September

September was a busy month. Jered finished his third chief induction season, pinning, and we attended the 2012 Khaki Ball. Jered had his re-enlistment ceremony at the hangar. 16 years down, 4 more to go! He re-enlisted for 6 years, which will take him beyond his 20 year mark if he decides to stay in longer. i have had the blessng of being at all of Jered's re-enlistments, so i had bittersweet feelings, knowing that this might be the last one.

Will started his third year in Awanas. He is in the Sparkies K-2nd grade group this year, and i am a Sparkies Leader. Although it makes things busier, it is fun and rewarding to see our 30 Sparkies learning about the Bible and Jesus' love for them. We also started back up at MOPS this month. Since Will is in school every day now, Emma is doing the MOPPETS class by herself, but she hasn't seemed to mind at all. Emma and i go to a women's Bible Study Thursday morning, 10-12, and the family attends a couples' study Thursday night, 6:30-8. Thankfully both studies have childcare! We also have a regular playgroup that meets at a park every Tuesday. Jered and i are still singing with the church's worship team as his work schedule allows. Will has Christmas play practice every Sunday after church. Between homework, playdates, and all of our other activities, life is hectic sometimes, but at least Will has been on fall break the last week of September/first week of October. We had a chance to catch up on all of Emma's quarterly specialist appointments - ENT, GI, and Orthopedics - as well as get the dogs up to Miramar for their shots and heartworm tests. They both turned 9 recently. i can't believe it!

This past weekend on the one day Jered had off, after church, Will's play practice, and a young families ministry event at the lake, we cleared out and rearranged the office/playroom. Now that Emma is getting older, we don't have to have the computers gated off, so we spread out a little and reorganized. We also moved the changing table out of Emma's room since she's partially potty trained, and put one of the toy shelves from the playroom into her room. it was funny that Jered called home from work last week, with the idea that we should rearrange the office. I had been thinking the same thing, but never said anything because he so rarely gets time off from work. It was fun to work on together.

We are looking forward to October, beginning with Abby's visit this coming weekend! We are excited to see her, and my friends want to do a girl's night out while she's here. That will be a much needed break! We are also going to try to squeeze a Sea World visit in with Abby. This month we want to visit the pumpkin patch across the street from our house (it has rides and Will asks to go every single time we see it...which is obviously every day!), apple picking in Julian, and the Haunted Train, which runs 3 weekends before Halloween. Halloween is on Wednesday this year, so Will and i will be at Awanas. They are doing a Great Adventures dress up night so the kids can wear their costumes.

Long blog, but it's been a month since I wrote anything. Please excuse the uncapitalized "i"s - Jered hooked up my old ergonomic keyboard last night, and it only writes vowels intermittently, and capital i's rarely!