Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Can it really be headed toward the middle of October? I really feel like I blink anymore and 'poof' another month has passed by!

So to catch up with everyone, all is fine. Gord has been super-busy with the skeet shooting club, but does enjoy it! I have been really busy getting fused glass stuff ready for upcoming Christmas shows and admittedly, work is getting in the way! Hahahahaha! Honestly, I do love my job, but I will admit motivation is less than high now that I have been given my layoff notice. This is the first time I have ever received one. It's a crappy experience I don't wish on anyone, but I know I will be fine and now that the day is behind me, I have happily moved on from the anger of everything people have had to deal with for the past several months. In my opinion, little has been handled well, but at the risk of sounding disgruntled, I will stop, because I'm not, only disappointed along with many others.

Miss Erin is wonderful Miss Erin! She continues to love school and taking the bus everyday to get there! The school hosted an open house bbq which was lots of fun and we got a big tour of the Grade 1 classroom! Erin loves her teacher and comes home with wonderful stories of new learnings and funny events that she has experienced each day. I know I have said it many times before, but I truly love Erin at this phase of her life. Not to minimize any other moment, because I have cherished them all (well, maybe not all of the diaper changes and night wakings!), but she is really special to me right now. She is really turning into a wonderful little person who shares and savours life, with a little bit of sassiness to keep Gord and I on our toes mixed in!

Erin is happy to back at Sparks and is actually disappointed we are not going to a meeting tonight. I told her that her Spark leaders need to enjoy Thanksgiving too. Apparently that's not good enough! Needless to say, she'll be looking forward to next Monday!

Erin and I brought PILES and PILES of her gently used clothes to the area mom-to-mom sale. Erin sold some of her old shoes and boots and made $12.50! We sold quite a lot of stuff - made $180!!! - and came home with much less than what we went with! We will save some for the next sale, and will sort through more and head to Goodwill and the Salvation Army with the rest.

I guess our most exciting event this past week was Erin deciding it was time to get her ears pierced. She was absolutely amazing! She listened to the woman who did it really well (she was awesome too, which helped!) and sat perfectly still when the piercings were each done. She didn't flinch, yell, cry, wimper, or anything! When both were done, she toured the store checking them out in every mirror! Too funny! She told me they did hurt a little bit, but it didn't take long for them to feel better. She has been beaming about them all week!

This past Saturday Gord and company hosted the boy scouts at the skeet shooting club and so Erin and I decided to take a trip to Upper Canada Village for the day. It was the last weekend before they move into the Christmas season in late November. We had a great time! I really love Upper Canada Village. It is just such a nice family experience. It's not commercialized, it just is what it is, and is educational, and of course filled with horses, so it must be good!!! That same evening, we had Aunt Allison and Aunt Elaine over for dinner. Good food and conversation was had by all, and not long after they left, Gord, Erin and I crashed!! We were all up early the next morning to get at this and that. Gord off to the shooting club, and Erin and I made sweet potatoes and salad to take to Aunt Patricia's for dinner that evening. We then gathered up our stuff, picked up Emily and headed to our last day at the Kemptville market. We are going to miss it! I thought it was going to be a slow day, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be our best ever! Emily has been coming with us for the past couple of weeks and I think she enjoys herself nearly as much as we do! She keeps Erin entertained, and in my books, that helps immensely! We packed up at 4:00pm, stopped for coffee and hot chocolate (it was chilly yesterday!!!) to warm up, dropped off our stuff, then headed to Aunt Patricia's for Thanksgiving dinner. Patricia did up a wonderful meal! We helped tidy up, had some laughs and coffee, then headed home for the night. We all crashed pretty early again, and slept in this morning.

Today we woke up to a frost! The temperatures dropped to below zero overnight - brrrrrrrr - and so today has been spent inside, making cookies while Gord closes the pool (boo hoo.....). And so, all will be back to normal tomorrow.

So what's coming up for us? Loads of stuff of course! I am getting things in order for an upcoming Christmas open house on October 24th. Richinda and I, along with Dee have been organizing a fundraising event for the Merrickville Mosaic group - raising money to attend the Guiding Mosaic, celebrating 100 years of Guiding in Canada next year. Richinda has taken care of a bunch of advertising and the bunch of us will start sending out flyers and emails inviting everyone we know to come out and do some early Christmas shopping! Yes, I will email you soon!!!! Next weekend looks pretty quiet so far, but I'm sure it will fill in soon! Erin and I have a trip planned to Saunder's Farm with Jo and the boys on the 25th, and Grampa will be down at the end of month for Halloween weekend! Grampa will be heading to warmer places on November 1st (read: I am jealous), and this time he got a great flight deal out of Ottawa. I will drive him up early that morning, but not before he has a chance to enjoy Halloween night with us!

I'll be back soon!