Notice

Ryan gave his notice at work yesterday and it is bittersweet.  Bitter for me, sweet for him!!!  We had many knock down, drag out arguments about this job change and in the end this was something he just had to do.
His last year at Molex was hands down the hardest time in our marriage and probably for me as a person as I was basically a single parent.  The demands of his work and the company culture didn't leave time for us.  I am praying like crazy that he learned a lot through the process of leaving, as he realized that like at most companies, you think certain individuals are your friends, but in reality you are an asset and when you leave, they are no longer interested in being your friend or just don't have time for you.  We have been spoiled with the last few jobs and the work/life balance, so this will be an adjustment for all and I am praying he can make us a priority.
Don't get me wrong, there are some great perks for Ryan.  He tends to get bored of a job after about 2 years and they can provide him with the ability to move around within their company (he's had 3 jobs since he left 4 years ago).  They are also very clear about why he left and through the interview process, they are very aware of the work/life balance issue, so I am hoping he can put his phone away for the 2 hours a night he will be with the kids.  He also has a great boss, who is really flexible and hopefully, he can still work from Seattle during our vacations.

Visit with grandma and grandpa/ KOA

My parents, along with grandma Pam came here for a visit in early October. Everyone got to go and watch Ainsley get her first place all around at her meet, so their timing couldn't have been better on that. It was conference week so the kids were out early which was nice because they had a little more time with grandma and grandpa.  

We did our annual trip to KOA which is always a blast. The kids were even more independent this year and keeping track of them was a bit of a challenge but they did a good job of sticking with their buddies.  The kids visited the petting zoo, swam, got their faces painted and Reggie and grandma did tie-dye.  Thankfully, it is a safe place! We did a last-minute theme of the incredible's and it turned out great.  Even mom and dad participated! Grandma Irene was quite popular on the dance floor :). 

 Winners and friends of the costume contest.  It isn't the best picture, but they were on a roller coaster...

 Our good nerd friends!

 Hanging out in the petting zoo:

It was conference week so Ainsley and Khalif had their conferences. No real surprises… Ainsley's teacher had nothing but good things to say. Khalif's teacher was also very positive but wanted him to work on his verbal impulse control as he blurts things out and makes strange noises during class.  This year has gone much more smoothly for him than last year, which is good because that means he is learning!  Reggie had no conferences but had early release...hmmm.
The two weeks went super quick. We had all of our usual activities, swimming, gymnastics, bible Study, life group (Reggie) and dad and I took Khalif to science night. Mom was a big help running around, dropping off and picking up kids as Ryan was out of town.  I was invited to paint night with the girls and I was only able to go because my mom said to!!!  It was so much fun, thank you mom! This is what I painted and the kids were so impressed!  It is good they didn't see the original painting that we were trying to recreate!

 Great group of ladies!

Mom and dad did manage to find some time to lay in the sun, garden/cut down our tree and do some house maintenance.  Dad was up a little too high for comfort and thankfully, he didn't fall!

 Pretty rough in California in October!

I was sick the entire time… Took almost a full month off of all activity to try to recover from a nasty cold. My lymph nodes wouldn't drain and it was painful. Finally, my friend, Shelly, recommended Allegra-D and I was better in one day!  Not sure what is in that but it was my best friend. Khalif is already on his fifth cold for the year and since he is a cougher when he gets a cold the rest of us have been unlucky in trying to stay healthy. At least mom and dad didn't get sick or have any major excitement this trip :o).  I guess it is that time of year!

House projects

Well in the middle of the chaos of life we were in desperate need of finding a stucco person to fix the back of our house. It was painted plywood on the second story and really starting to wear. We started the process back in March, looking for contractors. We had six come over and had prices ranging from 6500 to 14,000 :(.  We finally decided to go with someone in the middle (because the cheapest company did not have time to do our job), but then we read his reviews and checked his license and it was not good. So after six months of trying to get this figured out we were back at square one and super frustrated.  On the three day weekend we went to Laura's for a barbecue and one of her friends was showing us pictures of their bathroom remodel and I jumped all over her seeing that they had some stucco work done.  We got the name of her guy and he came the next day and gave us a bid for $5000 (not including paint) and came the next weekend and it was done!!!  It looks so nice and clean and we don't have to worry about all this rain destroying the side of our house :). He also found us a painter who was super cheap and we had them both clean up some other issues around our house. 
What a great find!  
Before....

After.....

Right around the same time our rear neighbors knocked on our door and said our fence was falling over which Ryan had been repairing to keep their dogs out so the timing was perfect because we could paint the backside of the Casita when the fence was not there. And we met our neighbors who are super nice.  
We also were exploring solar last spring but couldn't make a decision.  I joined nextdoor and they had a big discussion in September on solar and it revived my interest. So we started looking at buying options and decided to go in that direction. They are coming in the next week or two to install!

Halloween

We had all kinds of Halloween activities this last weekend!  It started on Friday with the school parade at the start of the day and then classroom parties.  I have noticed that the teachers at our new school are much more collaborative, so Khalif went to all the kindergarten classrooms for different party activities.  I think making the spider out of pretzels and a big marshmallow and then having hershey syrup on top was the favorite activity! 

 His good buddy, Dean

 That evening we went to the Halloween carnival. The carnival had games, food and a haunted house. The place was packed and the kids had a great time and I found a few parents to visit with. It was a long week for me (Ryan traveled Monday through Friday), so I was happy that he was there to track them down.

We were originally going to have a Halloween party but life got a little crazy so thankfully we decided not to do that. It was nice to have a quiet Halloween and weekend. Reggie had a friend over and we just went through the neighborhood. There were lots and lots of children and a good majority of the houses were handing out candy so it worked out really nice.  There were a couple of spooky houses with fog and amazing decorations.  The kids were a little unsure. We also visited the pig house and she was hiding under some pillows on the couch but earlier that night she was a unicorn. 

We came home and the kids looked through their loot and gave us our favorites and I did some trades. Way too much candy!!!

He looks just a little happy:)