October 2018

So far, this fall has been a whirlwind. FS #2 did soccer, had a great experience. FS#1 did his first year of contact football, also enjoyed every minute of it. His team was eliminated in the first round of playoffs. He made some terrific friends, of that I am very grateful for. One of his coaches was in foster care (and aged out of the system). There was another boy who is also in foster care that was on the team, so it was really good for them. I liked that FS#1 was able to see that one can be successful even after being in foster care. The other two boys finished their 3rd year of football. I am thankful that my Saturdays are not spent running over the top 1/3 of the state.

I accepted a part time job in Salt Lake City, I have been working full time to get through my training. It has been challenging trying to balance everything. I have been trying on Saturday evenings to meal plan for the week. Its too expensive to eat out, and I want the boys to develop good eating habits. Some of them lived for years off top ramen (yuck!). One of the things on my to do list is to create a binder with recipes they can use to prepare meals.

We have a large Russian Olive tree in our backyard. they are considered an invasive tree.
This is a picture of one. Mine is much bigger. They have long sharp thorns- Did I mention almost everyone in my family is allergic to them?  The trees are also very messy.
I have a tree removal company coming out tomorrow to give me an estimate on removing/hauling/ and grinding the stump. My goal is that next spring, I want to plant fruit trees there.

We ripped out our garden last weekend. I figured we got all the fruit we were going to get. The mice were horrible this year. My chickens and dogs killed several. Next spring I am going to have to come up with something creative so the mice do not do the damage they did this year.
We are planning next spring to expand our garden yet again, and this time we are going to bring in dirt as well. Our soil is too sandy. I have added chicken waste, leaves, and yard waste the last 3 years. It is doing ok, but not as well as I would like.
the leaves have begun to fall, the trees are beautiful. the boys spent yesterday morning raking up leaves. By this afternoon, you could not tell. I am amazed how fast this year has gone by.
Hubby is still in his masters program. If everything goes well, he will be graduating in 14 months.
At that point, we will be deciding whether to stay or move. There are pros and cons to both. Developers have purchased the farm land around us, and have begun building houses. As a result, more people=more traffic/noise. The one thing that drew me here from Washington was the quiet and the farms around us. The air quality around here is poor, which is another factor in us possible relocating. I can say is that when we sell our house, at least the yard is picked up and the house is in much better condition. Next spring we plan on replacing the siding. We have aluminum siding, and it is beat up We will probably be replacing it with stucco, just so our house has a different look from the other houses down our street.