On Sunday, we decorated the tree. Instead of snow or rain falling outside, we got a beautiful sunset and  warm temperatures.


Amazing colors !


Seriously, will I ever be able to get a decent picture of the kids together?


Well, at least they portray our "real" life.


Okay, so this is funny. Luke and Allie pulled out this ornament with a picture of them when they were little. They thought it was hilarious and wanted to pose like the picture and have me take a picture of them.
Man, they've grown up! Luke thinks we should do this every year.

Allie had her first band concert last night. It was incredible! This was the 6th grade band at her middle school. There are just under 400 kids in the band. The concert was in the gym and the band took up the whole basketball court. There are 9 French Horns. NINE! (And the school has all of these horns, plus horns for the other bands). I think there are 3 more bands at the school for the 7th and 8th graders. When I played in high school we only had a couple of good horns and some a few terrible ones. There are 4 different directors that work with the kids. Can you imagine teaching 400 6th graders in band? AMAZING! This is definitely one of the things we like most about Texas.



Most of the kids just barely started learning their instruments at the end of August so I think the fact that they they could play anything was amazing.



I have to brag a little bit because Allie is a natural at the French Horn. Yes!


Allie's cute BFF joined us for the concert. Allie got to go to her choir concert last week.


Kate likes to photobomb.


I seriously can't say how happy I am that Allie chose horn. I tried not to influence her and it was her own decision. It brings me so much joy to have a horn in the home and to hear her play. I look forward to the day when we can play some duets together.

Here's the first piece that they played. Keep in mind that they have only been playing their instruments for 3 1/2 months. After the kids played, they got to choose 1 parent to come up and try to play. I don't have video of that, but it sounded terrible. You can't really see Allie, but she is in the third row and her head is right under the tuba to the left.
ODE TO JOY

Luke ran for class representative at school. At first he was a little reluctant to do it. He didn't even tell us about it, but his teacher suggested it at our parent teacher conference. Once he started though, he really got into it. The first day he decided to run he came home from school and told me that he already had 11 people who said they would vote for him. The next day there were a few more and so on.



Here is the speech that he gave:

I'm not sure where he got the "folks" part from. He was funny, because he first wrote "if I get elected" and then he said, "No, I should say WHEN."
I mean seriously, he brings his homework every Friday, why not vote for him?



He made this awesome poster with these funny faces he is always drawing.
They say funny stuff, and in case you can't read it, here is what they say:
"Even dead guys vote for Luke"-Dead guy
"I'm so happy"-Happy guy
"Must vote for Luke"-Guy in a trance
"Vote for Luke, even if you're tiny"-Tiny guy
"Vote for Luke" -Suspicious guy
"We are so glad we voted for Luke"-Mustache guys
"Luke is awesome"- another Mustache guy
"Beep beep vote for Luke" -Robot guy
"If I didn't vote more....Let me rephrase that. If I didn't vote for Luke, I'd be more messed up." -Messed up guy

Happy Halloween!




This year we had Sally from the Nightmare before Christmas, a ninja and a shark. Grandma Galyan made the costumes again for us and they turned out great.




The super cool part was that Grandma and Mimi came to visit us today. We picked them up at the airport and went straight to the Trunk or Treat at church. It was a great party. The whole party was outside which was super fun. It wasn't cold, or rainy-it was just perfect. I love Austin!



Kate liked helping Slim wave to everyone while we were setting up.


Mimi may have a new boyfriend.


Kate's favorite game was eating the donut off the string. It was hilarious watching her chase it down and not quite get a bite. She looked like a real shark going after it. Grandma took pity on her and held it for her.



The traditional family trunk or treat shot. We didn't see Luke most of the night. I guess that's what ninjas are good at. There was at least 7 or 8 ninjas. It seemed like almost every boy that was Luke's height was a ninja.

This is what I found when I was emptying Kate's backpack after her first day of preschool.



It's a dead fly in a baggie. She put it in there without me knowing to bring to school to show everyone. That wasn't quite the first impression I wanted to make with her teacher. I guess she might as well get to know Kate right away.
The funny thing is that Kate denied it at first and said that Allie put it in there! Hilarious!

Here's part of our conversation:
Me: Please don't bring dead stuff to preschool anymore.
Kate: Why?
Me: Why do you think?
Kate: Because it might freak people out
Me: Yes, that's right
Kate: Why do "them" freak people out?
Me: Some people just don't like bugs that are dead or alive.
Kate: But I like them. I like spiders and dead flys and alive flys. They are all over.
Me: Well, they should not be at school. So are you going to bring anymore dead things to school?
Kate:...(pause) No.....(pause) maybe

I will be checking her backpack before we get out of the car from now on.

Kate had her first day of preschool this morning!

If you can't tell by their faces, Allie and Luke were super excited to start school this year. This year, Luke is in 3rd grade and Allie is in 6th grade--middle school! I don't have a picture of them together because Luke's school start 1 hour before Allie's and she was still finishing her morning chores. We are lucky to live close enough that we can walk to Luke's school and ride bikes to Allie's school.

Kate misses Oregon the most. She tells me often that she wants to go back to Oregon. She tells new people we meet that she wants to go back to Oregon. She talks about her friends that she misses. Today she slipped me this drawing, said, "That's Oregon" and walked away.

                                            (Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and a butterfly)



Kudos to the iPad for teaching her about states. I had no idea she knew this! She has been playing this stack the states game that I picked up for the older kids and loves it. She always wants to see maps and see where she is and where Oregon is. She even found a shape on my swim towel that she said was Oregon.

Well, we made it. We finished school, packed up and drove halfway across the United States and we are all still alive. We can't park the cars in the garage yet and there isn't a picture on the wall, but we are having fun. We think Austin suits us well.

At an Austin Symphony picnic concert. Once a week in the summer a different ensemble puts on a free concert at the park. This evening we were treated to a brass ensemble. The best!



Someday I may blog and record the bajillion things that happened between Portland and Austin, but for now we are squeezing the most out of last two weeks of summer.

Allie's school got to go to BizTown. It's this really cool place where the kids learn about finances and running a business. They get to apply for jobs, work jobs, earn a paycheck, deposit money into the bank and buy things. I got to go chaperone and snapped a few shots of Allie.
Allie got to be the CEO and editor of the Portland Business Journal. Her main task for the day was to produce a newspaper, sell it and pay back their business loan. They succeeded! ( I "bought" 4 copies with the "money" they gave me for being a volunteer.) It was a super cool experience. She really liked her job. She had a lot of work to do and was busy the whole time.
Allie didn't want to pose for a picture--she was too busy working so I got some action shots.

In front of the office                                                                    On an important call
 

Working with her reporter (and friend). Yes,
they are on opposite ends of the height spectrum                  Shopping at Fred Meyer
 

I got to go with Kate's preschool class to the zoo. It was a little rainy, but really cold. Kate was miserable and let me know about it. I took loads of pictures and she pretty much looked like this in all of them. It's so funny I had to post some of them.
 




I think in every preschool class picture I have, one kid is picking their nose. I'm glad it wasn't Kate.



Finally at the end when we were leaving she was happy. She asked me for water and opened this water and she took one tiny sip and used it for her weeds.

Allie's class presented some Greek plays. Allie played Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love in two of the plays.


She has such a great group of friends--we will miss these girls!

Kate started swimming lessons which is nice because she it getting tired and sitting through Allie and Luke's activities. She loves the water but didn't like putting her face in at first. She just started her second session and is much more comfortable in the water. At first I thought she would give herself whiplash when they asked her to put her eyes in the water. She would stick them in and then quickly whip her head back. Now she goes under so long that I start to  worry that she is drowning, but then her cute little head pops up. You can tell she feels grown up getting to go to swim class.

Now that basketball is over, Luke is busy with baseball.  This year is machine pitch and Luke is pretty good at making contact with the ball. It's fun to see how his skills have improved from last year. Here are some of my favorite pictures so far....