Apple Leather

As I sit down to write this, I see a one-paragraph summary from last Sunday and remember Mike telling me that he couldn't remember anything from that week and did I want to write something. I guess we never did anything about that. Oops.

Last week we picked apples at the bishop's house, tried to get grapes, but didn't find many. We ended up buying grapes and made nearly three gallons of grape juice.

This week we picked apples at the Paynes' and made delicious apple fruit leather. Gideon loved it so much that he wanted to eat all of it, so Mike told him that if he picked and processed the apples himself, he could have all the fruit leather that came from it. It took him four days, but he ended up with fruit leather that should be ready tomorrow morning. We hope it works for him.

Monday was the last day of the first quarter of Classical Conversations; we had donuts and pizza. The kids are still not unequivocally enthusiastic, but Alison still thinks it's a great thing for our family. Thursday Alison and Rea got to go spend a day at a Challenge A class, which is the first year of the junior high - high school program with CC. Rea is old enough for Challenge A next year, but she's been nervous. Since the Challenge program is the main reason Alison joined CC, she was pretty sad about that, but she's been trying not to force Rea. Well, she talked Rea into going, and Rea LOVED it! She participated and saw that nothing they were doing was above her level, so she's not really nervous anymore. Alison loved it too. She really wants to tutor either Essentials or Challenge next year, because she thinks both those programs are so fun. It was a really great day.

Friday night was a Fathers and Sons campout in a bunkhouse. Mike, Timmy, and Gideon had a lot of fun, but Mike seems to have come home with a cold. That's too bad. He doesn't usually get sick.

Saturday there was a Halloween activity at Daybreak, so Alison took the kids with Grandma and Grandpa while Mike worked on his Elders' Quorum lesson. The kids enjoyed dressing up and getting candy. There were some amazing performances going on, but there weren't enough seats and most of the kids didn't want to stand and watch, especially when they were too short to see everything. Then we went back to Grandma's house and had pizza. We got free pumpkins at the activity, and when we got home we had fun carving them. It was a fun day.

Next week we have a break from CC and it's Ellie's fall break too. My girls are really hoping that they can spend a lot of time together. It's great that they get along so well.

Rocket is falling asleep across the room. Mike admits that he's actually kind of cute. He's a good dog and he's growing out of some of his puppy behaviors, which is nice.