Happy Monday!

Nothing much to post today...just avoiding cleaning my bathrooms and ironing.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.  It was a nice mix of family, relaxing, getting stuff done and eating a lot.  Thanksgiving lunch was over here this year and we had 21 people.  I think I took some pics but I didn't upload them yet but these were on my computer from earlier.
Katie must have taken this one of Sam the other day.  He LOVES playing indoor soccer.  His team is made up of mostly boys that played school soccer together this fall so they play well together.  They are lots of fun to watch.

John took this picture of the sunset on his way home from work.   I never get tired of this view.

We've been doing a lot of fall planting here at the Hiemstra Hide-a-way.  We ended up buying around 120 plants.  Finally got them all in the ground this past weekend.  That was a lot of work.  I told John I am done working outside for the rest of the year!

Our Dordt girl was in a one-act play a couple weekends ago.  One of her roommates taped it for us but I haven't seen it yet.  All I really know is it's about a mother and daughter coming to terms with the fact that the mom is dying.  Holly played the dying mother.

Holly said it was lots of fun and really made her miss the theater.

Can't wait to have this girl home in just over a week!!
Okay, off to iron!

The coffee ladies take on Leavenworth

It's tradition in my coffee ladies group that when one of us turns 50, we go on a trip.  This year it was these three beautiful ladies (they don't look 50 do they??) turn.

We went to Leavenworth, which is a super cute touristy town modeled after a Bavarian village.  It is just on the other side of the mountains from us.
We rented a house just outside of downtown and had so much fun eating, shopping, hot tubbing, and laughing...lots and lots of laughing.  I think this fairly accurately sums up the coffee ladies.

My favorite part of this trip was sitting around the family room under cozy blankets (who's brilliant idea was it to move the second couch in there?) by the fire (thanks Laura and Pat for your fire-starting skills) in our jammies each with a glass of wine just talking...about nothing real serious.  Like this for instance.

It's the Squatty Potty.  Every heard of it?  I hadn't either until this weekend.
Here's some more pics of our fun weekend away.

Meanwhile, back at home, John entertained the coffee ladies hubby's.  

So thankful for good friends and weekends away to relax and recharge.

Halloween

I thought maybe we'd skip the whole pumpkin carving thing this year.  The kids never said anything so I didn't either.  When Katie brought it up the day before Halloween and I said it was too late her big brown eyes filled with tears and I caved.  I know this is not a good thing.  I know I should be strong and finish well.  I know I should treat the last one just like I treated the first one.  I know that just because she's the baby doesn't mean she should get whatever she wants.  But I also know how quickly time goes by and pretty soon my baby won't be around anymore.  So, I bought pumpkins.

Katie went to her friend Brooklynn's house for trick or treating.  They were emojis.   My friend Jill sent me this pic before they headed out.

Sam decided to have a Halloween party this year.  We had 14 eight grade boys over for pizza, a scary movie and way too much sugar consumption.

We asked each boy to bring a bag of candy so they could all go home with some.  John and I divided it all up while the boys were watching the movie.  Yes, we took out the candy tax.  I have talked about candy tax before on this blog but in case you've forgotten candy tax is the a percentage of candy that gets taken out of every stash of candy our children receive.  We use it as a learning opportunity...and as an opportunity to eat chocolate.

This is the only picture I got of all the boys.  This is because it was a crazy.  Fifteen eight grade boys loaded up on Mountain Dew and candy is something everyone should encounter once in their lives.  Now that I have encountered it, I never need to again.  One boy is missing from this picture because he was (quite literally) up in a tree.  

Sam said he wanted to do it again next year but thinks we need a scarier movie and a smaller guest list.  I think he added the last part because I made it clean up the den after they all went home.

I said we'd talk about it next year... while I was pouring myself a big glass of wine.

Roomies

Holly and her roomies had some pictures taken the other day.  They turned out so cute so I thought I'd share a couple with you.

Holly's been having a great year and a lot of that has to do with these gals.  I met all but one of them when we were there for Defender Days.  They are all pursuing different majors and have very different personalities but they all seem to mesh really well together.

I know Holly is super thankful for them and I am too.  They support my girl, encourage her, challenge her, listen to her, and occasionally send me texts letting me know that she is studying with a boy. :)

It's just too bad they're no fun.

Soccer

Sam had a great season of soccer this fall...so did his soccer mama because every game (with the exception of the last one) was played in the sunshine!  That is pretty unusual for fall soccer in Washington.
Lucky for me another soccer mama has a nice camera and was able to get some shots of my boy in action.
I really like the other guy's face in this one.  My Sam sticks out his tongue when he's concentrating but this guys really has the tongue thing going on.

Sam played goalie for half of almost all the games.  SO proud of him.  He'd never played the position before but his coaches encouragement him to try it and he was willing.  It's a high pressure spot but he handled it really well.  He made huge improvements as the season went on.

This picture is from the last game that they played in the wind and rain.  Those boys were soaked to the skin and so cold but they played great.

Team picture.

Katie's last soccer game was this past weekend.  Too bad for me none of the mom's with girls on Katie's team had fancy cameras.  The Yellow Lightning only won two games but she had lots of fun and had a great coach who took them out for ice cream to celebrate both victories.
Indoor soccer for Sam starts this Saturday so this soccer mama doesn't get much of a break.