Thanksgiving

Good food and friends makes for a very yummy holiday, my most favorite kind. 

We celebrated a day late this year, but that worked out just fine. Chris was able to finish some of the clearing he wanted to do in the yard (to prepare for expanding our elderberry operation) and burn the evidence on the actual Thanksgiving Day.  Come Friday, he was ready to sit for a bit.

Our eight kids play so incredibly well together, and they love to be outside.  The kids even made another movie trailer for fun.  Since the kids were enjoying the beautiful weather outside, we adults were able to enjoy some great discussions and fellowship inside; before and after eating :-)  For desert we had a pie contest, four pies with four levels of sugar and Lance ate his first salad.  It was truly a day to be thankful for.  So glad my friend remembered to take a picture.  

Final touch

Last month, the weekend of October 22nd Chris had broken a new Otto family record...
He finished a building project in only ONE weekend.  The project was a multi-purpose pergola; to provide protection and shade for the Brahmas in their new home, a needed structure for my black berries that are running wild and a climbing place for the Scuppernong we want to add to the farm.

Time passed, life got busy (common theme lately) and I figured we'd missed the window to buy our Scuppernogs (or as Chris likes to call them our "grape vines").  Today, we were all graving some Farmer Market cookies and therefore knowing the trip wouldn't be in vain we headed out to see if we might still find some plants.  As it turned out, we got both cookies and four beautiful "grape vines" (varieties Tara and Carlos) at a discount to boot.  As rain is expected tonight we got them in the ground right away.  They are the final touch our little pergola needed, don't you think?  The girls have done a good job turning the soil, so hopefully we will have a bumper crop next year.

On an aside, we headed out to a Triangle Youth Symphony Concert right after we got them in the ground (and washed our hands of course).  We wanted to check out TYSS before Lance auditions for them in the summer.  As we were standing in line to buy tickets, a lady walked up to me and gave me six awesome seats for free.  I told the family that meant we must be here for a reason.  Not sure what the reason was but all we did really enjoy the concert.  That was due in part to the fact that the kids knew nearly all the songs played.  They are becoming quite the classical aficionados.   We're excited about possibility of the next time we go seeing Lance on stage.

Let's go fly a kite!

As hurricane Matthew was approaching, the boys decided they needed kites.  Grandpa Harvey ordered them, but needless to say, the hurricane winds were a bit too strong for kite flying.  Then we got busy or there was no wind when we did have time, and time passed without kite flying. Thankfully, today we had both. 

Jared reminded dad to download Mary Poppins to his phone so we could all sing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" on our way to the park. Today was Amber's first time flying kites and it had been a long time for the rest of us.  It was the perfect day; with 5 to 10 mile an hour winds.  The kites looked so beautiful with all their bright colors decorating the sky as they flew in the wind. We stayed out for about an hour until the wind died down.  It's these simple pleasures we so often forget to do, that stay in their memories long after.

I've got to have you!

This was Jared's first line in the play, it was great!  He has such a passion and enjoyment in acting.  I am so thankful he has found such a wonderful outlet for his talent.

 

After many long hours of practice, Cornerstone premiered the Broadway version of Little Women this weekend.  Jared fought duels, sang, danced and died dramatically three times over the last two days.  He was absolutely awesome and the play was amazing!  At each of the three shows, we had friends show up to support Jared and enjoy a wonderful show. It was a fabulous and exhausting weekend.  We were all up to till nearly midnight Saturday; with taking down the set and IHOP cast party afterward, but it was worth every moment to see our beautiful boy shine. 

My crew with our famous actor during intermission.

The Riverdogs won the Pennant! The Riverdogs won the Pennant!

Well... not exactly the pennant but they did do the theoretically impossible.  "Riverdogs" is the name of the West Raleigh baseball team Titus played on this fall.  It was a nice group of kids, Chris helped coach but at the end of the season they were the 8th ranked team with a 2-10 record.  This meant going into the single elimination tournament on Monday they had to face the #1 team, the Bees.  Therefore, according to statistics our baseball season would be over Monday night.  

The Riverdogs knew nothing about statistics.  They beat the Bees 11-10!  I'm not sure who was more surprised the Riverdogs or the poor Bees.

Okay, that meant a practice was added to the schedule on Tuesday to prepare for their second tournament game on Wednesday, which was against the other underdog team that had won, the #5 Lookouts.  Titus did his part this game catching a fly ball and making a double play.  But still, what was the chance of winning two in a row when they had only won two games the whole season?  Well, this is why I think statistics are for crumb, because the WON this game too, 19-9!  That meant they would play in the Championship game on Thursday against the #6 Seed Mudcats.  

This game was a bit more of a nail biter than the first two.  They were down 0-5 top of the 5th (They only play 6 innings at this level) and they were at the bottom of their hitting order.  Despite many parental and sibling tries to get the team excited, they were just flat.  It didn't seem like they were going to pull out the impossible.  Then suddenly the bottom of the order starts hitting and they don't stop till they get ahead 7-5.  Two runs is not much of a lead in baseball.  They had to play perfect defense the next two at bats to keep their lead.... and they DID!  I was an emotional wreck by the end of the game.  I'm not sure if the kids or the parents yelled more those last two innings but the parents screamed the loudest at the end.  What a game!  What a tournament!  What a week to remember!

Amberlicious Turns Five

Isn't our Princess absolutely beautiful?  No one but a Princess could pull off wearing that beautiful dress on an Eco Field Trip to the Agape Center for her birthday (More on the field trip in this post).
I had decided it would be easier to just plan a field trip with all her friends, than to plan a specific birthday party, and it worked out perfectly.
Chris took the day off and he stayed with her age group the whole day; which was a double treat for her, not many field trips have specific activities for the younger ones and daddy is seldom the chaperon.  At the lunch break we sang lit candles and shared cupcakes.

Then we went home and celebrated again with the family.  The boys made us stay upstairs while they went all out decorating the downstairs for the celebration.

She was very appreciative of their efforts.  

After cake we opened her gifts and they went straight to work acting out their first puppet show.  An event I'm sure we'll see much of in the future.

She has matured so much in the past year.  Her vocabulary in outstanding, she has learned how to entertain herself (and frequently others) quite well.  She adores her brothers and mother's them quite well.  She loves deeply and we love her deeply back.  So thankful God blessed us with such a wonderful Little Princess.
 
October Amber side notes:

A few days before her big day Amber spent a lot of time making sure that Hunter was nicely groomed.  He's such a good cat.

Since she knows her left from her right, how to count to 5, alphabet A-G and she is five, the Monday following her birthday she began piano lessons.  She was very excited!  Chris and I sat in the room watching.  It was very cute.  Miss Kathy loved her form (she's so great with all the kids) and we all predicted the length of her attention correctly (15 min.).  So now, every Monday, she has piano lessons and dance lessons.  There's nothing else to say but that they all just grow up toooo fast.

The WHOLE gang is HERE!

The Parays arrived on Friday.  This is the first time tho whole family was able to come.  Everyone was so excited to show Tito Denis around.

Our large group required we take two cars everywhere but that's the same reason we were able to go our first destination at a major group discount, the Museum of Life and Science in Durham.  Chris picked them up from the airport and met the rest of us at a spot outside the airport.  We had gotten the fixings for sandwiches and lunch on the way.  We put lunch together real quick in the back of the Beast, redistributed people between the cars and headed to the museum.

It was an absolutely perfect day to tour the museum; the weather was sunny and cool, and the school buses were all leaving as we arrived, so it wasn't crowded.  Sophia had wanted to see a zoo while she visited so I thought this was a great compromise of science and animals; while being a lot closer than the actual zoo.  Ironically, my family had never gone on the walk to see the animals, so those exhibits were new to us as well.  With the cool air, all the animals were active; bears, wolves, lemurs, snakes, skunks, opossum and the butterflies had just been released that day so they were abundant and striking in color.  We let the older boys go off and explore on their own but we came back together from time to time.  There are just so many hands-on activities to enjoy, there was plenty to entertain everyone.  We left just a little before closing to avoid traffic and headed home.  The boys grabbed pizza from Harris Teeter for dinner on the way home and we settled into the business of getting reacquainted.

Saturday we laid low in the morning.  Lance had baseball practice and unfortunately Matthew had homework.  We met Lance and company at the field toward the end of practice and headed off (by request) to the Farmer's Market, and quick surface tour of NC State.  We of course got cookies and then headed over (by request again) to the NC Museum of Natural Science downtown.  Once again we let the big boys explore on their own and we all got back together to eat dinner in the cafeteria.  We closed down the cafeteria and headed out to do a walking tour of the sights downtown. 

We explored the capital and all the statues.  Sent the boys off to figure our which of the four corner churches was the oldest, then walked over to the governor's mansion.  So many beautiful architectural spots to see and a nice way walk-off our dinner.

Sunday, was their departure day so we hung around the house most of the day; walking the neighborhood again, talking and catching up on life.  There is a limit to how much you can share across the miles, in person is far superior.  I had planned the itinerary backward so we could do what we wanted and get them to the airport on time.  We started with a late lunch at Red Robin and then drove up to take a walking tour of Duke University.  We had passed part of it on the way to the Life Science Museum. I thought that was all there was to see.  I was totally blown away (as we were all were) at the visual beauty of the main campus.  What an architectural delight! 

It's nestled along Duke Forest and looks like a castle from Europe. We needed a public restroom so we asked a student where to find one.  We were directed to the library.  This is the library entrance. 

I expected Juliette to come out any minute.  It reminded me of the Boston Museum of Art more than an college campus library I had seen.  As a bonus, the chapel organ was playing during our visit too.  We missed the bells but we'll be back.  Unfortunately, we needed to leave so our friends could catch their flight home.

Though we did a lot, we still found plenty of time of reconnect and relax.  I believe we are all much better for the time spent together.  Hopefully, we will be together again soon.

Duke Lemur Field Trip

Today, we loaded up the kids, plus one friend and headed to the Duke Lemur Center.  There we met up with our homeschool group of about 24 people.  It was drizzling out, as the rain bands of Hurricane Matthew were approaching, but we all came ready.

First, they showed our whole group a video about the history of the Center and its inhabitants.  I had told the kids about being courteous when they mentioned the inevitable.  Unfortunately, it was my friend and I who snickered out-loud when the video said the founder of the center had "confirmed that lemurs had arrived on Madagascar 30 million years ago on a raft", that was too much.  Was she there?  Did she find 30 million year old lemur poop on a raft?  How exactly did she confirm it?  But I digress.

Due to the size of our group they broke us up into two groups.  My sons chose to go with Miss Amanda's group, which left Chris and I alone with Amber.  The facility is nicely laid out and landscaped.  The incredible number and variety of lemurs is apparently unparalleled outside of Madagascar.  It was interesting to learn how different many of the species were.  Though we only got to see the animals in the cages, there were lemurs in the "wild" also, in multi-acre lots.  With this information came two interesting stories of breakouts and recaptures.  One group of lemurs were captured by the students of a nearby elementary school by leaving a trail of fruit into the library and shutting the door.  The other was captured in a person's garage, that was quick enough upon seeing them, to close the door.  We also learned that though they look cute and cuddly they are quite the opposite, one relative even has a poisonous bite.

Since the tour was all outside we were thankful the heavy rain held off till we were done.  It is a very remarkable facility and well worth the trip to visit.

Productive Rabbit Day

We had an extremely busy but productive rabbits today. Chris and I were up early doing some much need weeding, the hot summer and out busy scheduled had put us behind.  There is plenty more to do but at least we got the weeds to stop strangulating our plants.  After our traditional Sunday French Toast breakfast we brought the kids out to help.  Titus and Amber weeded a bit with us and then Titus went to join his brothers.  The boys had a blast challenging each other to see who could pick the most duck weed in 10 seconds.  They cleared out my Elderberry saplings and gave tons of food to the hens.  

It was time to plant our fall garden.  Last year we completely missed the window to get our plants in the ground.  This year we missed the window for seeds but managed to get the plants last weekend.  We bought a variety of cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards, spinach, radicchio, bok choy and strawberries.  Chris furrowed out the eight rows for me. As he did so, he, Amber and I picked out grubs with our hands and threw them to the chickens; my girl may wear taffeta in the garden but she's no girly girl. After a while, the chickens were making quite a ruckus begging for more. Then Amber and I planted the plants and the boys shoveled and delivered the mulch for between the rows.  Now I just have to remember to water the plants.

Chris found a neat snake in the mulch pile and kindly installed a fence to keep out all enemies foreign and domestic.  Speaking of domestic the dogs did exceptionally well today staying in the yard so they got to have a great time too.  

Jared had theater practice from 2-4pm so that was our clean-up alarm.  While he was gone Lance set up a plinking range with dyed water and all.   It had been a while since the boys had out their guns; it was a nice time of bonding for them.  So thankful our neighbors love watching the boys as well.

Update:  In the theme of farming, on October 5th I harvested my first wild mushrooms.  Actually, it was our neighbors idea, he was going to be out of town so he told Lance where they were (behind the Oak Tree you see above) so we could get them.  We ended up harvesting 3 pounds worth (along with a smelly centipede and a startlingly large spider I could have done without).  The mushrooms are call "Hen in the Woods" (among other things) and have a myriad of health benefits including curing cancer.  Their most import feature to me was that they have no poisonous look alikes.  Chris and I ate them in scrambled eggs as suggested for three days and were still here.  We also froze some so our neighbor could enjoy them when he returned.  The extra pieces I placed around our Oaks in hopes that we'll get our own mushroom colonies growing in the coming year.

Suzy Science Friday

Amber and Titus had a great opportunity today to go to a class run by "Susie Science" with the COG group.  The topic today was oceanography.  In the class they learned about surface tension and many of the other qualities of water.  Then they got to test what they learned by using different techniques to clean up their own miniature oil spill. Titus and Amber with split into two different groups, so it was neat to watch their different approaches to group dynamics when they didn't know the other children.  They both did well, had fun and were courteous.

The highlight of the class was the life sized inflatable baby blue whale shown below.  They actually got to crawl through the whale which was an incredible visual for the kids to grasp their true size.  Maybe Jonah had a similar experience long ago.  

Swim Titus! Swim!

We joined the Dutchman Downs swimming pool again this summer. It is only a short drive from our house. It's a great pool with a nice shallow swim area for the younger kids and even has a diving board!

They offer a swim team each summer for kids 4 years old up to senior in high school and compete with many of the other local pools in the area. The practices were for 30 minutes Monday-Thursday and when the swim meets started, they would be on Tuesday (6 meets total). Most of the families join the pool specifically for swim team.  Its nice that kids can still play in part of the pool while their siblings have lessons, so it really became a family affair.

Titus was excited about being part of a team and think it was neat its in a sport no one else in the family participates.  After a slow start, he really finished strong. He lowered his times and swam each of the four strokes individually and usually one of the strokes in the medley relay. By the fourth meet, he did his best backstroke ever and even won his heat.  The lane timer said he had the best time for his age. In fact, Chris did not think it even was Titus because his backstroke looked so good. At the beginning of the season he often looked like he was drowning. :-)

His strongest stroke was the butterfly, which is the most difficult.  Towards the end of the season he even filled in for the medley relay for the 11 year old's!!! On that day he also started out the meet swimming the medley relay for his age group, so all-in-all he did two medley relays and all four of his strokes individually. In his age group, kids swim one length of the pool (25 meters), but for 11 year old's they swim two lengths. In total, he raced 175 meters that day which did not include the warm up laps. By the end of the last heat, the 11 year old medley, he could barely pull himself out of the pool.

One of the greatest aspects was the positive spirit of the team. Every one on the team cheered on those that were swimming. We never heard a negative word from anyone about another child's effort. The coaches were all fantastic and great with the kids!

At the Season End Party Titus was awarded "Most Improved Swimmer" in his age group.  He was rightfully very proud of his medal.

Next summer, all four Otto kid's will be swimming on the team. If we have to be there anyway, all the kids might as well be in the pool at some point!! This summer was very, very hot and we parents certainly would have enjoyed a dip in the pool to cool off!