November

 Cora was not amused when Bohdin and Nyla wrapped her up in tape.

Nyla is loving insects right now.  She spent a lot of the summer with the roly polies and she has always liked butterflies.  Her room in Kentucky would get a lot. 

 Cora combing her long Rapunzel hair.  Nana made fabulous dresses for the girls along with a cape and long hair.  Bohdin has a cape as well.


 Because of the way the buildings are oriented and the direction of the wind most of the leaves in the neighborhood ended up in our yard.  The kids had a lot of fun playing in it for maybe two weeks.  Other kids would come by and play out there too.  One day gusts of wind blew and swirled the leaves up into the air like a tornado. 

Nyla has forgotten the old name of Flower she used to prefer and has been going by the name of Cupcake for several months.  It started sometime in the summer.  She still wants to be called Cupcake and Cora will occasionally call her that.  

The kids took advantage of the first frost of the season to play at the playground.  They like slippery slides and ramps.  I think this time was more of a light coating of ice.  I remember it being really slippery and several falls.

Nyla was part of the Nutcracker ballet on post.  The teacher did a great job with the girls.  They didn't have too much practice time compared to other productions and the show was still very enjoyable.  Nyla was one of the Chinese dancers.  

For Thanksgiving we went to Texas to be with Nana and Papa.  On the way we stopped and saw cousins and Grandpa in Arkansas.  I'm really regretting being too lazy to take the camera in now.  We were at Chucky Cheese for a few hours celebrating R-'s birthday.  The kids had a lot of fun and it was great to see cousins again including the new baby. 

The highlight of the time in Texas was visiting the botanical garden.  An incredible new children's area opened up and the kids loved it.  They still talk about and ask to go back.  It was very impressive and we will definitely go back again. 

October

I thought I would go back and do some of the stuff I missed in the fall.

In the beginning of October we went to the Renaissance Festival.  It was really really cold outside but it was the next to last week of the festival so we didn't have a lot of choice.  We would have had a better time if that cold wind wasn't blowing. We didn't stay too long.  The most memorable part was Cora going on a ride.  She chose a different one than Bohdin and Nyla so she had to go by herself.  She didn't seem like a little baby when she climbed up there with the other kids.  We couldn't help her onto the ride or help her get off.  She even did well when the kid across from her started freaking out.  They stopped the ride for that kid so he or she could get off. 

With an upcoming move it was time to visit all of the places we still wanted to get to and revisit favorites.  We went to the a nature preserve in Lawrence but I didn't realize they would be closed on that.  The inside looked really neat and I think the kids would have enjoyed it.  Unfortunately we never made it back.  We briefly explored the outside but it was raining lightly so we didn't last long.  We did walk around downtown Lawrence a bit and stopped at our favorite bakery so the outing wasn't a complete loss.  Lawrence is a nice town. 

The kids did a lot of activities in October.  Nyla had dance, swim, and horseback riding.  Bohdin had swim three times a week and horseback riding lessons.  I really liked the horseback riding lessons for him.  All of the kids enjoyed being out at the ranch.  Cora played in the dirt, Nyla played with her friends, and Bohdin enjoyed the lessons.  He also played with the kids when his lesson was over.  Nyla and Bohdin weren't in the same class although toward the end I think she was getting enough to be in his class.  There were a lot of cats there that the kids enjoyed playing with and just outdoor stuff.  Who knows what they were doing.  Nyla was often a little sad that it was her turn to ride.  She enjoyed the playing more than the lessons.

One of the favorite places that we revisited was the Deanna Rose Farmstead.  That place is wonderful and it's free which makes it even more amazing.   We made it out there when they had some extra Halloween stuff going on.  That part was not free but Nyla had been begging for a pumpkin for weeks and admission included a free pumpkin.  The kids played in corn, went down a big slide, had a hay ride, and some other things.  Nyla also got her pumpkin.  On the way out we said goodbye to the animals.  The kids wanted to come back one more time but I knew that was unlikely. 

Before Halloween there was a short race for kids with trick or treating afterward.  I ran with Nyla while Bohdin and Cora ran with Buddy.  I should have switched.  Nyla ran fast.  Even after a slow start she was among the first to finish.  She didn't have to wait at all to trick or treat since only a handful of kids had already finished.  By the time Bohdin and Cora came through the line was really really long.  Bohdin had a swim lesson afterward so Buddy took the girls to another trick or treating event in town.

I had to go to Georgia to take care of house stuff and I missed Halloween.  The new group of people that came in the summer were mostly lame so it wasn't very festive.  Also the autumn fair on post was cancelled due to the budget shut down.  Nyla was a bunny, Cora was a dog, and Bohdin rewore his old costume.

Snow

I was listening to the radio Monday afternoon and they predicted snow for the next day in the area south of Atlanta.  I told the kids they were lucky that we lived in the path of the storm and not to the north.  That night before bed I checked the forecast and the Weather Channel predicted the snow would begin at 10am the next morning.  Nyla was super excited.

In the morning I checked the forecast again.  Now rain was predicted to begin at 10 but it would change over to snow about 4pm.  Nyla was disappointed.  Just after 10 the first snowflake fell.  Buddy called soon afterward and said he was being sent home.  I thought that was crazy but who doesn't like getting off work early.  He stopped at Costco first and arrived home before noon.  He immediately went back out to the library to get a book he wanted.  By the time he came home he said the roads were getting bad.  The snow was falling pretty fast and it was accumulating. 

Nyla was the most excited.  She went out for quite some time.  Bohdin went out for a few minutes.  Cora stayed inside.  She told me that she doesn't like the snow very much.  We watched the news in the afternoon and the tv reports were crazy.  Traffic was horribly snarled.  It was a good thing that Buddy came home when he did.  Commute times skyrocketed.  People were in their cars for 8+ hours.  They slept in grocery stores, Home Depot, and in their car.  I never would have predicted anything like it even after telling the kids in the morning that Atlanta doesn't have the equipment to deal with snow.  We weren't impacted negatively at all but lots of people were.  The base was closed for two days so Buddy didn't have to go back to work until Friday. 

Nyla had been dying to go the playground when the snow was falling but we waited until the next morning.  Nyla didn't last long because she got snow in her glove and went home crying.  Bohdin stayed a bit longer and had me take pictures of him flying off the slides.  In the afternoon Nyla and Bohdin went with a neighbor girl for a wild ride on a golf cart.  They came home frozen but had a great time.  Bohdin said "It was GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Nyla would say the same thing but with even more exclamation points.  (Bohdin is watching me type and made me put all of the exclamation points in.  And now he's giggling.)

 The snow was melting fast by Thursday and Bohdin and Nyla went outside again.  What they really wanted to do was go on another golf cart ride.  Instead the neighborhood kids came by and they all built a snowman named Olaf.  I kicked Cora out of the house and she had more fun than she expected.  She was the last one in. 

 I bought a new bluetooth speaker for listening to audiobooks.  It's become easier to use my phone at times to listen to them.  Today they were listening to music and decided to have a dance show.  Nyla said it felt good to get the dance out.  In the afternoon they went back to the sand pile to continue work on the sand cake.  I don't think it was quite warm enough to be barefoot but Cora disagreed.  She even walked in the snow that is still in the backyard to prove her point. 

Bohdin and I went for a walk in the evening and he noticed that wherever we move gets a lot of snow.  We had 2.5 inches on Tuesday which is a lot for this area. The average annual snowfall is around 2.1 inches.  The record is 9.3 inches.  Two inches completely paralyzed the area.  I can't imagine what 9 inches would do.  Last year in Kansas they had record snowfall.  Bohdin experienced a top 5 snow event in Colorado.  Our first winter in Kentucky was colder and snowier than usual.