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A New Use for Piper

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Our intimates know about Kyla’s movie (and book and audiobook)…oddity. Any hint of drama, or suspense, or mystery–or even dialogue–can set her off keening, galloping up and down the hallway before slowly returning to her seat before doing it all again.  It’s, um, distracting for others.  

Dwayne and Piper came up with a new work around. Piper is Kyla’s seatbelt.  She sits across Kyla’s lap to keep her grounded when Kyla wants to flee.  It works better than it ought to, and Kyla gets a sort of snuggle from her usually very prickly little sister, and Piper tolerates it because she’s being helpful and doing a job only she can do.  Win, win…wait, Kyla, come back!
In the background is a common landscape in our basement–Wesley’s new improvements on blanket-forting. Notice the total lack of access to the fire place and three-quarters of the room.  I’m kinda over it. But when he hates to do schoolwork, sometimes he can be convinced to take it downstairs and work on it happily in his cave. 

45 Excellent Years

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The International Dyslexia Association’s 2019 Conference was in Portland, OR, this year.  And since it is always adjacent to Veteran’s Day weekend, it is always on my birthday.  I had never attended before, but I flew down from Payne Field really early Thursday morning and made it in time for the 8am session.  The conference was over Sunday at noon, and Dwayne drove down Saturday night, leaving the kids with my parents for two nights.  Which meant, on my birthday, I got to finish up the wonderful learning weekend, Dwayne slept in, and then we got to play in downtown Portland for 24 hours before driving home.  The Art Museum was a fabulous afternoon activity, we “discovered” the Swank and Swine for our dining pleasure, and in the morning, got to do one more city walk when we came across this Veteran’s Day memorial. We joined the crowd to sing the Anthem and pay our respects to service men and women.  It was a proud and meaningful moment, and an excellent recap of several great days in Portlandia.

Heart Attack Hill in Autumn

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Jen and I meet almost weekly to pant up Heart Attack and if the day is just right, you can get to a certain point and have the Olympics in front of you and the Cascades behind you. (Granted, the mountain ranges don’t move–we just have a certain amount of cloud cover in the PNW, you may have heard).


Kyla and I went a few weeks later, and it was still lovely!

Trick or … EEK!

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Hey, wait.  Where did all my kids go?  I only see a Minecraft Creeper, a Dragon Queen, and a cat…holding a cat.  How meta.

 Later, Kyla got her make up on. I love that she did this all herself!  Wes researched, found, and purchased his own Creeper PJs…and they have been an excellent investment. Being home schooled, he has more pajama days than the average child and there are few Saturdays where he can’t get away with wearing his onesie all day.

Wes and I got the firepit ready for the big neighborhood bonfire.  I kid, because if we didn’t go, there would be exactly 0 in attendance, probably including the Jack-o-lanterns.
 

But it’s a fun and cozy tradition regardless….huh, I just realized that this picture is not from Halloween.  Or even home.  It’s a weekend at the cabin, and possibly at our neighbor’s and not even our own place.  Hm.  Well, it’s a cozy look anyway.  Happy Halloween, everyone!  

Lighthouse Park

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Dwayne’s parents came to visit us this weekend, and we wanted to show them the updates we had done at the cabin (and I may have had a few more clearance plants and bulbs to plant in the garden).  On the way back, we decided to have dinner at Ivars on the waterfront. We had a little extra time to walk around the park.
And by walk, I mean wrestle on the ground, of course.  And Dwayne and I played “hot lava” by only walking on drift wood.  

 Look at the beautiful view!  The kids’ ain’t bad, either.

 
We accidently timed a perfect sunset just as we ordered dinner.  What a lovely time together!
 

Blue Sky

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First of all, if I haven’t raved about good books recently, it’s not for lack of reading them (it’s more of a lack of blogging in general).  I have to put in a plug for one of my top 5 authors, Marisa de los Santos.  I fell in love with Love Walked In, and Belong to Me when I first read them, and I’ll Be Your Blue Sky rounds out the story and makes me love each of the books even more. 

 
But what me think of this delightful book was a beautiful afternoon with my aunt–this September has not been the summery month it usually is, so Janet and I captured the afternoon sky to prove it to my mom. Blue skies, indeed!