The Van Houten Clan

It has been very busy at the Van Houten clan's house. Preschool started for me smoothly and then it just started getting busier and busier at school. This year is going great. Miss Chris, who I work with, and I have two wonderful classes. We have seventeen 3 year olds on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The other three mornings, we have 16 four and five year olds. Very soon, we will have a new boy named Toby joining us in the three day class. He is the son of the new pastor who will be arriving at the church where I work. We are very excited about having Toby and his family join us.

Vern is also very busy at work. He finished up a job at a hospital in Missouri and then came home to move a boat building business and also is working in Portland, Oregon on a job. He will not be traveling quite as much as we believed he would this fall. In January, he will spend a great deal of month in Portland.

We are attempting, with very little success, to get the yard cleaned up for fall. We had our first frost this morning. I am not looking forward to scraping those car windows but I do love the cold, crisp air of fall and winter. Everyone does think I am nuts when I say I do love the winter. Deep in my heart I am a Wyoming girl, in case you did not know. I spent my childhood in deep, deep snow in Torrington, Wyoming and I loved it.

This past September, we had a wonderful 10 days with grand puppy Walker. Brian and Megan have a dog now. Our lab, Faith, thinks he is the best just as we do!! Toby, the Shit Tzu, on the other hand, just tolerates Walker but at least Toby did not try to beat up on Walker.

Our friends and 2nd family, Rudy and Anne, are expecting and we are so excited. I keep telling them, that I will do any favor for them that they ask me to do, so long as I can babysit when the little one arrives. Sounds like a plan to me. The next 4 days, I am caring for their 2 dogs, so I figure that should give me lots of baby sitting opportunities with the precious baby.

Randy and Christy are all settled in Hawaii. Randy arrived home from Iraq the end of Sept. The two of them spent lots of time getting needed items for their first apartment. I do believe some of those items were a HD television, livingroom furniture, a diningroom table, new printer and kitchen stuff. Christy has really been cooking some wonderful meals. Vern and I cannot figure out why she did not cook while she was here with us.

Brian and Megan are happily celebrating the arrival of their new nephew Lucas Marco Jonathan Goodman who was born to Jenny and Matt Goodman. Megan's brother and his wife, Jenny, sure have a cute baby. I joined in the celebration by going shopping for baby boy clothes and just happened to find the cutest little pair of 6 month old size jeans, warm up pants and 4 shirts to match. I used great control but I still have not bought any toys or books for him.

More to come as we move into November and December.