Before the move, we did have a chance to celebrate Halloween a little. Joseph experimented with being Elmo and a mardi gras participant, but ultimately settled on a giraffe (picture not on computer yet).

Well, we're in Hillsboro. In two weeks, I found out I had a job in Portland, quit my old job, moved my family to Robin's house in Hillsboro, and had an overnight work trip my first day. It was harrowing, exciting, and exhausting.

I love the new job. It is exactly what I was looking for (a chance to use my training to help regular people). As a pulic servant, I have taken the necessary vow of poverty. We are exploring housing options. We'd like to buy, but we'll have to see what's possible based on my salary.

In the mean time, we are having a fun time with Robin and Briton. Joseph and Talmage really get along well together and do a lot to entertain each other. There are some challenges associated with getting Joseph and Talmage accustomed to sleeping in the same room and synchronizing bed-time. To further complicate things, Joseph climbed out of his crib for the first time today when he was done with his nap. Because he was so quiet, I didn't know until I noticed the time and went in to check. He had emptied all of the wipes containers onto the floor and carefully distributed all the diapers in the room in a random pattern on the floor. We're not sure what this development means yet as far as shared sleeping quarters.

We hope all is well with the rest of you.

He Walks!

And here's a little su'em-su'em for good humor. He gets it from his dad.

We went apple picking after a big storm so we could just get the dropped apples. It was a beautiful autumn day. Turns out Enoch REALLY likes apples. He took several bights out of a couple he found while crawling through the orchard.

We went hiking up "Camel's Hump." It is the closest "mountain" to us that is of decent size. However, we still didn't make it to the top because we are late for everything including our own agenda and didn't start till it was pretty late. The good news is that Enoch really likes hiking and "talks" constantly in the backpack.

I call this one, "Autumn Seduction." It looks like Enoch was hiding behind the leaf but in actuality he was in the process of eating it. Mmmm
We went to the Champlain Fair in August where Enoch met his first sheep. He was very cautious to pet it, but once he saw it was okay he GRABBED the wool. Fortunately these animals live rather mundane lives have become numb to any feeling.

That's our update. Chase finished a bear-of-a-test yesterday and now we're throwing a birthday party for one of the girls in his class who's never had a birthday party thrown for her. We're also going to make another attempt up the "Camel's Hump," and the plan is that we'll start early...we'll see. Enoch keeps tottling around, not in a full walk but sure determined to get there. We also have a new phone number...well I have a new phone number Chase's is still the (801) 971-8737 but my phone has expired and now we have a house phone: (802) 681-4327.

Oh! and in case you didn't already have it, our new address is:

Petersens

4 Peterson Terrace

South Burlington, VT 05403

Hope all is well. We love you!

-Missy :)

Here is my attempt to uploading a video. It works here on my "compose" page so I hope it'll work on the display page. The week before Enoch and I flew out to Burlington we stayed with Mom and Dad. This is Mom playing a fancy version of ChopStix and Enoch being the cute little boy he is. I couldn't tell which video this was on my browser so that's why it is entitled "Unknown."

Call for October Entries

Okay everyone . . . it's now time for your monthly blogger updates for October. Don't hold back, tell it all. After all, we're family, if you can't trust us . . . well, maybe you're smart not to trust us.

For Ellen's birthday yesterday we went down to Grandma K's house for our Family Quarterly Dinner. This is something Grandma set up to make sure that we all get together at least four times a year. Only the first generation of lineal descendants and their spouces (aka, the "lower case") are invited.

Grandma was doing great. I talked privately with her for quite awhile, and she advised me that she has recently increased her social activities. She is now a member of a club (which includes some of her close relatives and older friends) who attend a weekly social at which a continental breakfast is served and they watch an old time movie and then discuss it (and complain about how modern movies don't even begin to compare.) She was thrilled with this past week's offering: "RoseMarie" with Jeannette McDonald and Nelson Eddy which features the memorable duet of "Indian Love Call."

Grandma has also started Tai Chi lessons weekly. She enjoys this, too, and demonstrated some of the "healthful moves" and poses they use. They have a paid instructor but their best lessons are taught by an actual Chinese lady who pinch hits when the instructor is not there. Grandma actually seemed quite pleased with how well she is progressing in this new interest.

Others attending the quarterly gala included Richard, Kathy, Shirley (Kathy's mother), MaryAnne and Jan, Steve and Linda, Rosena and Alan, and MaryAnne (Ken's wife). Ken is still in Peru until November. (Ken, you will remember, retired early and joined the Peace Corps only to realize later that he was years away from qualifying for Medicare (a really big deal for people in our age group--yes, even bigger than having a great profile on Facebook), so he had to re-up with the Peace Corps every other six month period in order to keep their nice health insurance.

The dinner was delicious. Things went well until Steve and Linda started to preach the liberal heresy of global warming and praising Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize for inventing it. Rosena gave a speech on how the education voucher system was going to wreck Utah public education. Another spontaneous "paper" was presented on how wonderful totally free universal health care was going to be and how it wouldn't cost anyone anything ever. At this point, I had to leave the table and hurl chunks in the toilet.

Things calmed down later. (Richard and Kathy were the strongest defenders of the conservative (aka, true) religion and were quite eloquent, though not as strident as the liberals) Things turned to less charged subjects for dessert (one of Grandma's famous apple pies--no one comes close to equaling her pie crust), and everyone joined in singing a"happy Birthday" to Mom--now 59 years old. We left soon after.

I suggested that the quarterly family dinner by-laws should be amended to provide that two sessions of the dinner be held to which only Grandma would be invited to both. The rest would have to declare their political leanings (as if we don't already know what they are) and attend either the Conservative or Liberal session.

Well, that's it for this entry. Thanks for reading. Remember to send in your monthly entries--and lots of photos!

Update on our family

I haven't put any pictures of us up here for a long time. A couple of weeks ago, Jo took Joseph down to the river front in downtown Corvallis. There is a fountain there that kids love to play in. Joseph had a blast! He loves water!

Joseph has also been working on his social skills...

He's also been doing some some good work around the house that requires the use of some personal protective equipment...

And some decontamination afterward...

Hey, guys, I tried to post some video, but it took a long-long time, and I was impatient. Does anyone know the deal with publishing video?

Happiness is Family