Dear Kids,

Both John and Heather have had mysterious and painful medical symptoms, and now they both have their answers.  John texted us with this info: “Both of us are surgical. Heather on Monday and me a week after.  Heather had a disk in her neck slip out and crush a nerve.  My hernia exploded and my guts are spilling out.  I guess we are old now.”

Not old, but extremely unlucky.  Our prayers are with you, John and Heather.  I’m glad for medical science and all it can do.  BTW, Monday must be the preferred date for surgeries, because my hip replacement will be two Mondays after John gets worked on.  Does anybody else have any medical news to report?  I haven’t talked to Al this week, so I don’t know how he’s doing, but no news is good news.

Last Sunday night Tommy locked himself in our little bathroom, and everybody was yelling in to him, “Turn the knob!  Turn the knob!”  Whatever he was doing didn’t work, but eventually we found a flat screwdriver-like key that opened the door, and we let him out.  The next morning I went into that bathroom to get something out of the vanity cabinet, and one knob fell off in my hand.  The other knob was so loose it nearly fell off.  Evidently, when Tommy heard “Turn the knob,” he wondered, “What knob?  What knob?”  Then he saw two knobs and tried them both.  We sometimes underestimate the intelligence of these little kids.  Sometimes they’re smarter than we are.

  Dad and I enjoyed every single day of the gorgeous fall weather this past week.  We worked furiously on the bunkhouse.  The sun was very low in the sky, and the wind blew off and on, but we got a lot done.  Now the bunkhouse is completely ready for siding, and it looks a lot better than it did.  During the winter I’m hoping to do the floor and finish off around the bottom bunks.    

Isn’t it weird to be off daylight saving time?  It gets dark so early!  You just want to get into pajamas and curl up under a nice blanket and watch movies.  But there’s lots of fun coming up: Thanksgiving and Christmas and sledding and snowshoeing.  Life is great! 

Love, Mom