Halloween comes early here... Today we had party number one! Enjoy some highlights:

These kids worked SO hard on their costumes! Josh made Andrew's Rebel hat and his own Star Lord mask from floor mats and hot glue!!!!!! Andrew won best costume overall!!!! Peter was a smoke detector that had low batteries--so funny! He had a little LED light that he could blink and he would squeak just like it! Claire was Professor MacGonagal. We made that witch hat this morning with pink poster board and covered it with black material using double sided tape! Ha! And I made her little glasses with craft wire! It was SO much fun to make and gather all this! Devin and I were Mavis and Johnny from Hotel Transylvania. Good times! I used my black eyeliner as lipstick. It's driving me crazy, though, so I'm going to go wash it off right now!

I'm a lover of reptiles. I admit it. I know it's weird, but I just like them! This is a baby monitor lizard eating a slug in my backyard. I think it's super cool! The best was when a bird came down and tried to take away the slug! Ha! The lizard won. Way to go, my reptilian amigo'

My lovely picture of the day...our new friend snake slithering along the top of our backyard fence! Woohoo! The birds were going CRAZY around him, which made it even cooler to watch! They were chirping and screeching away! Neat!

I love our co-op. Every Friday we get together for some fun hands-on activities--this year we're doing simple/powered machines with Legos, and arts & crafts with Zeeniya...and we usually get in some documentary time and a little outdoor fun, too. It's so nice just to get together, though. I think all the kids appreciate the time with other kids who are raised similarly, and I KNOW we as moms love the time to chat and compare notes...and remember that we're not alone in this crazy endeavor! It's a ray of sunshine in our week!

Peter loves to make little hideouts.  He created this little fort for himself one morning when he woke up extra early (4am), so that he could turn on the light and read without bothering his brother.  It was very sweet of him to consider his brother when he made this...however, the problem came when he loved it so much, that he started waking up at 4am regularly on purpose so that he could read quietly in the dark.  I'm happy he likes to read now.  I'm happy he sees the benefits to waking up early.  I just am not happy with the seriously grouchy little kiddo that I end up with by about 4pm.  Good times.  Happily, the fort is still up, and he now gets up at around 6am again.  Sleep is good.

It's really important to me to always look on the bright side.  I do consider myself a positive person and I always try to find things I love instead of things I'm not particularly fond of.  This is part of the reason why I'm trying to post things I love about Sri Lanka as we're leaving.  I'd like to leave here feeling sad--and not feeling like I should do a happy dance because I'm finally being released from prison.  But, there are times when we just have to be realistic.  Not everything about this place is glorious and wonderful, so I'm going to be mixing my posts up.  Sometimes I think it's important to share the things that are not so wonderful.  It's probably more healthy AND it's those not-so-wonderful things that honestly make the best stories!

So, today's 'good story to remember' is BUGS.  And not just any bugs, but WEEVILS.  Ugh.  They are infesting our food storage.  We have a really lovely storage room that we keep very cold and dry, using an A/C and a dehumidifyer around the clock.  But, the wheat and the oats are falling victim.  It's so gross.  It was especially bad today.  Devin made granola for the kids for breakfast.  They were so excited!  We were all sitting around eating, the kids had filled their bowls with granola and drowned it in milk...and then they noticed all these little black things floating around.  *shiver*  They had all been eating ravenously...and then I watched them all stop and turn green!  Peter, bless his heart, says, "Dad thought he picked most of them out..."  The other kids were so mad!  "You knew there were bugs and didn't tell us??!?"  "Well, Dad thought he picked them all out..." 

Ha ha ha!  Oh I won't miss the heat and humidity and the BUGS that penetrate all our 'defenses'.

Did you find Mr. Creepy-Crawlie in Claire's oatmeal?

Oh, how I love my second floor balcony! Every day, I make my kids read quietly for half an hour (or so), and this is where I go to read. The view is so lovely and open! The trees of all types poke their heads up over the wall. I listen to crows, birds and chipmunks as they fly by in the sky or through the trees.  I watch butterflies and bats soar or flutter through the air.  I can hear the cars and buses honking (blaring) their horns in the distance, which reminds me that the main roads are not too far away.  This in turn reminds me of how grateful I am to live on the tail end of a dead end street.  This is my peaceful spot.  My happy place.  I love my balcony.

Something else I love is our science classes together. They're short and sweet, they all learn something new, and we do some sort of 'project' or experiment every day. Today, we studied the anatomy of the atom...using peanut M&Ms and Nerds. Then they got to eat all of their protons, neutrons, and electrons. Yum. They were floored to discover meanings to words like 'electricity', nuclear bomb, and atomic bomb. Interesting stuff.

I have a friend who took a picture a day for the last year she was in her most recent post. I thought that sounded like a great idea! Unfortunately, I forgot about it until just now...and we have less than a year left. Oh well. I'm still going to do it. It's important to have goals--I REALLY need to be more diligent in keeping a record! And, I want to focus not only on the fact that I still have time left here in Sri Lanka, but focus on the positive. We just began bidding this week, and I'm honestly losing sleep over it. I'm so curious! I want to know where we're going so that I can start planning and moving things forward!!! However, no matter how much I want that, handshakes still won't be given out until the end of October, and we won't leave until next summer! I need to be patient and enjoy the place where I AM.

So today, something I love (and will miss!!) about Sri Lanka: our coconut tree!! What you see in this picture are coconut macaroons made for me by Devin! They are made from freshly shredded coconut from the tree in our yard, along with eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla. That's it. And they are spectacular! This was dinner tonight. I love fresh coconut.

AAND it's another running event!  What fun!  This was a mini triathlon, but we didn't swim at the end--we went in a kayak!  We ran 1.5 miles, biked for 6 miles, then paddled a Kayak around the lake (almost a mile).  So fun!  Andrew and I were a team.  Josh and Claire did it on their own.  I was SUPER proud of all the kids!  They all finished strong!  Not only that, Josh finished FIRST overall! WOW!  I sure hope we're in town to do it again next year! :)