Fillmore Family Files: Comings and Goings at 749 N.

Fall is in full swing, and we're enjoying the colors here in Utah County.

Things are busy here in the Fillmore home. As you know mom went to Oklahoma, and dad recently went briefly to California. Our family went to St. George for a weekend and Midway the next weekend. But now we're all settled here and working hard. Since almost all of us in this house live by the school calendar, we're pretty busy these months. But things work out quite nicely since mom and dad are up and about in the early morning and late night, and my family is more active in the late morning and early afternoon.

Mom's working on two Christmas Carol plays: one in her class during the day and one at a school in Provo every evening. She's also directing a bell choir every Sunday. And getting meals ready for the Craigs. Add to that making dried apples, applesauce, grape juice, and grape jelly. Are we surprised? Of course not. We wouldn't expect anything less of dear mother.

Dear old dad goes to work everyday even though his heart is in his yard. He'd rather be finishing the long list of yard projects before it gets too cold. He and mom recently had that big pine tree on the south side of the house removed. They ripped out the fence on that side, built a small retaining wall, put siding on the shed, and replaced the fence. Then they ripped out that gnarly, prickly bush next to the slide, and dad built terraces there. Then he got the yard ready for winter by taking out the old plants and mulching some leaves. Now he's collecting grapes. Who would want to go to work when there are so many fun projects to do at home?!

Ephraim's rocking his Physiology and Anatomy classes. We now have to be very specific when asking, "Where does it hurt?" He eats a Gandolfo's sandwich every time he gets an A on a test. He's also working as a home health CNA. It's good practice for when he has to care for me in my old age.

I'm doing lots of stuff, but I feel like I'm not doing anything. As usual. I'm taking an Educational Technology class, and I'm learning about some really cool programs. I try some of them out with the Craigs since I do a science class with them every week. If you want to read about my class, I post my assignments on a boring blog here.

The kids are doing great at school. They like being in a big school with a "huge cafeteria". They love being at school with mom and take their friends to her class to introduce them to her. They have enough warm gear to brave the cold so far, but I think it's gonna be a tough winter.

And here are some recent random pics taken with my phone camera:

Rockin' the Red Rock with Rachel

My home-boys

Roxanna and Tanner feeding apples to horses. (They're red delicious apples, not our favorite, and they're literally falling from the trees, so we thought we'd give the horses a treat.)

Just a small portion of the apples we picked

The kids had dental and eye appointments last month. The doctor dilated their eyes so they got shades.

They LOVED trick or treating. They lasted twice as long as I thought they would. Don't they look scary?

The highlight was seeing the REAL headless horseman riding down the street in our neighborhood! I couldn't get a good shot of it, but it was super creepy awesome.