Meyer Family: October

The first week in October, Rick started communting to Florida for work. He leaves the house at 2:30 every Monday morning to catch a 5am flight to Florida and gets back around 8:30 on Friday night. He has been working very hard and having lots of success. We are so proud and excited for him. I'm not going to lie, we miss him, I miss him a lot.
In the past when Rick has been out of town, I stay up way too late. I'm not sure why I do this. By the time he gets back though, I'm so exhausted, all I want to do is climb in bed. This time I have no choice and have given myself a bedtime and am sticking to it. Lights out at 11:30!
Although it's been more difficult not having him around, I feel like I have been doing a pretty good job of keeping things as normal as possible for me and the kids. It's harder of course, but the kids are all clean, fed and happy most of the time. I have such sweet friends here that have filled in some of the gaps. This is week nine of this and I do feel like we are getting into a good routine. Some days are good and some days are bad, all days I'm exhausted!
One week while Rick was in Jacksonville, he happened to be in the same area as Mitt Romney was having a fundraiser. Rick showed up, listened to Mitt's speach (which he said was impressive) and even got to shake his hand and talk to him (Mostly about his son Josh that Rick served his mission with in England).
I asked Rick if he looked like how he does on t.v.?
Rick said "He is one good looking dude!"
This is a picture of him walking in to the fundraiser.

One weekend in October we were lucky enough to have our friends from Texas, the Cevallos's come and stay with us. It was so good to catch up with them. Ben & Olivia couldn't have been happier to have Alison stay with us.

We went as a family to pick out pumpkins at Kuiper's and to get the afore mentioned doughnuts and cider. It was a sunny, chilly and very windy day!!

Picking just the right one.

This is the picture right before the Cevallos family left. Can you tell in both Ben and Olivia's faces that Alison is about to leave? We were all sad because we weren't sure when we were going to see them again. :(

This little lady is growing up too fast. In the last few months she has learned to read and is very proud of herself. She is loving kindergarten and all things school because that means she is a big girl. She has befriended a girl in her class that has severe disabilities. Her aide asked if Olivia could be a 'social role model' and go with her to speech sometimes during their snack time. She is such a loving person with a big heart.

We were able to go to see 'Beauty and the Beast' at the local high school together this month, just us girls. We both had a nice time hanging out together.

Olivia will act like a teenager one moment (she actually wants a cell phone...crazytown!!!) and then the next be acting like a baby and wanting to drink out of a sippy cup. I'm a little nervous about the amount of drama that comes with this girl.

This picture sums up Will. Cute and a master of disaster!!

The kids had off a Friday in October, and I was thinking we would go to the Museum of Science and Industry (which we went to about a week later but I didn't want to bring my camera) but about 30 minutes into the drive we changed our minds and decided to go to the Lincoln Park Zoo again. It was a very unseasonable warm day and I couldn't waste it inside.

This was Olivia's pose for the day.

See, the pose?

In real life this alligator was really freaky looking. it looked like he could take your hand off at any moment with his mouth open and pressed to the glass.