  Deep Breath, Deep Breath.  I am going to need all the rest I can scrape together.