Basketball, Snow, and Serving

Landon always wants to do ALL the camps/sports/whatever is offered through the school, so he had fun doing the Panther Baskeball camp for 4 nights.

Last Friday (Nov. 9th), we had our first snowfall of the year.

On Saturday, we had the opportunity to make meals with NMC for Feed My Starving Children.  We worked together to fill bags of food to be delivered all over the world.  It's always a great time serving others as a family!

Purdue Kids Club Game and Tailgating

When I heard that the Purdue Kid's Club football game was November 3rd, I was NOT excited (remember the weather over Fall Break a few weeks earlier?).  Well, we ended up with a beautiful, sunny day to cheer on the Boilers vs Iowa.  We went down early to tailgate.  Todd and Cathy drove down with us and we met up with the Bergers and some of their friends.

The game was packed and the Boilers pulled out a last second field goal to win the game.

It was so exciting!  The crowd rushed onto the field.

Then we went back to spend the night at the Bergers.  The next day when they headed off to church, we went to campus to walk around, showing these future Boilermakers around! :)

We had a great weekend and although it was cold, we made some great memories!

Halloween

Emerson had been begging to go "real" trick or treating for weeks.  Since we live in the country, we can't really go door to door walking around the neighborhood.  So for the first 8-9 years of their lives, we drove to grandparents and a few neighbors' houses.  This year she wanted to go to a neighborhood, so Beth said we could park in her driveway and walk her neighborhood.  The kids had a ball (but we were tired!).  We also stopped by grandparents quickly!  Here you have Wonder Woman and our Bears football player.

And look at this weather in Indiana at the end of October with no coats!  It was a perfect night to trick or treat!

I turned 40!

My 40th birthday weekend was full of surprises starting with my lovely school picture :) displayed around my door and on all the bulletin boards down my hallway on Friday, my birthday.  There were balloons in my room and my favorite Heath bars from the best coworkers!  I love those ladies!  My students were also quite generous with gifts!  They were so excited to give everything they bought/made for me.  So cute! Matt had the day off so he got to come for lunch with me and the kiddos and brought a bouquet of flowers.

Every time we have a birthday in the family, the birthday person gets to pick a restaurant to go to.  I picked Colombo's.  They have yummy pizza and we hadn't been there in a long time.

Then on Saturday, I was under the impression that Matt and I were going on a date for my birthday.  He didn't tell me where we were going, just that the kiddos were going to grandma and grandpa's for the night.  When we got to the South Bend Casino's Kankakee Grill, the hostesses were having trouble finding our reservation for 2.  That's because all these people were there to surprise me:

We had a nice dinner together and then walked around the casino a bit.  A few of us played some slot machines.  Matt put a $5 in one machine and I ended up winning....

Then on Sunday, I celebrated at mom and dad's.  I certainly felt loved and everyone made turning 4-0 a little easier! ;)

Fall Break 2018

Several weeks before our Fall Break (Oct. 19-22), Matt and I checked into camping near Cedar Point, which is on the shore of Lake Erie in Ohio.  There were several campsites close by and the average temperature about that time was 61 degrees.  So, we booked a site at East Harbor State Park, 30 minutes west of Cedar Point, and told the kids, who were SO excited!  As the time drew closer, we kept checking the weather and instead of 61 or higher, we found out the weather was going to be about 40 and feel like 35.  So, we packed LOTS of clothes and headed out.

Matt had to work, so we met him in Middlebury after school and by the time we got to our campsite, it was 8:30 and dark.  It was a bit difficult finding our site and setting up in the dark and cold, but we managed and pretty much went straight to bed.

On Saturday, we spent time exploring the campsite, which was beautiful!  There were many roads to bike on, hiking, playgrounds, and Lake Erie to see.

I had to take this picture to show that they DO love each other! :) 

beautiful fall day

Both kids loved the zip line at the playground.

It was so cold, we rarely sat around a campfire!

Saturday night, we tried to watch the Purdue/Ohio St football game.  But with the rain/hail storm, it was spotty at best.  Thankfully we had a radio and Purdue pulled out a surprising upset!
On Sunday, we headed to Cedar Point.  I could never count how many times Emerson said, "I'm so excited!"  We went on Halloweekends and the park was all decorated for Halloween.  It was so fun!

We took this picture almost as soon as we got there...notice Emerson with no stocking cap.  She lost it on the first ride!

I LOVED this idea!  It was a graveyard for all of the rides that have been replaced and the years they were at Cedar Point!

We all had on our Purdue hats...in Ohio....after the Ohio St loss by Purdue and everyone was really nice about it.  Many people came up and talked to Matt about the game.

in line for the Magnum (a favorite coaster)

Yes, this was Landon's best smile!

So sweet!

Everybody's happy to be in line for the Raptor, one of Daddy's favorite coasters!

This ride turned out to be our FAVORITE!  We rode it 3 times right before we left the park.

We had Monday off as well (Matt took the day off of school), so we basically had the whole campground to ourselves that day.  It was cold, but the sunshine was wonderful.  We'd definitely go back to East Harbor and the kids DEFINITELY want to go back to Cedar Point.  We didn't get to go on all of the rides we wanted.  The hours were shorter and some of the rides were closed during the day.  I was so proud of the kids who rarely complained about the lines (the Millennium Force was the longest at 1 hour 20 minutes) and were brave to ride every ride that we had time for.