Fall and Floods

I forgot to mention Scott's mid-life crisis car purchase in the last post; a Maserati! After lots of research, test drives and negotiation, this 2007 GranSport is his; driven home from Lubbock. He's been happy detailing, fixing up little things and driving it!

Kids started back to school in August! We are thrilled that Lincoln is back to Boyd full-time as a sophomore! He is still finishing up his Geometry and ELAR through the on-line public school, Penn Foster. At Boyd, in his Personal Finance class he's doing Dave Ramsey (💗) Foundations of Personal Finance where he's learning great stuff like budgeting, credit, 401k savings, etc. I. am. so. happy. about. this!!! Alex and Dani will be required to take this too!

His schedule:

Things were going well, then I got this text (notice the *missing* tooth):

He was tripped and fell on his face while playing dodge ball in PE. He saved the broken tooth in a cup, but somehow he LOST THE TOOTH on the ground as we were leaving the building to go to the dentist! There were about 5 of us, including the school nurse and vice principal inspecting the front office carpet, AND WE FOUND IT!! The dentist basically attached with the material they use to fill cavities. Good as new, unless the tooth turns dies and turns black.. time will tell. 

Despite not being a morning person and the negativity because he doesn't see the practical applications for most of what he's learning, Alex is pulling in great grades. He's enjoying his Psychology class, and likes to diagnose our "issues".

Our baby started middle school! And she's liking it!! Yippee! She's getting involved in lots of activities, loves her history class and choir and has made new friends!

Our 6th Custom Foods annual dinner was a special one, held at Blackberry Farm instead of at the home of Custom Food's owner. Blackberry Farm is a luxury resort on 4000 acres in the Smokey Mountains, where we had such a special and unique day touring the property:

• Sampled heirloom tomatoes in the garden with their Master Gardener

• Met a pack of truffle-sniffing Italian-bred lagotto romagnolo dogs, trained by a former Barnum and Bailey circus elephant trainer! 

• Saw one of the only remaining cantilevered barns from the 1800's, which had been transported from Smokey Mountain National Park.

• Toured a cellar which holds some of the 160,000 (!!!) bottles of wine stored on property.

• The evening was capped off with a gourmet sunset dinner under a beautiful patio with live bluegrass music. We shared a table with the current TN Senator, Lamar Alexander. What an  incredible day!

Fun as ever, Knoxville didn't disappoint. We stayed downtown, spent lots of time in the vibrant square and biked the UT campus.

Moms and Pops stopped again on their way back to Las Cruces, and we got a picture at dinner.

It looked like our fall was going be typical...

But then with a records setting 23 inches of rain this fall,  it turned into this ...

We just wrapped up another cheer season, the wettest one for sure; one halftime they performed in the pouring down rain and the rest of the game was spent cheering from under a pop up canopy. 

Some friends held a Halloween costume party and Scott reluctantly dressed up: Chip and Joanna from Fixer Upper.

Danica and her friends went as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; she was Bashful. No trick or treating or dressing up for the boys this year.

I got to go on my first deployment with Minuteman to Kingsland, TX! A river overflowed its banks and 500 homes were flooded. Scott set up base camp, then 2 weeks later I spend two days with 6 other Relief Team guys helping clean out and doing demo on 2 homes. We pulled drywall, flooring and removed cabinets to prepare homes for rebuilding. It was hard, dirty work, but so fulfilling and humbling. The community and homeowners were so grateful for the help and our team couldn't have worked better together! The experience was such a blessing to me and I'm proud to be a part of this group.

The kitchen, before, of WWII, Korean & Vietnam veteran's home.

Kitchen After

Debris pile outside house #2- backyard was 20 feet from the river. 

 House #2 kitchen before

 Our rock star team! Four 'spontaneous' local volunteers also helped that day.

 #2 Kitchen after- notice wet water line still on the wall 3 weeks post-flood.

 Flood water line in the bathtub prior to it's removal.

Supply trailer with deployments listed; now there's one more to add!

 My bunk; being the only female I had this whole end of the trailer to myself!

A hot shower felt sooooo good after a day of physical labor.

Command center at a church where 2 volunteers ran the entire disaster response & clean up.