October has been a month of waiting for us. Phil was very concise when he said the other day, "So close and yet so far." That is exactly how it has felt. We're in the home stretch of this deployment but in the middle of our everyday lives it feels like it is still so painfully far away. We've been doing our best to keep busy and keep pushing on.

We've been busy with soccer practices and games. Both boys are doing really well!

Joshua has taken a liking to playing the goalie particularly but even when playing offense he is one of the better players on his team.

We've been doing a few homeschool group things like a Lego club.

And just last week we went on a pumpkin patch field trip with them.

We've been learning all sorts of things these days! Joshua's favorite new skill is making his own PB&J. He asks for that every day for lunch now!

I've finally found some math that Jeremiah could get excited about. Spiderman math. What's not to love??

We went on another field trip to a local hospital for their open house. The boys got to touch a real human lung. This gave me the heebie jeebies but the boys took it in stride. Who doesn't get to touch a lung on any given Tuesday? The ones on the left is a smokers set of lungs. The ones on the right are healthy.

With Halloween around the corner we've found a few more things to help distract us from the waiting. We carved pumpkins the other day. We'll finish up our work on that front today.

Yesterday we took a trip to Busch Gardens to use up our free military tickets. It would normally cost us over $160 for the three of us to go!

This was the favorite roller coaster. It is the biggest and fastest of the kiddie coasters. We had to ride it one last time before we left last night. We had such a fun time with the Immoos girls.
Hopefully we'll be able to keep finding so many fun distractions for the last bit of this deployment. Every day is one day closer!

Apple Picking... Kind Of

Today we finally got around to the "apple picking" item on my to do list.

Unfortunately with the lack of rain this entire summer, then the deluge we suffered last week, Our trip was less then, shall we say, fruitful.

I know. I have humor issues. I blame my father.

You know what they say... the apple never falls far from the tree.

Yes... that was definitely my Dad. I suddenly feel a little sad for my offspring. Will they also inherit this really bad sense of humor?

We did have a really good time in spite of all the rotten apples. We found just enough to make ourselves an apple pie in the near future.

We also found a couple pumpkins to take home and call our own. Fall is definitely here and even though I'd much rather be enjoying it with Phil, we doing our best to embrace it knowing that soon he will be back home with us.

Air and Space

Yes, I have been slacking about blogging lately.
But we finally did something I considered blog-worthy today!

Today we had a field trip day. It was Homeschool Appreciation day at the Virginia Air and Space Center so the boys and I went.

I became very aware of the fact that there are people who understand this world on a completely different level than I do.

Molecules condensing, moon rocks with traces of volcanic ash and it's implications, gas turning to liquid and returning to gas when reduced drastically in temperature.

I'm a smarter person for our journeys today and definitely a more humble one.

The boys had such a good time. I'm realizing I still have so much to learn as I try to teach them.

Look at this activity, though! A craft to learn about the different kinds of clouds? How ingenious!

So here's to pushing the limits of my own understanding to be a better teacher to the boys!
Hopefully they won't ask about molecules anytime soon!