Why is it that when you are in a hurry you get stopped by every stop light, but when you have plenty of time, you sail right through? This morning I was 10 minutes early to work because I only got stopped by one light, but last week, driving the exact same route, to my midwife appointment, I didn't leave quite early enough and ended up late because I got had to stop at every light!

So a short synopsis of the time since I blogged:

Seth, my brother, moved to Oklahoma City. Seems like he's having a good time and adjusting well. We're very excited for him.

I moved the living room furniture. I love moving furniture! I probably shouldn't have done it by myself, but I wanted it done before Ben got back. It like it, but it still needs a little tweaking. I bought material to cover pillows for the couch, and redo the antique rocker and the dining room chairs, and I'm very excited about it! I'm going to start on part of that tonight.

Ben got back Sept 6. It's soooo nice to have him home. He's back in school, so he's extra busy, so we haven't done anything really cool, but it's great.

My aunt and uncle came and stayed with us for 3 days last week. They're missionaries, so we don't get to see them very often, so it was nice to visit with them. And my dad had meetings in KC last week, so he was with us all week. That was good, too. My mom didn't come as planned since we thought my sister would have her baby.

Speaking of which, my sister had a little girl, Rebecca, on Saturday night! Very exciting. They went home from the hospital today and are doing very well.

The weather cooled off today! It definitely feels like fall which is great! And just the anticipation of that was enough to make me want to bake on Sunday! So I made this great pumpkin pie cake. Here's the recipe. It was pretty easy and everyone loved it.

And I used the word proclivity in a normal conversation today. Without trying - it just came out. I had to stop the conversation and comment on it, it was so much fun. I love using big words. :)

And I think that pretty much gets you caught up. At least on the short version. Happy Fall!

This is a picture of Quito from Panecillo (the top of that hill).

So I know I'm delinquent in posting pictures from Ben. and he's only sent me a few. But here are two that are really nice. This is a picture of Panecillo (the angel statue at the top of the hill) from the school that he's attending.

I've gotten to Mount Pleasant. The trip on Sunday was fairly uneventful except for the guy the last 15 minutes that decided to go 15 UNDER the speed limit in an area where I couldn't pass him. It made me so mad! But I got here. Mom and I have been sewing baby slings. We've finished three and started another. It's kind of fun. My last one was shaping out to be a disaster (we made several stupid mistakes) but now it just looks creative and special. My mom is so imaginative! :) And yesterday was Dad's birthday, so we're having the whole family over for dinner.

Ben is doing well. He really likes his tutor. He's learning a lot, but not always getting his homework done. He loves the cool weather! He had a bit of altitude sickness when he first got there, but he's doing better now. He's taken lots of pictures; so when he sends them to me then I'll post some. He was supposed to go to an art museum on Monday, but it rained, so they didn't go. I hope he goes later. And I love technology. I don't know how I'd do it otherwise. We've e-mailed or chatted or talked every day he's been gone. Yesterday we figured out how to do the webcam/microphone Skype call. It's great.

This weekend is a family reunion. We leave on Thursday.

Ben's off to Ecuador. He'll get there about 9 tonight. His flight from Miami was an hour late taking off because they found out that someone had checked a bag in but had not boarded the plane. Ben said he saw the firetrucks and HazMat truck out there before the pilot told them what was up. Fun stuff. Oh, and we overslept our alarm clocks this morning. Good grief. It's a good thing that he was completely packed by the time we went to bed. We never would have made it otherwise! But we got there in plenty of time. Thank goodness (for once) that Kansas City is a small airport. Speaking of not so small airports, he got to ride the train at DFW and thought that was pretty cool. After walking for almost 30 minutes from arrival gate to departure gate in Miami, he thinks they should invest in a similar system! :) And today was busy for me, so that is good! Now I get to go home and clean up the mess that is left from packing for a month away. oh joy.......

Well, we no longer own a cat. We delivered our cat to Ben's sister's mother-in-law last Thursday night. So she's now an outside cat. It was a little sad. After Ben gets back from Ecuador in September, we'll get a little dog. That will make Ben feel better, I think.

G. K. Chesterton

"How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about arithmetic and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone?"

Thanks to Sarah for that quote!

Peaches!

So the best thing about this summer is the peaches and apricots. I've always liked them, but I absolutely cannot get enough! I can eat three a day! Which is sad since they don't usually fit in my grocery budget. Every time I'd pass them in the market, I'd breathe in the wonderful scent, then sigh. So it made my day today when I got the grocery ads and found out they're on sale this week. :) Ben laughed at me. But like I always say, if you can't get joy out of the little things in life, you'll spend most of your life depressed. I like my way best!

We're back from our trip to Illinois. Steph's wedding was beautiful. I think she ended up happy with everything which is the most you can ask from a bride. :) I only made one fairly noticeable mistake on all the music, which is the most I can ask of me! :) I was too busy doing things to take pictures, so Ben took all of what we got. And I've been too tired since we got back to even think about looking at them. Maybe tomorrow I'll look through them and post some.

Good news! We worked at how to rearrange the bedrooms to include baby things and I think it won't be as hard as I originally thought! It was actually pretty fun. Ben measured everything and we made a 2-d scale model of the bedrooms with furniture so that we could move everything around and "experience" different ways without actually moving furniture. So much more fun than the online version. I get so tired of doing things on the computer. Feeling something with my fingers is so much better. :)