Oh man I can't believe another week has flown by already.  A few things that have been happening...

The weather continues to be amazing!  Here it is the middle of November and the flowers are blooming like crazy.  We are expecting a big storm next week though so I'm trying to enjoy each of these beautiful days to the fullest.

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 The irrigation cart totally came back to life after being pretty much dead. (hello...water me please)  Petunias are just the cutest and bloom till it freezes.

 Katie and Kelley have been really busy lately with lots of orders for art pieces and furniture.  They've been spending all day every day out in the garage.

I asked Kate if there was something I could do to help.  She gave me a bunch of boards and some paint and said I could paint for her.  It was such a nice warm afternoon, it was nice to just be out in the sun and paint for a few hours.  I love to paint!

Katie has made some pretty incredible art pieces...this last one for Ann is one of my favorites. They are sending it down to Mexico in this storage container Mark is getting ready to send.  Oh that's another thing, we have been looking for a moto to send to Mexico in Marks container cause it's a lot cheaper to buy one here than it is to get one there.

Kelley found one on KLS that was pretty nice so we decided to get it. It didn't have the double back seat so we had to buy one of those too, plus some new tires, so yeah, it probably cost as much as getting one down there.  Then there's the hassle of getting it over the border and insurance...that will be a few more hundred dollars.  ummmm, maybe not the best move we've made, but it's done.  It's really a pain renting one down there...it's expensive and sometimes their not even available.  That's pretty much the mode of transportation down there so you gotta have one.

Katie is going down there this tuesday and staying for 10 days (lucky!!!)  so hopefully it will arrive there and she will be able to use it.  

 Last Sunday in church, Stephanie said they were planning a little get together for Mindy's birthday on Monday night. She had called a bunch of Mindy's friends and said to meet over at the church, then we would walk over to her house and surprise her.  Stephanie had let Josh know what we were up to and he thought it was a good idea.  I felt a little weird taking her away from her family on her birthday, and on Monday night.  Just thinking how I would feel.

Josh let us in the house, then he went to get Mindy.  She was really surprised to see us all there in her living room singing happy birthday to her. 

Stephanie had planned on going for Sushi, (yuck) but Mindy had already eaten dinner so we went to Leatherbys for ice cream. It was a lot of fun.  Stacey and I were the oldies in the group, but they are a fun bunch to be with.  It took me back about a hundred years ago to when the kids were little to hear them talking about all the struggles they are going through.  Even though this was probably the funnest time of my life, I sure wouldn't want to be starting to raise my family again...not in the world we have today.  I cringe when I see the grandkids watching what they see on tv and I know this is pretty common as to what they face every day at school.  I wish I could just take them somewhere away from this world.  I want them to stay sweet and innocent and untouched by the ugliness that's out there.  Even watching the presidential election got to be so crude and disgusting, I didn't want the kids to see it.  I didn't even want me to see it.  It was scary to think that this was what America had come up with for us to choose from to lead our country.  There were a lot of strong feelings about these two candidates and they were all negative.  It turned out to be a contest of not who had the best plan for the country,  but who could find the most dirt on their opponent, and it got ugly. 

So election day came and went and we now have a president who was most recently a game show host.

Heaven help our country.

(It was actually comforting the day after the election to hear Pence ask for America to pray for them...that they need God's help.  That helped me to have a little hope, and that's about all we have right now... hope and faith that God will continue to watch over and bless this great country that's kind of broken right now.)

On a happier note...just look at these roses!  They didn't get the memo that it's November 13th.  Ha!

 Oh and this happened!  I had seen a few potato plants in the garden (that we did not plant) and thought I'd see if there were any potatoes down there.  Kelley had pulled up almost all of the garden and cleaned it up except down by the raspberry bushes.  I decided to clean up the rest and when I trimmed back the raspberries, I found about five more potato plants hiding under the all the branches. I got out daddy's pitchfork  ( I have some great memories of helping him dig up the potatoes.  He would loosen up the soil  and turn it over with the pitch fork and I would pick up all the potatoes that surfaced and throw them in a basket.  I thought it was cool when we found a funny shaped one and daddy would let me keep it!).  and started digging.  There were a lot of potatoes down there!  KC came over and he helped me get dig up the last few plants.  We ended up with a whole box of them...and all volunteers from last year!  How cool is that?