In the midst of home schooling, and delayed by fires, we finally were able to enjoy a weekend on a houseboat on Lake Shasta in October. We went with two other families in our "pod". Despite a crazy adventure on the first night, where we became un-moored due to high winds!!!...we ended up having a nice weekend. The boat was huge and super fun - my favorite part was the jacuzzi on the top deck. The water was cooler than we had hoped, since we got delayed from our planned September dates. I managed to spend a whole weekend on the boat without ever getting wet! I went on the giant party bird, the floating dock, and even did some inner-tubing...but managed only to get a few sprinkles on me! Declan, on the other hand, really enjoyed the water with Levi & Indy... particularly the water slide and the party bird. Declan also really loved fishing! The grown ups got to relax a tiny bit - but it sure did seem like a lot of work to get everything organized, cooked, cleaned, and put away!
Our home for the weekend
I'm hosing off Lucius as part of a game with the hose!
Declan enjoying fishing, alone with his thoughts
Helping Dada steer the boat
The water slide is fun!
Declan and Mama in tandem!
Lucius, Indy, Keevah, Declan checking out the view
Mama, Me & Declan tubing..
Mama & Miss Nicole tubing, while the kids watch
Exploring the shore in my jammies
Early morning snuggles with Mama
Warming up in the jacuzzi
Declan, Levi & Indy playing on the floating dock & the party bird
Back home, we focused on getting ready for a different type of Halloween due to Covid. We were still able to go the pumpkin patch...and had fun picking out tons of pumpkins. But, the large slide and hay maze were missing this year. This was our first Halloween in our new house, so it was fun to figure out how the decorations worked here.
And then for Halloween, we had just a few families over (after negative Covid testing!) for a Mad Science Halloween Party. We got to wear our Grinch family costumes - and had so much fun dressing up & playing for this rare occasion! I was Cindy Lou Who, Declan was the Grinch, Mama was Miss Martha May Whovier, and Dada was the Mayor of Whoville. After mandatory photos, we delved into all sorts of experiments with dry ice, slime, screeching balloons, and more! We did science for a few hours, and then went trick-or-treating to TWO neighbor homes...and they treated us with whole bags of king sized candy bars! Then we played games and watched a movie while the grownups had an elegant spooky gothic dinner party, complete with dry ice cocktails in beakers and bloody candy glass on red velvet cupcakes.
The Grinch family
Declan & Haines
Dry Ice fun
Dry Ice experiments
Blowing dry ice bubbles
Playing with vampire slime
Keevah & Ellie with slime!
Dada, the mad scientist
Declan's fire tornado!
Me & Ellie with the mummy meatballs and spider hotdogs
Mama and her witch's brew cocktail
Mama's beautiful dinner table
What I looked like after all the fun...
There were a few other dress up days leading up to Halloween... I'm going to Connolly Ranch every afternoon, and having a lot of fun with the girls in my "pod". We had a crazy hair day and a costume day at camp. But, Mama wouldn't let me wear my Cindy Lou Who outfit so it wouldn't get dirty...so I wore a pumpkin costume that Mama wore almost 40 years ago (made by Gee & Great Grammie!) We also had a crazy hair day - and boy did I go crazy!
Mama's old pumpkin costume
Crazy hair day!
Declan continues to enjoy his fencing through all this pandemic. He jokes that it's the perfect sport for Covid - since he wears double masks and has to stay 6 feet away from his opponent or risk being stabbed!!!
Our Chickens have also started laying eggs! And we let Grandpa have the first ones since he built their whole coop!
And finally - some cute videos of the dogs and one of Grandpa too!
