Tim and Jeni: The Rest of October

In between and after Tim's sisters visited we had other fun things we did. We got to be with some other friends and some down time at Tim's parents' house.

Joseph and Faith got to go to Tae-Kwon-Do classes for four weeks with Sammy & Noah Horlbeck! They learned a lot and had so much fun!

We got to hang out with the Horlbeck family a few times and it was so nice! It's amazing that our friendship with the parents really extends to the kids! We're thankful for the time we had with them!

My good friend, Sarah, came down from Denver for a weekend. She brought her two boys. We had a lot of crazy fun time together!

I've known Sarah since my second year of teaching in Denver. She's been such a good friend over the years. I was in her wedding and it's great to see her as a mom!

Isn't it funny that even though years have passed we can just pick up where we left off?! I can really be myself around Sarah!

It's just what I needed...someone who knows me well and doesn't mind hearing all of the difficult parts of my life. And after being together we have laughed so much. She seriously blessed me!

Here's a fun group picture of our kiddos together! They had a blast playing together!

Jerry & Cora came over from Arizona. They're good friends from college. We have so many memories with them!!
They have three girls now and Cora has been homeschooling all of them from the beginning. It was great to talk about homeschooling with her.

It really blessed us that they were willing to let us share about our life in the Middle East.

I think Tim was glad to have Jerry around to talk about guy things like cars!

When we were in college Jerry would come running from across campus yelling "LET'S GO TO CHILI'S!!" So, of course we HAD to go there together! We really enjoyed our time with their family!

We have a special bond with The Groves family who live in Albuquerque. We can really let down when we're with them because they have experienced our life in the Middle East.

We were glad to have dinner with them one evening! We also got to go out with them on Halloween.

A couple days before Halloween we carved our pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns. It's something that we've never done. I have memories of doing it as a kid. We all had a part in doing it. Tim's role was drawing the faces

Joseph and Faith were excited about it! They got to tell Tim what shapes they wanted for the eyes, nose and mouth.

I cleaned out Joseph's pumpkin with Jojo. He quickly decided he did not like the feel of the pumpkin guts! haha!

Faith felt the same way as Joseph did. She didn't want to touch the insides at all! Thankfully Tim's mom was willing to clean her pumpkin out.

Tim's dad's role was cutting out the shapes for the faces. Jojo stayed close, making sure that he did a good job with his Jack-O-Lantern.

Joseph loved getting to be the one to poke out the shapes from inside the pumpkin!

And here's our final product! We had a great time doing this!

Afterward we had pumpkin pie (store bought) because that seemed appropriate! YUM!

We played some games with Papa & Nammy before going to bed. Can you tell that Papa loves these kiddos?!

Tim and his dad have always done projects around the house together. This time was no exception. Here's a picture of them installing the new TV!!

They had to move some shelves around to make it fit right and it sure came out nice!

Tim and his mom have a sweet relationship. This picture made us all smile!

The day of Halloween was filled with excitement! Joseph and Faith were so excited to dress up as Boba Fet (from Star Wars) and Supergirl!

They loved going house to house with Papa to a few of their neighbors.

A little later we met up with the Groves again and went Trick-or-Treating with them! Fun times!!

This is SO AMERICAN!!! It made me happy that they got to experience this fun part of American culture!

After going around the neighborhood we went to a church where they were doing "Trunk-or-Treat." People had games and candy they were handing out from their trunks! It was SO FUN!

Here's our Trunk-or-Treating group! What a fun memory!

Joseph and Faith loved all of the candy!! We did too! I don't think we've ever seen that much American candy!

A couple days later we packed up our bags to head back to the Middle East. We had to laugh when Tim's dad went to put the bags in the trunk and out popped these silly kiddos!

We were amazed that none of our bags were overweight!! We didn't have any problems checking in our bags. We also didn't have any problems at the other end...all of our bags made it without any problems. What a blessing!

Here's a couple pictures that we took just before we walked through security. Saying good bye is never fun, but this time it's "see you in six weeks!" They'll be visiting us for Christmas!!