Too late to be blogging....

Larry left yesterday for a conference in Philadelphia, PA. I've decided it was easier to be without him when he was gone frequently. At least then I got into a routine of having him gone, but he hasn't traveled without me since May and saying good-bye to him on Wednesday was like the first time all over again. I'm utterly exhausted because I can't sleep without him, and when I do try to go to sleep suddenly every noise in the house is amplified. Hence the reason that I am blogging way past my bedtime!

To stay busy we are doing a 400 piece puzzle that Larry bought us before he left. We have recently become addicted to puzzles and you will often find anywhere from one to all four of us at the dining room table trying to fit "just one more" piece in. I also had a baby shower to go to tonight so I got a baby sitter which was a nice break.

Larry had some down time this afternoon so he got to be a tourist. He saw the Liberty Bell, the US Mint, and Independence Hall. He also had a cheese steak which probably doesn't seem like a big deal except that I LOVE cheese steaks! Domino's pizza makes my favorite. I was so jealous and he informed me tonight that he even took a picture of it! What a brat!

OK I'd better try to get to bed or I am going to seriously regret it tomorrow. I'll look forward to a good night sleep on Monday night!

Prayer for Upcoming Test

Normally we would put something like this in our newsletter but we aren't sending out another newsletter until January and we need some prayer warriors in December. For a long time now Larry has suffered from "intestinal issues". That's a nice way of saying it! He has seen 3 doctors for this problem. The first really didn't say much except change your diet, the second told him to eat more fiber, the third diagnosed him with IBS. Through some friends here in Little Rock we found another highly respected doctor so Larry decided to give it one more shot. This doctor sent him to a gastro enterologist. On December 10th Larry will be scoped, from the mouth, which Larry seems relieved for :), and this doctor seems to be rather suspicious of Celiac Disease. Larry has almost every symptom and to top it off it is hereditary and Evan has symptoms of it as well. Here is a definition of celiac disease:

Celiac disease is a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. People who have celiac disease cannot tolerate gluten, a protein in wheat, rye, and barley. Gluten is found mainly in foods but may also be found in everyday products such as medicines, vitamins, and lip balms.

We should know more in December and if for some reason he does not have celiac his doctor is going to test him for food allergies and intolerance. Our main prayer is that we would finally have some answers for Larry and Evan. If they are diagnosed with Celiac disease we will need some serious prayer for the significant diet changes that will need to be made, but we'll deal with that when it comes!

We will keep you updated. Thank you in advance for your prayers!

Soaps galore!

We are so excited that our friends Cathy and Scott Dreher are adopting a child from Ethiopia! In order to help with the funding of their adoption Cathy has created a site from which she can sell her beautiful handmade soaps. Check it out at www.topazbathgems.etsy.com, they make great Christmas gifts!

Beauty

I have been awed this week by the amazing colors on the trees here. There have been times when I could have gotten in an accident because I was staring at the trees that line the highways! One day the boys and I took a drive and stopped to take pictures of some of our favorites. I wish I could show you how beautiful our highways are but I figured that wouldn't be too safe so we stuck to parking lots! Here are a few of the trees that caught our eyes. My favorites are the ones that fade from one color to another. Beautiful!







God's excellence is woven into the fabric of the world around us. You can see it in everything. -John C. Maxwell

Bad Words

On Sunday Clayton won an award for being the best behaved in his class. I was a little surprised that they even give those awards simply because all of the boys in his group seem to be well behaved. I asked him if anyone misbehaves and he proceeded to tell me about a boy whose dad has to be in class with him because he says bad words. After some investigation I'm thinking the boys has Tourette Syndrome. So I ask Clayton what kinds of words he says and Clayton replies "The S word." Then Evan says "Does he say the H word?" I'm figuring the H word is hell but I ask "What is the H word?" They both look at me and say "Hate!" :)

So I tell my friends this and they say "So what is the S word?" Well I never thought about it, I just assumed it was the bad S word that I knew, although I must admit that I was a bit surprised that Clayton even knew what the S word was. So tonight I said "Clayton, remember when you told me about the boy in your Sunday school class who says bad words? What is the S word?" He replied "Stupid....AND Shut up!" LOL! I tried so hard not to laugh and thanked God for the innocence that they have right now because I know it won't last forever!

Mountain Climbing

Yesterday we climbed Pinnacle Mountain with my in laws. My mother in law said climbing a mountain was something she had always wanted to do so she was looking forward to it. As we approached the mountain we pointed it out to her and she thought we were joking! I'm not sure what she had in her mind when we said "mountain" but apparently it was something much smaller than Pinnacle! Once we finally convinced her that we were telling the truth we got on the trail. Shortly up the mountain my mother in law started seriously regretting her decision! She needed to stop for a rest:

And she stopped again:

And again (this is her saying "Come on Erin, let's go!" trying to make it look like she's waiting for me!):

And again:

I have many more pictures of her stopping but you get the point! We laughed quite a bit at her and kept promising that it would be worth it at the top. When she got to the top she agreed that it was well worth it but wondered if there was a wagon she could ride down on!



Luckily going down was much easier and now she is thrilled that she did it. We even saw a tarantula on the way down!

So who reading this is going to come visit us in Little Rock and climb it with us next time?!

Halloween Fun

The boys had a great time last night! We went to spend Halloween with the Olsons. These are the same kids that we went to the sculpture show with. Karyn and I put together a Halloween feast for the kids which included jack o lantern PBJ's, Chicken "fingers" (notice the pumpkin seed nail), spiders, apple mouths (complete with slivered almond teeth), and red "blood" juice.


After our gourmet feast the dads took the boys trick or treating. If you are wondering what those costumes are it is a cartoon character named Ben 10. Ben uses his watch to turn himself into aliens that fight the bad guys. It was such a cheap and easy costume to make so I was thrilled! They didn't have many kids out at all despite the fact that it was an absolutely georgeous night!



Of course the fun part of the night is always checking out your loot!



After we left their house we went back home where my in laws were handing out candy at our house. We could not believe what we saw! Carloads of families lining the streets of our neighborhood unloading massive amounts of kids out to trick or treat. The streets were packed with large groups of kids and Larry commented "This is what I remember Halloween being like as a kid!" I wish I had gotten a picture of the car with teenagers dressed up sitting on the hood and the trunk riding down the street! We had bought a ton of candy because we'd heard that many people from neighboring communities load groups of kids up and come to our neighborhood to trick or treat. Still, we were out of candy before 8:00. The boys said it was the "best Halloween ever!" Oh, and my mother in law said our pumpkin was a huge hit and got many comments!